The shorter, "mishmashed" entry is WIGWAG, which can mean either waving furiously, like a wagging tail, or it can be a type of railroad crossing signal.
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Thompson, p. 13 The system probably came to be known as wigwag because of the apparently random motions of the flag as seen by an untrained observer.US Army Signal Museum, "Crossed flags: History of the wigwag", United States Army Signal Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia, archived 7 July 2007.
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Albert Hunt was the inventor of the wigwag, a grade crossing signal used in transportation. Hunt was a mechanical engineer from Southern California. He invented the wigwag in 1909 out of the necessity for a safer railroad grade crossing. Hunt was associated with the Pacific Electric interurban streetcar railroad.
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The Cobb's Hill wigwag tower, 1864 Wigwag was used extensively by Civil War Signal Corps troops on both sides,Raines, pp. 23–29 and was an essential supplement to the electrical telegraph.Wagner, p. 358 Its first use in battle was by Confederate Lieutenant Edward Porter Alexander (a former pupil of Myer)Greely, p.
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Wigwag flags, wigwag torches and kerosene canteen, and a signal rocket Wigwag (more formally, aerial telegraphy) is an historical form of flag signaling that passes messages by waving a single flag. It differs from flag semaphore in that it uses one flag rather than two, and the symbols for each letter are represented by the motion of the flag rather than its position. The larger flag and its motion allow messages to be read over greater distances than semaphore. Messages could be sent at night using torches instead of flags.
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Throughout the war, the Signal Corps remained small—its maximum strength reaching just 1,500 officers and men, most of whom were on detached service with the corps. Myer also indirectly influenced the formation of the Confederate Signal Service. Among the men who assisted Myer in his prewar testing of his wigwag signaling system (Myer's wigwag system, patented in 1858, used five separate numbered movements of a single flag) was Lieutenant E.P. Alexander. Alexander used wigwag signals to the Confederates’ advantage during the First Battle of Bull Run and later organized the Confederate Signal Corps.
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A number of other codes were used at times, some of them with a fixed number of elements and up to four different motions. Morse code was used with wigwag after it became an international standard. The wigwag system was invented in the 1850s by US Army surgeon Albert J. Myer who became the first head of the Signal Corps. Wigwag was used extensively by both sides in the American Civil War, where it was an essential adjunct to electrical telegraphy, and continued to see use in both America and Europe until the end of the century.
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Wigwag is a form of flag signalling using a single flag. Unlike most forms of flag signalling, which are used over relatively short distances, wigwag is designed to maximise the distance covered—up to in some cases. Wigwag achieved this by using a large flag—a single flag can be held with both hands unlike flag semaphore which has a flag in each hand—and using motions rather than positions as its symbols since motions are more easily seen. It was invented by US Army surgeon Albert J. Myer in the 1850s who later became the first head of the Signal Corps.
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Raines, pp. 22–23 Myer did not use the term wigwag in the manuals he produced. He called the system aerial signalsMyer (1872), p. 189 or aerial telegraphy.
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Many saw the two magazines as rivals for media attention – neither survived the 1991 recession (although Spy lingered on in a brief afterlife). Contemporary observers thought that the "parent ship," The New Yorker itself, then edited by Robert Gottlieb, also saw itself as threatened by Wigwag during Wigwag's lifetime. Wigwag proposed a kind of counter-reality to the sophistication which magazines like The New Yorker and Spy aspired to – offering, instead of The New Yorker's famed "Talk of the Town" section, its own titled opening section, "Letters from Home." Notable staffers at Wigwag include Nancy Holyoke, who went on (with the help of Harriet Brown, another Wigwag editor, now a professor at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications) to found American Girl magazine at Pleasant Company in Wisconsin, Caroline Fraser, the author of a noted history of the Christian Science Church, and Evan Cornog, now dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University.
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36 Wigwag was taken up by some European countries, notably the British in African colonial wars. It was used extensively in the Boer War in South Africa. Once Morse code became an international standard, the British dropped the Myer code for wigwag signaling and used Morse instead with the flag movements indicating dots and dashes. The French had a slight variation of that, using a single flag for dot and two flags for dash.
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Wigwag flags being carried by the Signal Corps while extending a telegraph line at Manila during the Spanish–American War in 1898 The Civil War was the high point of the use of wigwag, but there were some other campaigns that included flag signalmen, mainly against Native Americans. Signal parties accompanied general Patrick E. Connor on the Powder River Expedition of 1865 in Wyoming and Montana. The signalmen were used to maintain communications between troop columns.Raines, pp.
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The wigwag system filled a gap in the history of military communication between the age of close-quarter fighting and the age of modern long-range weapons. In the 1860s, radio and telephone communications had yet to be invented and electrical telegraphy, although established, was still in its infancy. It was still being worked out how the latter could be used on the battlefield, and portable equipment ruggedized for military use was not available early in the decade. Wigwag provided a method that was both simple to use and faster and more reliable than couriers.
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This is a reduction from 1983 information from the Federal Highway Administration (FRA) that showed 2,618 crossings equipped with wigwags. Of these 1,098 crossings having wigwags, 398 are in California, 117 in Wisconsin, 97 in Illinois, 66 are in Texas and 45 are in Kansas. A total of 44 states have at least one railroad crossing having a wigwag as its warning device. As of 2020, only one wigwag in the U.S. remains on a main rail line; a Magnetic Flagman upper-quadrant at a rural crossing in Delhi, Colorado on the BNSF Railway.
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Anaheim had a working signal along the Union Pacific Costa Mesa branch at Lemon and Santa Ana Streets before being removed on February 25, 2019. This same signal may have been featured in the 1922 Magnetic Flagman catalog. Collector and notable film director, Chris M. Allport owns and operates a restored, lower-quadrant Magnetic Flagman (made in Minneapolis) wigwag at his studio in Los Angeles, California. A single lower- quadrant wigwag in the industrial city of Vernon, California, once protected a crossing on 49th Street with eight separate tracks on the BNSF Harbor Subdivision.
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Wigwag was an American magazine published from 1988 until 1991. Founded by Alexander "Lex" Kaplen, who worked at The New Yorker, Wigwag eschewed celebrity coverage in favor of personal and literary writing. A test issue was put on newsstands in the summer of 1988, and the magazine formally debuted in October 1989. The magazine attracted writers such as Peter Matthiessen, Terry McMillan, Garry Wills, Alex Heard, Sousa Jamba and Nancy Franklin, but despite a circulation of 120,000, and despite being financially successful, ceased publication when the Gulf War broke out in 1991 and the economy entered a recession.
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It was in Texas that he developed the idea of the wigwag flag or torch code for military use, building on his previous work with the deaf. Myer also incorporated features of Native American hand and smoke signals into his system.Wagner, p.
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s the Richmond Parkway was built along Richmond's western industrial and northwestern parkland, connecting Interstates 80 and 580. In the early 1900s, the Santa Fe railroad established a major railyard next to Point Richmond. It constructed a tunnel through the Potrero San Pablo ridge to run track from the yard to a ferry landing from which freight cars could be transshipped to San Francisco. Where this track crosses the main street in Point Richmond, there remain two of the last operational wigwag grade crossing signals in the United States, and the only surviving examples of the "upside- down" type. The wigwag is a type of railroad crossing signal that was phased out in the 1970s and '80s across the country.
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Until destroyed by a truck in April 2004, a lower-quadrant Magnetic Flagman wigwag protected a private crossing of a BNSF line hidden from public view by a sound barrier in Pittsburg, California. The wigwag, the last "Model 10" in active use, was replaced by standard highway flashers. The Model 10 was distinguished by its short, low-hanging cantilever and use of crossbucks mounted higher than the cantilever. They were almost exclusively used by the Santa Fe, although there were also a few of this model on the Southern Pacific. In 2011–12, working replica wigwags were installed at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California along the Red Car Trolley as well as show wigwags that were placed in Radiator Springs Racers.
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US&S; and WRRS wigwags were also used by the CPR on its Canadian lines. There were two wig- wags in service in Canada, located on the CN CASO sub near Tilbury, Ontario. Both were WRRS Autoflag #5s with disappearing banners. Disappearing banners were the only style of wigwag approved for use in Canada.
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The Chicago and North Western was known for its installation of Western Railroad Supply Company wigwag signals at many of its crossing in the 1920–1940s. Almost every town on their route had at least the main crossing in town protected by them. The most common style were the Center Harp shorties. They were almost iconic to the CNW.
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A railroad crossing with a flashing traffic signal or wigwag will also typically have a warning bell. Electromechanical bells, known in some places as a gong, are struck by an electric-powered hammer to audibly warn motorists and pedestrians of an oncoming train. Many railroad crossing gongs are now being replaced by electronic devices with no moving parts.
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Building stations in trees was common, and church steeples were often used.Raines, p. 16 The system, at least on the Union side, took on the nature of a genuine communications network.Berkowitz, pp. 52–53 The Confederates, despite being first in the field with wigwag, and the Union side being slow to get going, never succeeded in building a network to the same extent.
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The Magnetic Flagman wigwag waves its target using large, black electromagnets pulling against an iron armature. Sliding contacts switch the current from one magnet to the other. Each Magnetic Flagman includes a builder's plate (bottom center) detailing patent dates and power requirements. There were a few other models that were either manufactured by Magnetic Signal or customized by the different railroads.
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He pointed out that his children have "never heard a Thieme tape. That's not part of our life." The media focus on Thieme and Quayle led to a critical interview piece titled The Private Ministry of Colonel Thieme (Marilyn Quayle’s Theologian) by Garry Wills. It appeared in October 1989's first issue of the short-lived Wigwag magazine edited by Alexander Kaplen.
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While there are a few examples in museums, the sole surviving US&S; wigwag in service in the US is a two-position style in Joplin, MO on an ex-Frisco industrial spur. It was not destroyed in the May, 2011 Joplin tornado, being a few blocks outside the damage path. These were a bit different in design from the Autoflag #5 and the Magnetic Flagman.
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The thief manages to capture Quackie and ties him up in a sack. The thief hangs Quackie at the railroad post office pole and is knocked off the train by a wigwag until Faraway and Mary show up. Faraway notices Quackie's situation and (unintentionally) puns "Why are you just hanging around?". Mary, meanwhile, catches the thief and knocks him out with an anvil-loaded purse.
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The most common code used with wigwag had three motions, only two of which were needed to form letters of the alphabet. These two were waving the flag, respectively, to the left and right – the wigwagging motion. A character was formed by sequentially displaying a number of motions (elements). Like Morse code, the number of elements in each character was not fixed, the most common letters being assigned the shortest codes.
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Inconsistently, American Morse code was mandated for Army electrical telegraph lines, but not for radio telegraphy.Coe, p. 3 The wigwag method was superseded by flag semaphore for short distances, and the heliograph for long distances in regions where the electrical telegraph was not available. The heliograph saw widespread use in Arizona and New Mexico after Nelson A. Miles took over command of the campaign against the Apache in 1886.
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Since the 1980s, the track has gained a comprehensive signal system based on Automatic Block Signaling for maintaining safe separation between trains and route indication. The layout has more than 80 electronic signal blocks and 50 motorized turnouts and was extensively used for bidirectional operations from 1995-2005. In addition, the layout utilizes a restored Wigwag (railroad) crossing signal and has a replica 19th century highball signal on display.
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Nevada is also served well by a network of paved farm to market county roads. Nevada was served by the Chicago and North Western Railroad. The Union Pacific Railroad now owns the line which crosses the city east to west north of the business district. Up until the mid-1980s, all railroad crossings except for a new one in the northwest section of town were protected by WRRS center harp style wigwag signals.
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The BNSF was also bowing to pressure from the state's transportation authority to upgrade the crossing with modern signals. Richmond is preserving the crossing with historical designation and other planning tools. According to information recently posted at Dan's Wigwag Site (see below), the crossing was updated with gates, modern flashers and bells. In an unusual compromise, the wigwags will remain as non-operative decorations at the crossing, with the modern gates, red lights and bells are in place.
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She began her magazine career in 1979, with a stint at Popular Science magazine. She was part of the start-up staffs for both Wigwag magazine, 1989–1991, and American Girl magazine American Girl, 1992–2000. Her 2006 New York Times article "One Spoonful at a Time" chronicled her daughter's descent into anorexia and recovery via family-based treatment, also known as the Maudsley approach. That article became the basis of her 2010 book, Brave Girl Eating.
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A wig-wag (also wigwag, wig wag) is the red light (also known as a "red-eye") near each door of a motion picture sound stage. It flashes to indicate that cameras are rolling inside the stage and no one should enter or exit the stage for any reason, and all people and vehicles outside should remain quiet. A flashing wig-wag is accompanied by one long buzzer when the cameras start rolling, and two shorter buzzers when cameras stop rolling.
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Albert J. Myer (center) during the Peninsula campaign (1862)Raines, p. 24 of the American Civil War The wigwag system was invented by US Army surgeon Major Albert J. Myer in the 1850s. Myer took his inspiration from the telegraph code of Alexander Bain, although the codepoints finally used were not the same as Bain's. The Bain code, invented 1843, was used on the chemical printing telegraph of that inventor and was a dot-dash code similar to the Morse code.
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27 A Union cipher disk The fact that the Confederates had personnel able to read the wigwag code was problematic for the Union side. Security concerns led to a reluctance to send important messages by flag signals. General Daniel Butterfield went so far as to order the Army of the Potomac not to use signals at all, much to the concern of its chief signal officer Benjamin F. Fisher. To overcome this problem, the Signal Corps created a cipher disk to encode messages.
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This lower-quadrant Magnetic Flagman wigwag signal was retired after more than six decades of service atop its Union Switch & Signal base on Mountain Avenue in Redlands, California. For economy, railroads occasionally installed signals on existing utility poles. This particular unit was replaced with as-yet unused () highway flashers and gates as part of construction for Arrow commuter rail service. The earliest wigwags used by Pacific Electric, built in the railroad's shops, were gear-driven, but proved difficult to maintain.
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Shortly thereafter, these signals were replaced with standard flashers and gates due to safety concerns and lack of available wigwag parts. Nevada was also served by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad's "Spine Line" between Minneapolis, MN and Kansas City, MO. This north-south line jogged east-west through southern Nevada. It then veered north again and crossed under the C&NW; mainline east of Nevada. An agency station was maintained until 1980 when the Rock Island went bankrupt and ceased to function.
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A set of WRRS Center Harp shortie wigwag signals commonly seen on the C&NW; during the 20th Century. The CNW was known for running on the left-hand side when running on double track mainlines. In the United States, most railroads used the right-hand track along double-track mainlines, while left-hand running was more common in countries where British companies built the railroads. According to a display in the Lake Forest station, the reason for this was a combination of chance and inertia.
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After the success of this system, Adler was promoted within the company to signal engineer and was given resources for his own experiments and research. For his first solo project, he set out to design a new flashing signal for grade crossings. In his design, he created an automatically triggered system that flashed two lights alternatively in a wigwag pattern when a train was approaching. This invention, called the Adler Flashing Relay, received the American Railway Association’s endorsement and was later adopted by over 40 railroad companies.
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Standard Issue Civil War Signal Corps Kit, complete with flags and torches. While serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856, Albert James Myer proposed that the Army use his visual communications system, called aerial telegraphy (or "wig-wag"). When the Army adopted his system on 21 June 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first and only Signal Officer. wigwag. Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the early 1860s Navajo expedition.
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The rail grade crossing at which Lightning McQueen outruns a freight train on his way to Radiator Springs is protected by a pair of antique "upper-quadrant" wigwag crossing signals which accurately depict those once made by the Magnetic Signal Company in both appearance and start-up. Few are left in actual operation in the United States, and many have been replaced with modern crossing gates, red lights and bells. "Ornament Valley" is a reference to Monument Valley. This is not on Route 66, but is a side trip in northern Arizona.
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US Army Signal Corp insignia featuring crossed wigwag flags and torch Even while the Civil War was still in progress, the electrical telegraph was starting to displace flag signaling. This perhaps did not happen as quickly as it might have done because the US Military Telegraph and the Signal Corps were under different leaderships. Myer made repeated attempts to absorb the Military Telegraph but failed due to political rivalries, particularly Myer's rivalry with the civilian head of the Military Telegraph, Anson Stager. This prevented a clear distinction being formed between strategic and tactical communications.
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In the interest of safety, signs were posted at the wigwags stating that the wigwags are non-operational. The ability to be activated by trains will be retained, but only for special events. In 2011, a water main break caused a catastrophic ground collapse under one of the Point Richmond wig-wags and it was removed for safekeeping while the area was being repaired. On the episode of American Restoration aired on April 16, 2013, a pair of WRRS Autoflag #5 wigwag signals were restored for the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in Ely, Nevada.
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Myer's Civil War innovations included an unsuccessful balloon experiment at First Bull Run, and, in response to McClellan's desire for a Signal Corps field telegraph train, an electric telegraph in the form of the Beardslee magnetoelectric telegraph machine. Even in the Civil War, the wigwag system, restricted to line-of-sight communications, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph. Initially, Myer used his office downtown in Washington, D.C. to house the Signal Corps School. When it was found to need additional space, he sought out other locations.
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Wigwag was used extensively during the American Civil War where it filled a gap left by the electrical telegraph. Although the electrical telegraph had been in use for more than a decade, the network did not yet reach everywhere and portable, ruggedized equipment suitable for military use was not immediately available. Permanent or semi-permanent stations were established during the war, some of them towers of enormous height and the system for a while could be described as a communications network.Rebecca Raines, Getting the Message Through, US Government Printing Office, 1996 .
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The OR&L; was important for moving troops and goods during World War II. Traffic on this line was busy enough for signals to be used to facilitate movement of trains and to require wigwag signals at some railroad crossings for the protection of motorists. The main line was officially abandoned in 1947, although part of it was bought by the U.S. Navy and operated until 1970. of track remain; preservationists occasionally run trains over a portion of this line. The Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project aims to add elevated passenger rail on Oahu to relieve highway congestion.
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Using flags for daytime signaling and a torch at night, wigwag was tested in Civil War combat in June 1861 to direct the fire of a harbor battery at Fort Wool against the Confederate positions opposite Fort Monroe. For nearly three years, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel, although he envisioned a separate, trained professional military signal service. Myer's vision came true on 3 March 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, although not at any single time, in the Civil War Signal Corps.
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Comedian Harold Lloyd highlighted the popularity and utility of the system in an extended sequence in his 1924 film Girl Shy, where, after finding one Red Car too crowded, he commandeered another and drove at high speed through the streets of Culver City and Los Angeles. PE operated frequent freight trains under electric power throughout its service area (as far as 65 miles) to Redlands, including operating electrically powered Railway Post Office routes, one of the few U.S. interurbans to do so. This provided important revenue. The PE was responsible for an innovation in grade crossing safety: the automatic electromechanical grade crossing signal, nicknamed the wigwag.
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One was a round, counterbalancing "sail" for use in windy areas and which was sometimes painted in the same scheme as the main target. A warning light with adjustable housing was offered, as was an "OUT OF ORDER" warning sign that dropped into view if power to the signal was interrupted. There was a rare adjustable turret-style mount for properly aiming the signal if space did not allow the cantilever to fully extend over the roadway. The last known example of the turret-mounted wigwag was removed from service in Gardena, California in 2000, while the versions with the warning signs were mostly shipped to Australia.
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Few wigwag signals currently remain in place, and the number dwindles as crossings are upgraded and spare parts become scarce. Once broken down and sold (or given away) as scrap as modern flashers took their place, they are now railroad collectibles, commanding a hefty price and winding up in personal collections of railroad officials, train spotters, and other individual collectors. Magnetic Flagman made in Minneapolis, Minnesota after production was moved from Los Angeles are especially rare and are valued by collectors. According to Federal Railroad Administration data from 2004, there were 215,224 railroad crossings in the U.S., of which 1,098 were listed as having one or more wigwags as their warning device.
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A link between downtown Los Angeles and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, this line currently sees less traffic since the completion of the more direct Alameda Corridor between downtown and the harbor. This project eliminated many at-grade crossings along Alameda Street and a number of Southern Pacific wigwags remaining from the PE era. Those remaining protect crossings of lightly used spur lines primarily in California and Wisconsin, the latter state featuring a different signal produced by Bryant-Zinc purchased by the Railroad Supply Company, which later became the Western Railroad Supply Company (WRRS). According to Dan's Wigwag Site, the signal was removed sometime in late April of 2020.
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Groff graduated from the University of Iowa, with an MFA, and MA. He has taught at University of Iowa, Rutgers University, and NYU, and at William Paterson University. For the last eleven years, he has worked with literary and popular novelists, memorists, journalists, and scientists whose books have been published by Atria, Bantam, HarperCollins, Hyperion, Little Brown, Miramax, Putnam, St. Martin's, Wiley, and other publishers. For twelve years he was an editor at Crown Publishing. Groff's work was published in American Poetry Review, Bloom, Chicago Review, Christopher Street, Confrontation, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Men on Men 2, Men on Men 2000, Missouri Review, New York, North American Review, Northwest Review, Out, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Poz, Prairie Schooner, QW, Self, 7 Days, 7 Carmine, and Wigwag.
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The corridor has a maximum speed of . The Alameda Corridor allows trains to bypass of early 20th- century branch lines and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway's historic Harbor Subdivision along a high-speed grade-separated corridor, built mainly on the alignment of a former Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) line, avoiding more than 200 street-level railroad crossings where automobiles previously had to wait for lengthy freight trains to pass. Many of those same rail lines were inadequately protected with little more than “wigwag” crossing signals dating from the original construction of the lines. The Alameda Corridor was built in a way to permit electrification with the use of electric catenary wires, which would increase the environmental benefit by displacing the use of diesel fuel; but the electrification has not happened as of yet.
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The modern warning lights used on level crossings in the UK consist of one amber light at the bottom and two red lights at the top, all on a black board with a checkerboard outline in red and white (the red and white borders weren't introduced until 1992; the borders were just white beforehand). The amber light has been in existence since the Hixon rail crash; previously there were just two red lights. The whole warning light module is known colloquially as a "wigwag" (due to the nature of the alternate flashes). They are also used at lifting and swing bridges, some airports, fire stations, police stations and ambulance stations in the UK. When a level crossing activates, the yellow light is usually illuminated for 3–5 seconds and then the two red lights flash alternately for the duration of the closure.
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