My first railroad job was the 3rd trick opertor at "WR" Huntington, IN. "WR" is actually the single pannel on the right side of the layout with the black top desk. It controlled the crossing of the then N&W (Wabash) and the Erie Western (EL). The pannel to the left is the CTC territory on the EL from WR to just east of North Judson. There was also a short section of CTC between Kouts and Wilders that was controlled from a simular machine in the Kouts tower. It was double track dual direction as opposed to the single track and sidings in the territory controlled from WR.
I was the first employee to go on duty for Erie Western when Conrail pulled the plug on the operation. (Erie Western was the designated operator of the line.) My qualification consisted of a 5 minute turn over from the last Conrail operator, a pat on the back from the new Erie Western Superintendent, and there I was on my own. I will grant you, all I had to do was line up N&W trains that showed up at WR with one toggle on the board, but it was still a long night for a green kid. I hoped the line phone would not ring as I didn't know what bell went to what line. Who to answer?
After a couple of days, the butterflies were gone and I had a good time working the new railroad job. Soon, I was running an occasional train across the CTC portion of the territory. The sick yellow box on top of WR was the EL speaker. To the right the silver box was the EL radio, made by Bendix. The wood speaker on the desk was the NS dispatcher line. There was a switch behind that box that hooked the phone to the proper line.
