REGISTER

JEFF BYRON, M. ENG. SC., B. E.

COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEER

Digital transmission of information for NSW Railways purposes dates back at least to 1857 when the NSW Electric Telegraph department installed a morse system between South Head,  Sydney and Liverpool. The telegraph department at that time was separate from both the Railways and Post Office, although it utilised railway telegraph system was set up in about 1876. A major purpose of the telegraph was, of course, train safe working.

The next major step in NSW Railway data transmission occurred in 1949, when the morse  telegraph system between Sydney and Lithgow was replaced by a teleprinter system. Within the next few years, many more systems were updated, although it was not until 1968 that the last morse system was decommissioned. Teleprinters message switching system was introduced to save retyping messages destined for a location not directly connected to the originator. the teleprinter network remained in service until 1986 when the present message switch (to be discussed later) was introduced. The 1970's saw the introduction in the railways of remote terminals requiring connection to mainframe computers via a data communication network. It was to support this need that the Data Communications section was established.