The Role of the Agent/Operator
The railroad history fraternity has, over the years, dedicated a great deal of attention to the hardware of railroading – the locomotives, cabooses, and every variety of car that rode the rails, from the lowly boxcar to the opulent Pullmans. Often, this emphasis has come at the expense of the more personal, human side of railroad history. Happily, this situation has been changing recently as railroad historians shift some of their attention from the mechanics of railroading and attempt to analyze the role railroading played in the growth and daily life of the communities they served.
The telegrapher-operator, also called the station agent, was critical in maintaining the line of communication between the dispatcher and the train crews. There were two dispatchers on the Central Vermont in the era of the steam locomotive, one in St. Albans and one in New London, Connecticut. They were linked, by telegraph, to each other and every station along the line. A “Station” in railroad terms refers to a point where the dispatcher can communicate with train crews and it may or may not be a depot – which is point where passengers can get on or off a train. Nationwide, a large number women worked as agent/operators at one point or another – especially during World War II. To date, there is no evidence any woman held this position on the Central Vermont Railway.
At some towns along the railroad one individual served as both the ticket agent and station operator. This was quite common on the Southern Division. At really small towns the same individual would also fill the role of the railroad’s freight agent. That was not the case at Waterbury, as the freight agent had his office in the freight house, across the tracks from the station and just north of Pleasant Street. The freight agent was responsible for less-than-carload, or L.C.L freight, delivered directly to the freight house, and also dealt with the customers throughout Waterbury that had their own dedicated sidings. The only exception was the creamery located directly south of the station. The station operator handled the waybills for the carload of milk shipped each day since the freight agent went off duty before the milk car was loaded.
On most days, two railroad employees worked in the small office. The ticket agent sold tickets to the public, handled baggage and small parcel freight, and also collected mail. The station operator constantly monitored the communications line for the dispatcher (the repeater was loud enough to be heard without too much trouble), copied train orders as needed, and hooped those orders to the head and rear end train crews as they passed through town.
Working at Waterbury
One station agent/operator was Jim Murphy, a native of St. Albans, Vermont, who reported to work in 1955 as a telegrapher. He worked the majority of the next 45 years for the railroad, retiring as chief dispatcher in 1998. In addition to his official duties, Jim has also served as an unofficial corporate historian accumulating a vast collection of photographs, records, and artifacts over the years – much of it rescued from the trash heap. He has also willingly shared many of his stories of working on the Central Vermont, and has played a key role in recording the history of many of his fellow railroad workers.
The typical day for an operator at the Waterbury, Vermont station in the 1950s was unchanged from the earliest days of railroading. Copying train orders from the dispatcher and relaying these to the train crews were the operator’s primary role. At Waterbury, like most small towns along the Central Vermont, both the ticket agent and the station operator worked on the side. In addition to their railroad duties, the ticket agent served as the Railway Express agent for the area and the operator worked on commission for Western Union.
Jim worked up and down the railroad’s Northern Division, from White River Junction to St Albans, but spent much of his early career on the extra board, filling in for operators who were on vacation. Jim recalls, “The first time I worked at Waterbury the south end waiting room had been closed off even with the ticket office south wall. I think the door to the south rest room was changed to open towards the ticket office.” This alteration to the as-built configuration of the station building, which dates to the early 1870s, reflects the rapidly declining passenger revenues and illustrates how many depots were modified being modified for other uses. “The south end of the station,” including, it is believed, the old baggage shed, “was used by Buster Miles and Joe Belanger, both track supervisors."
The centerpiece of the agent’s world was the small office located on the east side of the Waterbury station. Jim recalls the arrangement inside the station, virtually identical to those all along the Central Vermont and in thousands of small town depots throughout the country:
"The operator sat facing the bay window on track side of the building with the train order signal handles to his right. To see trains approaching from either direction without going outside two mirrors were mounted at an angle so you could see the tracks in both directions. On the north wall of ticket office from the door to the ticket window were two shevles. The bottom on was piled high with timetables, rulebooks, and [Morse] code books. The top shelf is where the third trick operator often "rested" (slept)." 1Unpublished letter from Jim Murphy to Martin McGuirk, April 25, 1991
Third Trick Tales
The third trick, often called the “graveyard shift,” provides fertile ground for stories. He still refuses to name the third trick operator who was sleeping in the office as train 430, the “Newsboy”, passed through town about 2:00 a.m. He was awakened by the sound of the engine whistling for the crossing just north of north. Although the head end had passed, the cars were still rattling past the window as “he rushed out to ‘highball’ the train and grabbed his lantern – or so he thought. He actually grabbed scissors phone - including the wires and screws - out of the wall . So there he was, stnding on the platform waving a handset with wires dangling at the van as it passed. Had to patch the wiring to OS the dispatcher.” Apparently he was pretty quick to repair things as he ended up a senior official on the railroad.
“Another of the third trick men,” continues Murphy, “found the revolver kept by the Railway Express Agency under the ticket case. It was loaded so he sat there for some time shooting at mice under the operator’s bench.” The presence of mice was not uncommon in rural Vermont (there was a feed and grain warehouse directly across the tracks from the station) but it goes to show how the railroad was actively deferring maintenance at that time. How did the shootout with the rodents end? Murphy continues, “He (the third trick operator) worried that he might be hitting something important in the wall, thought about stopping, but ran out of bullets first.”
“Perhaps the strangest thing” Murphy states, “is the number of folks who would wander in from the hospital.” The Vermont State Mental Hospital was located in Waterbury, not far from the station. “we always had patients drifting into the station at all hours. They just walked out of the hospital. We had a phone number for the police (who didn’t work nights then). They would come over, pick them up, and bring them back to the hospital. They were never a problem. Murphy remembers this being a normal, almost typical occurrence, though he had “. . . no idea why they found the station so appealing.”
One story Murphy could not resist telling involved the attractive young lady passenger who, having started in Montreal was put off the train since she’d only had fare to Waterbury. “The ticket agent took a real liking to her – really wanting to help with her plight. He left with her that morning, not returning until that evening when boarded the Washingtonian with a first class ticket through to New York City.” There was obviously more to this story, but in typical Yankee brevity, where it’s best to leave some things unsaid, Murphy quipped “I wonder what she gave him for that ticket?”
Footnotes
1Unpublished Letter from Jim Murphy to Martin McGuirk, April 25, 1991.