COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS ROBERT R. REYNOLDS, North Carolina, Chairman ELBERT D. THOMAS, Utah WARREN R. AUSTIN, Vermont CHAPMAN REVERCOMB, West Virginia Testimony of Page E. K. Jett, Chief Engineer, Federal Communications Commission William S. Halstead, president, Halstead Traffic Communications 1559 1577 No. SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITS Exhibit Appears on 353 Greater Rail Safety by FM Radiotelephony, by William S. Halstead... 352 The Application of Radiotelephony on Railway Systems, by William S. Halstead___. page 1587 1590 354 Review of Events Related to the Use of Radio Communication by Railroads, submitted by E. K. Jett... 355 FM Aids Battle of Transportation, by William S. Halstead, from Possibilities for Talking to Motorists, by Neal G. Adair, from "MOTOR," October 1940, submitted by William S. Halstead.... 357 Bibliography, The Use of Radio in Railway Signaling and Commu nications, submitted by E. K. Jett.. 358 Excerpts from Railway Age, submitted by E. K. Jett.. 1592 1598 1607 1612 1612 1630 360 Letter from Senator Harley M. Kilgore to E. K. Jett, Mar. 18, 1632 1944 361 These Railroad Wrecks, by Ruth and Edward Brecher, from Harper's Magazine, June 1944__. 362 Telegram from E. J. W. Ragsdale, of the E. G. Budd Manufactur 363 364 ing Co., to the Subcommittee on War Mobilization, Feb. 10, Letter from Robert S. Henry, assistant to the president, Associa- 368 Letter from J. D. Farrington, chief executive officer, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co., to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, May 11, 1944.. 369 Letter from Ralph Budd, president, Burlington Lines, to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, May 11, 1944. 370 Letter from R. B. White, president, Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, May 11, 1944. 371 Letter from G. H. Bucher, president, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, May 12, 1944 372 Letter from E. K. Jett to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, Apr. 28, 1944. Provisions governing the operation of certain low power radio fre 373 374 List of applications relating to the use of radio filed by railroads, quency devices, Federal Communications Commission... 1928-44 See also Exhibit No. 342. "Wired wireless' for trolleys," and 1633 1641 1642 1643 1643 1643 1645 1646 1647 1648 1648 1649 1649 1649 III SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL MOBILIZATION FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1944 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, Washington D. C. The subcommittee met at 10:45 a. m., pursuant to adjournment on Thursday, February 10, 1944, in room 104-B, Senate Office Building, Senator Harley M. Kilgore, West Virginia (chairman) presiding. Present: Senator Harley M. Kilgore, West Virginia; Senator Mon C. Wallgren, Washington. Also present: Dr. Herbert Schimmel, chief investigator. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Will you identify yourself for the record and describe how you became interested in radio communication on railroads? TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM S. HALSTEAD, PRESIDENT, HALSTEAD TRAFFIC COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION, NEW YORK, N. Y. Mr. HALSTEAD. I am president of the Halstead Traffic Communications Corporation. That is a small engineering organization which at the present time is developing and producing equipment for use in the transportation field. The equipment is primarily of a radio nature. We are making airport traffic control equipment for the armed services, flight control apparatus, and we are also developing radio equipment for use by the railroads. The CHAIRMAN. For the record, just what is "wired wireless"? Mr. HALSTEAD. Wired wireless is essentially a method of impressing radio signals, radio frequency or high frequency signal energy on existing conductors, telephone lines, power lines, or any type of conductor, usually extending between two points. In the case of railway communications we might use wayside wires, such as telephone circuits cr power circuits which carry electric power either for the locomotives or for signaling equipment of conventional type. Dr. SCHIMMEL. Would that mean, Mr. Halstead, that what you do is make the radio waves or radio energy follow along some established metal system like the rails or the telephone system or the power system? Mr. HALSTED. That is right. In layman's language, you might call it guided radio or guided carrier signals. The CHAIRMAN. If the rails on a railroad were bonded, as they are in a coal mine, could that be used for wired wireless? Mr. HALSTEAD. Yes. For a number of years the rails have been used as carriers for radio, telephone signals, or voice signals, and that technique has been developed to the point where, I understand, com mercial installations have been made and satisfactory results have been obtained. However, there is the disadvantage that the rail circuits are, to a certain extent, dependent upon soil conditions and if the rails. are broken, of course, the signaling circuits are disconnected. The CHAIRMAN. Now, I wish you would also, for the benefit of the record, state your personal engineering experience in connection with radio development work in this field. Mr. HALSTEAD. I think that might start at the time when I was in college. I went to Haverford, a small college near Philadelphia, and along with a group of other men in school we established a broadcasting station which was one of the first college broadcasting stations at that time, and a number of the men in that original group have since gone into the radio industry and have become quite prominent. After leaving school, largely because of ill health, I went out to the west coast and got a job in a construction company building roads at Rainier National Park. During that time I noticed that in some emergencies the telephone circuits used by the Forest Service and by the different construction groups were entirely of no use. In other words, at a time when wires were most urgently needed there were no communicating facilities. Because I was very much interested in radio the thought of using radio for forestry communications presented itself, and in cooperation with an engineer from Seattle we ran some of the first tests in using high-frequency radio for emergency communications in the Forest Service. That was brought to the attention of the Forest Service, and after coming back to the East I tried to get the Forest Service to undertake developments in that field, to take it out of what you might call the individual experimentation class and organize it so that the art would grow rapidly. I understand that service has developed since that time and radio has come into fairly wide use. I was not able at that time to help in initiating the service I had in mind, and I was offered a job with the War Department as a civilian engineer. From 1930 to 1931 I worked in the office of the Chief Signal Officer in radio engineering type of activity. During that time the Department of Commerce had some of the other Government services connected with aviation were developing blind-landing systms in which radio beams were suggested for use in bringing planes safely to an airport when visibility was impaired. I thought that the same technique might be helpful on railroads and on highways because on highspeed trains there are many times when an engineer can't see a signal clearly until he gets very close to the signal, and I felt radio-beam transmission might be helpful in that direction. I felt also that the same technique could be applied on highways because we all know that the present signaling methods really aren't adapted to the high-speed roads and the cars we have today. The development of the railroad communications project started during that period. In 1934-35 I developed some equipment, using micro-wave beam signaling technique, which was coordinated with existing wayside signals such as red and green lights. The purpose of that was to inject a signal into a locomotive cab or into the interior of an automobile to supplement existing signals, because we all know that a red light or a green light along the road actually is a tiny spot, |