LIberty exchange name
Bridgewater section, Western District Telephone Directory, January 1956
Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Company
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This item (as condensed for reprinting in February 2000) makes no mention of where this serious train wreck occurred. In 1950, along the D.A.R. main line track there were three places where the D.A.R. track was connected to C.N.R. tracks — and thus where locomotives from the two different railways might have been involved in conflicting movements — in Yarmouth, in Middleton, and at Windsor Junction.
Of these three possibilities, my guess is that this collision occurred in Middleton, where the Bridgewater - New Germany - Middleton - Bridgetown main line of the old Nova Scotia Central Railway (later the Halifax and South Western and, in 1950, Canadian National) crossed the Halifax - Yarmouth main line of the D.A.R. At Middleton, for a short distance — about 100 metres — C.N.R. trains ran along the D.A.R. track, in making the move from the south (Bridgewater) side to the north (Bridgetown) side of the D.A.R. There was a fourth connection between the D.A.R. and the C.N.R. at Truro, but a Halifax - Yarmouth train would not be there. |
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This song, like all recorded music in 1950 — all that was made to be sold to the public — was pressed and distributed on 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) shellac records, which had a limited playing time. There were two sizes of 78 records, ten-inch 25cm diameter and twelve-inch 30cm. All popular songs were sold on ten-inch records, which had a maximum playing time of about three minutes per side. This meant that only one song could be recorded on each side. The term "single" meant that this could be bought as an individual record, as distinct from an "album" which was a pair of stiff covers enclosing several heavy paper envelopes each containing a 78 record. |
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The Forties is the district west of New Ross, in Lunenburg County. In 1950, the road from Chester Basin through New Ross to Kentville was known as Highway 12 (as it is in 2000), but the road west from New Ross through Lower Forties and Forties Settlement to Dalhousie East had not been given a highway number. This road, through the Forties, was originally a part of the Old Annapolis Road, from Halifax to Annapolis Royal, opened in the 1780s as an important part of the British Government's plans to defend Nova Scotia in case of an attack by the United States. |
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The significance of this item is the three-digit telephone number, newly-assigned to one of the top two or three busiest telephones in Kings County. In the 1950s, Eaton's was the dominant retailer in Canada, and had been for decades. The Eaton's order office was one of the busiest telephone numbers in any town which had one. (In the 1960s, Eaton's went into a slow decline, which ended with the chain's bankruptcy in 1999.) |
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ICS comment, written 5 May 2000, revised 1 August 2002:
I remember the Hennigar Bus Line. One fine day, likely 1949 or 1950, when I was living in Chester, I rode the Hennigar bus to Kentville. The company's operating base was in Chester Basin, but the bus started and ended its trips at the Chester Pharmacy in downtown Chester. As I recall, the bus line was started up by a returned veteran of World War Two. The company had only one bus, and the owner was also the driver. The day I rode the bus, I was the only passenger from Chester to New Ross. There were two or three additional passengers picked up along the way between New Ross and Kentville. I remember thinking at the time that the bus line's long-term prospect looked bleak if that was a representative day for ticket sales. I doubt the receipts from that trip were enough to pay for gasoline and wear and tear on the vehicle's tires and springs, let alone to provide money to pay the driver and cover equipment depreciation. My recollection is that the road between Chester Basin and New Ross was gravel, not paved, and the bus was subjected to the continual bumping, shaking, and vibration typical of any vehicle travelling at speed on that kind of surface. The bus travelled at a moderate speed, probably about forty miles per hour about sixty km/h. The driver was Mr. Hennigar, the owner of the company. (I think I recall his given name, but am not sure enough to include it here.) I remember a brief stop at a small restaurant — more like a lunch counter — in Chester Basin, located on the east side of Highway 3 at the intersection of Highway 12. As I recall, the restaurant was owned and operated by the same man who owned and operated the bus line. Last time I looked, in the mid-1990s, that building was still there, long since converted to a private dwelling but easily recognizable because the external appearance had changed little since the 1940s. |
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In 2000 (and at least since 1980) the changes to and from Daylight Saving Time (DT) are always scheduled for early Sunday morning, never in the middle of the week, so that the first day after the time change is not a working day for most people. In Windsor in 1950, the change to DT was done at 11:59pm Tuesday, May 23rd, and back to Standard Time was at 12:01am Monday, September 4th. These non-weekend changes seem strange to us, until we remember that in 1950, May 24th was a legal holiday (Queen Victoria's official birthday) — thus the first day after the time change was a holiday. And the change back to Standard Time (ST), set for 12:01am Monday, September 4th, meant that the first day after the time change was a holiday (Labour Day). Both time changes were followed by a holiday, same as now.
In 1950, and continuing at least until 1970, the decisions about civil time (Standard or Daylight Saving) in Nova Scotia were legally assigned to each individual municipality. That is, each incorporated town and each rural municipality (there were 66 of them, in all, in Nova Scotia then, including the two cities) made its own decision about Daylight Saving Time — meaning each one decided, on its own, each year, whether or not to make a change to DT, and if the change was made, on what specific dates the spring change (one hour forward) and the fall change (one hour back) would be done. Each council made its own decision, without much attention being given to staying in step with the others. Each councillor was much more interested in the opinions of the voters in his/her local district, especially on a controversial matter such as changing the citizens' clocks around, than on staying in step with surrounding towns and rural municipalities. Feelings ran deep in many places, with intense and disruptive debates between those in favour and those opposed. Now, in 2000, the decisions about civil time are made by the province, and all areas in the province stay in step. This change — to a uniform system throughout Nova Scotia — was forced mainly by the spread of network television. The regular weekly publication of television program schedules by newspapers with wide circulation, such as the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and by specialized magazines such as TV Guide, became a source of much confusion among the population when residents of each town had to figure out (a) when the published schedules made the seasonal time changes, and (b) if, and when, the local area made the time changes. |
Date: 13 December 1950
Time: 2:00pm
Type: Douglas DC-4-1009
Operator: Swissair
Registration: HB-ILE (43073)
Year built: 1947
People on board: 11 crew + 20 passengers = 31
No fatalities
Nature: Scheduled Passenger
Phase: Final Approach
Flight: Geneva to New York, diverted to Sydney
The Swissair DC-4 had taken off from Geneva for a flight to New York via Shannon and Gander. Bad weather at Gander forced the crew to divert to Sydney. The aircraft descended too low on final approach and struck a number of poles supporting runway approach lights. Full power was added, but no.1 and 2 prop damage caused the plane to swing to the left. The DC-4 struck the ground in a left-wing-low attitude. The wing was sheared off. Small fires broke out on the left hand side, but were controlled by the crew. About 30 minutes later fire again broke out which destroyed the forward fuselage.
a steamship company located in Liverpool during the1930s, '40s and '50s. After the death of Izaak Walton Killam, a major shareholder of Mersey Paper, in August 1955, the company and its subsidiary, the Markland Shipping Company, were sold to the Bowater Paper Company in 1956. Bowater already had its own steamship company and transferred Charles Copelin to Bowater's England affiliate in 1957. He was named the managing director of the Bowater Steamship Company.
When mentioning telephone numbers, novels, stories and movies written in the 1940s and 1950s often use exchange names. There was a Glenn Miller song called PEnnsylvania 6-5000, and Elizabeth Taylor made a movie called BUtterfield 8 — both titles are derived from telephone exchange names. In the 1948 movie Sorry, Wrong Number, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, the telephone number "BOwery 2-1000" appears repeatedly. In the movie Ocean's Eleven, — released in 1960 but written in the late 1950s — Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean places a call to "DUdley 2-6969".
An exchange name is a word that is used to represent the first two (sometimes three) letters of a seven-digit telephone number. (Exchange names had nothing to do with area codes or country codes.) Exchange names had nothing to do with geographical names related to the area served by the exchange, they were chosen solely to match the first two (sometimes three) letters of the name to the first two (sometimes three) digits of the exchange number. The first two letters of the exchange name are the first two digits of the phone number, when they are spelled out on a telephone dial or keypad. So for example, the exchange name "BRoadway" means that the first two numbers of the telephone number are "27", and BRoadway 5-9876 would be 275-9876. The purpose of exchange names was to make telephone numbers easier to remember. The custom was to capitalize the significant letters to make them stand out, the remainder of the name was irrelevant.
Date of
first run
1 Mar 1898 The Maritime Express Montreal - Halifax
3 Jul 1904 Ocean Limited Montreal - Halifax
26 Jun 1927 The Acadian Montreal - Halifax
28 Jun 1929 Down Easter New York - Halifax
28 Jun 1929 Pine Tree Acadian Boston - Halifax
2 Mar 1930 The Gull Boston - Maritime Provinces
16 Mar 1941 The Scotian Montreal - Halifax
14 Jul 1956 The Bluenose Edmonton - Halifax
1 Jun 1967 The Cabot Montreal - Sydney
[Source: Canadian National in the East, Volume Three (book) by J. Norman Lowe, ISBN 0919487149, October 1985. Published by the Calgary Group of the British Railway Modellers of North America, 5124 33rd Street NW, Calgary, Alberta T2L 1V4.]
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Note: A "satellite transmitter" has nothing to do with satellites orbiting around the Earth. In this context, a "satellite transmitter" is simply a rebroadcasting transmitter located some distance away from the main transmitter and carrying the same signal as the main transmitter, for the purpose of extending the signal to areas not reached by the main transmitter. The satellite or rebroadcasting transmitter receives its incoming signal by terrestrial means, such as microwave or coaxial cable (or optical fibre in the distant future). |
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Wayback Machine http://web.archive.org/index.html "Use the Wayback Machine to view web sites from the past." History of Nova Scotia, Chapter 20 The Wayback Machine has copies of this webpage from the early days: Archived: 2000 August 15 http://web.archive.org/web/20000815195352/http://www.alts.net/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2000 December 15 http://web.archive.org/web/20001215185800/http://www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2001 February 8 http://web.archive.org/web/20010208225552/http://www.alts.net/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2001 April 19 http://web.archive.org/web/20010419134014/http://www.alts.net/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2001 August 16 http://web.archive.org/web/20010816212033/http://alts.net/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2001 October 5 http://web.archive.org/web/20011005164331/http://www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/nshist20.html Archived: 2002 January 27 http://web.archive.org/web/20020127005520/http://www.alts.net/ns1625/nshist20.html |
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