1856

Samuel Morse introduced his telegraph system in the 1830s. The invention reached Sweden in 1853 when the telegraph line Stockholm-Uppsala was opened. In the railway context, the Morse telegraph was used from the very first years of SJ.

The Morse telegraph was both smaller and faster than the semaphore telegraph. Additionally, the recipient received a printout on paper tape of the received Morse code, allowing for verification of the message afterward if needed. The difficulty with the Morse telegraph was that both the sender and the receiver had to be proficient in Morse code.

Therefore, during the early days, it was mainly used between larger stations that had more well-trained personnel.

When the Morse telegraph was to replace the semaphore telegraph, there was lament and grumbling among the older staff at the stations. For them, it was a cumbersome process both to send messages themselves and to interpret the received dots and dashes on the paper tape.

The situation was worst at the private railways. There, it was not uncommon until the 1900s for the stationmaster not to know Morse code at all. When it was "train in" and "train out," he would just shake the telegraph key for a while. At least then the neighbouring stations knew he was at his post.