Western Union Office Operating Tables

[Jim]

I've uploaded two pictures

Plan-21A-Table-2.jpg is an operating table of the kind that went into
service around 1949
for Western Union public telegram service, and remained in use until
they started closing
down all those offices. This kind of table connects to one of the
fifteen automatic reperforator
switching centers, the whole system being named Plan 21-A.

Tieline-Table-2.jpg is an operating table that is considerably older
and was used to
service tielines to teleprinters in customers' offices as a way of
collecting and delivering
telegrams to those customers. The table shown allows for up to six
customer lines, and
enough business volume that there might be two transmissions in
progress simultaneously.
Telegrams coming from customers would be taken to the Plan-21-A table
and
re-keyboarded into punched tape for transmission to the ultimate
destination. Telegrams
arriving via Plan 21-A would be taken to this table and re-keyboarded
to the customers.

Jim Haynes