Released on = October 19, 2006, 9:39 pm

Press Release Author = John Gaudet/Brandylane Publishers, Richmond, VA

Industry = Entertainment

Press Release Summary = The telegraph served as the first e-mail system and opened
the first possibility of long-range, two way messaging. This Internet of the
Victorian age served well for emergency transmissions for over 150 years, especially
down railway lines such as the Lunatic Express in Kenya.

Press Release Body = Stories abound of how the Internet intercedes in daily life, a
lifesaving message desperately tapped out by someone in a life-threatening situation
illustrates another wonder of the marvelous world of networking. One blog operating
during the Katrina emergency was monitored constantly by rescuers, who then sent in
teams to save the people involved. The same applies to cell phones and more recently
to text messaging (Remember the kidnapping of the 14 year-old Shoaf girl?) But the
impression given is always the same, the general public is left amazed at the
novelty and power of the written word sent down the wire in haste.

It doesn't require much imagination to picture the scene on the other end of the
wire, you can easily imagine yourself bound and gagged, able to hop to a console
and use one finger to open the lifesaving page on broadband. On the receiving end
is perhaps your spouse at work or at home, casually checking the family e-mail
between household chores, or a teenager reluctantly glancing up to see a new e-mail
alert in the task bar above his or her MySpace page.

"Help!" the message is screaming at you.

A wonder of the modern world, or is it?

Consider the first e-mail system, the telegraph, the electromechanical marvel that
opened the first possibility of long-range, two-way messaging, the Victorian
version of IM. In its time it was a wonder, hardly to be superseded during the
next 150 years. It lasted from 1844 until the early 1990's, when satellite
transmission replaced telex and mechanical teleprinters. The advent of broadband
in 1964 and the Internet in the late '70's completed the transition. Now even the
early Internet emergency messages are history because of wireless technology,
though in their time, could they ever be as exciting as the telegraph messages on
railroads such as the Iron Snake, the turn of the last century railway line in
Kenya from Mombasa to Nairobi?

Consider, for example: "Lion fighting with station. Send urgent succour," from a
station master in the middle of the night. A man-eating lion was trying to rip the
galvanized roof off the small brick building to get at him. Or other messages sent
down the same line because signals could not be lit at twilight due to lions
roaming the area. In the days of single track systems, train drivers had to know
for certain whether a switch was open or closed, otherwise a collision and loss of
life would result. Of course the telegraph also closed the communication gap
between towns along the right of way and allowed the railway to survive, but it
could not escape being called The Lunatic Express.

This fall, Brandylane Publishers, a small independent press that has been
publishing books since 1985 in Richmond, VA, will publish "The Iron Snake," a new
historical novel by John Gaudet based on the saga of this same railroad and the
people affected by it
(brandylanepublishersinc@yahoo.com).


Web Site = http://www.brandylanepublishers.com

Contact Details = Brandylane Publishers, Richmond, VA.
Media contact: Mary Tobey, Publicist or Robert Pruett 804.644.3090 or
rhpruett@brandylanepublishers.com; 5 South First St., Richmond, VA 23219
Book info contact: John Gaudet jjgaudet@aol.com; tel 703.465.5251; or
www.theironsnake.com