Abbreviations
Telegraphswereused to issue trainorderson theYosemite
Valleyuntil January1, 1931when the railroad switched to
telephones.Whenusing telegraphs, each stationwas typi-
callygivena two-letter abbreviation. Dispatchers continued to
use these stationabbreviationson the train sheets and in the
trainorder logbook longafter telephones replaced telegraphs.
Typical abbreviations included theobviousones suchas Sn for
Snelling,MF forMercedFalls, andBg for Bagby. However, not
soobviouswas theuseof Ro for El Portal.
YV railfanAl Rose toldmeabout theuseof Ro for El Portal over
30years agobut hedidn’t knowwhyRowasused insteadof
themore logical EP. I didn’t thinkabout that abbreviationuntil
manyyears laterwhenAl gavemeoneof the train sheets to
helpwithanarticle Iwaswriting. Seeing theabbreviationon
that single train sheet (Al gaveme theentiremonth’sworth
years later) gotme thinkingmoreabout it. I suspected that
theMorse code for EPwas too close to theabbreviation for
another placealong the routewhichmight have caused confu-
sionor errors. However, itwasonlyaguess.
Eventually, I took thetime to compare thedifferent YV station
abbreviationsusing theBoyScout versionofMorse code that I
tried to learnback in the1950s. However, thatwas adead-end
and I again set theproblemaside. It turnsout that Iwasnearly
correct –but Iwasusing thewrong versionofMorse code.
TheMay2006 issueof Trainsmagazinehadan interesting
articleonMorse codeandmentioned the InternationalMorse
TelegraphClub (IMTC) alongwithane-mail contact for the
president.What is calledMorse code today is actually some-
what different fromwhatwasoriginallydevelopedbyMorse.
TheModern InternationalMorse codewas created1848by
FriedrichGerke,who changednearlyhalf of thealphabet and
