In researching and writing the text for my book on the history of Marias & Haskell Pass in Montana, I came across some very interesting documents from the Great Northern Railway corporate files.

In the mid-1890’s to early 1900’s when using the Western Union Telegram service, railroad messages were coded in a secret code. I had never heard of anything such as this.
Below is part of one of the coded messages:

The smithy tripped night junket, we are occultation running architective
tutors except penuriously tutors blench Havre apologue Babylon
apologue blench newly occultation apologue Spokane. Totally junket at
present obliging unconstitutional West orphan embarkation Spokane. No.
23 is at Great Falls…..

Here is the decoded translation:

The smithy tripped night junket, we are occultation running architective
The situation to night is, we are not running any

tutors except penuriously tutors blench Havre apologue Babylon apologue
trains passenger trains between Havre and Butte and

blench newly occultation apologue Spokane.
between Minot and Spokane.

Totally junket at present obliging unconstitutional West orphan embarkation Spokane.
There is at present no trouble west of East Spokane.

No.23 is at Great Falls….
No.23 is at Great Falls….

I’m just curious; does anyone know what this kind of code is called? It appears each coded work is the same in each instance – such as “apologue” always means “and”…but then some of the words were normal.

Since the messages obviously needed to be kept from prying eyes – how did each party receive the proper de-coding ciphers? Was the master cipher sent to each party via US Mail in a sealed envelope?

If that was the case – why not just send the original message via US Mail. It seems to defeat the purpose of sending a quick telegram.

Does anyone know if railroads other than the Great Northern may have used codes in sending messages?

Many questions I know, hopefully someone has heard of these procedures.

Thanks in advance.

Talk to ya later,
Dale Jones

[www.railroads-of-montana.com]