Who was the train dispatcher who sent a warning message to another passenger train in the December 6, 1917 Halifax maritime disaster?
Vince Coleman (train dispatcher) Patrick Vincent Coleman (13March 18726December 1917) was a train dispatcher for the Canadian Government Railways (formerly the ICR, Intercolonial Railway of Canada) who was killed in the Halifax Explosion, but not before he sent a message to an incoming passenger train to stop out of range of the explosion. Today he is remembered as one of the heroic figures from the disaster.
Harold Cottam Harold Thomas Cottam (27 January 1891 – 30 May 1984) was the wireless operator on the RMS "Carpathia" when the SOS from the sinking RMS "Titanic" was sent. It was also he who awakened Captain Arthur Henry Rostron after receiving the distress signal. Without his diligence, and the somewhat fortuitous circumstances, many more people might have died in the "Titanic" disaster. Cottam was off duty and about to go to bed, but he left the radio on and listened to the news from Cape Cod. He heard Cape Cod advise that they had private traffic for the "Titanic" and thought it would be helpful to inform the "Titanic" of this. In reply he received Jack Phillips's SOS call.