They are a bit different.jimlongley wrote:I was a member of the Morse Telegraph Club for many years, a close friend was the international secretary, and was (emphasis on WAS) learning American Morse, but got lost at 'C'
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RR Morse is supposedly a lot faster, but RR ops also used a lot of shorthand and jargon that was very specific to them. Some of it would violate the 10 year old daughter rule, but that's true of railroaders in general.
When I was a kid, a friend of Dad's owned and operated a miniature railroad and Old West town. He had Dad record an endless loop of telegraph messages, which could be heard playing through the depot window. Being something of a joker, Dad included a few "railroadisms". His friend said it was easy to spot the true RR operators, because they'd cock their heads and listen for a minute, then fall out laughing.
We have a lot of old telegraph equipment that was salvaged from the KCS. Keys, bugs, sounders, switches, relays, etc.
Kevin