"The Bell Code" - A Curious Way to Run a Railroad
A certain friend in NY City recently asked me for information on "the Bell Code." So I put together the attached PDF, scanned from the 1896 edition of "The Standard Code of the American Railway Association - Train Rules, Block Signal Rules."
The Bell Code was part of the Standard Code of Train Rules and Block Signal Rules for a while, and was then dropped. I do not have enough editions of the Standard Code to know when the Bell Code was introduced and when it was dropped, but I do know it was gone by 1920.
The Bell Code used in America was a replication of the system that has served in Britain for more than a century and a quarter. Towers ("Signal Boxes," in British parlance) communicate with each other about the moving of trains by sending prescribed number of taps on bells, each combination of taps having assigned meanings -- no Telegraph or telephone is involved.
But why was such a clumsy system ever employed in the United States, where everyone employed in tower service, Train Order service, and the movement of trains, already knew Telegraphy and had the Telegraph at their disposal? Infinitely more information could be sent quickly by Telegraph, than by jangling bells. What railroad(s) used it, and why, is a mystery to me.
At first I thought that the Bell Code may be someone's attempt to run a railroad without paying for skilled workers called Telegraphers, who could communicate messages by Telegraph. But if the railroad were operated by non-Telegraph people, how would Train Orders be handled (and remember, this was a day before telephones were sufficiently developed to be used in Train Dispatching service.) Even if the railroad were operated without Train orders, how would the directives of the Train Dispatcher be communicated, if the operators were non-Telegraphers? So it is a mystery.
Another thing about the Bell Code is worthy of mention. Namely, that it is embedded in a section of rules which describe the "Controlled Manual Block" method of moving trains. Controlled Manual Block is worthy of a study in its own right, to determined which roads used it and its various permutations. I have found only two places it was used on the Pennsylvania Railroad: (1) On the "Third Track" between Spruce Creek and Tyrone Forge, Pa, on the Middle Division, beginning in the late 1880s and (2) on the Jamesburg Branch in New Jersey (but I have no dates or details on that operation.) As implemented on the PRR, the operators at each end of the block had to cooperate by having their levers in corresponding position before a signal could be obtained for a train to enter the block at either end, and the safeguard was enforced by electric locking of the signal levers, but those men also had Telegraph (and later, telephone) at their disposal.
If anyone has a list of where the Bell Code and Controlled Manual Block were used, I'd be interested in seeing it.
