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Train speed and safety led railways to replace most of their
manual switching with Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) systems. This unit is the board which directed one of these
systems. Built by Union Switch & Signal of Swissvale, Pennsylvania, this particular dispatcher's board was used by
the Canadian Pacific Railway in Moose Jaw from 1959 to 1989.
With it, the dispatcher in Moose Jaw controlled traffic on the rail line from Broadview to Swift Current, a distance
of about 240 miles. The board was monitored 24 hours a day because the trains moved day and night. When a train was on
a certain section of track, a signal was sent to the board and a light went on showing the dispatcher the location of
the train. Signals came in on telegraph lines. The graph made a written record of all train
movements.
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