A historic telegraphy routing class indicating a message sent at full rate for immediate delivery. Unlike deferred or night letters, straight traffic was pushed to the front of the queue and transmitted as fast as the operators and circuits could handle it.
Heard on the job
We've three straight messages waiting for the New York wire, so hold the routine traffic.
Insider tip
This term survives in older routing manuals but is largely obsolete outside of legacy telex and telegraphy systems.