Talking to John Perry Barlow about Gene Autry brought up the question of how you talked to trains.

Well, in the 50s we had to wait till a train approached to hand it up a message as it rolled by--or else in an emergency flag it down.
I looked now and saw someone asking online about the Y stick and people describing how messages were put into it.
Not one person mentioned that you had to hold it facing the right direction or you could take a brakeman's arm off.
No, we did not have radio communication with trains.