No radios on trains until the 1940s, but each station had a telegrapher, sending and receiving train orders from a central or division office. If a train was 20 minutes overdue, the stationmaster expecting it would inquire of the previous station up the line whether it had departed on schedule.

By the time a train was 60 to 90 minutes overdue, messages would be humming up and down the line. (In the 1920s, some communication might well have been by telephone). A spare locomotive and crew would be found, and a rescue train sent out. The broken-down train would have sent a crew member carrying a red flag or lantern a mile ahead and another crewman a mile back to protect the front and back of the train. He would have put down a burning flare and attached a fireworks device called a torpedo to the running rail, so that the crew of an approaching train would stop, then approach the disabled train slowly.

Interurban electric railroads, developed circa 1900, made more use of telephones and less of telegraphy. It was not uncommon for interurbans to have a rural roadside stop (like a bus shelter) every three to five miles, and many of those stops had a wayside telephone that the motorman or conductor could use to contact the dispatcher.