Train dispatcher

“ There must be, too, in the ideal dispatcher, an element of daring, for chances have to be taken occasionally, and in railroading, more than in any other business, he who hesitates is lost. Not of foolhardiness, be it understood, for the foolhardy dispatcher soon comes to grief; but he must, as it were, expect the best, not the worst, and govern « 120 » himself accordingly. Before he sits down at his desk, he must make up his mind that during his trick, every train is going to get over the road on time, and then bend every energy to accomplish that result. ”

“ The Train Dispatcher holds a most important position as respects safety of life and property. He may perhaps do more than any other official to secure it by care or endanger it by lack of vigilance. His relations to economy, too, are important. As the time of engines, cars, and employés, and of the persons and things carried, is of value, delay avoided is money saved.
It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the man who issues train orders should make it his especial business, and should have no interference from others. ”

“ The intense conditions of a terminal complicate such differentiation as among yard conductors.
Another factor of prime importance in determining the size of an operating division is the location of train dispatchers. The dispatcher’s table should always be considered an integral part of the superintendent’s headquarters offices. The train sheet is perhaps the best record on a railroad. It is never fudged by being made up in advance. ”

“ So the fireman bends to his task, the engineer stares absently out into the night, his hand on the throttle, the front brakeman dozes upon the fireman’s box, and back in the caboose, the conductor and hind-end brakeman engage in a social game of seven-up—
In safety, this time; for the dispatcher is one who knows his business and takes no chances. Proceeding on the theory that the train has got past, he keeps the track clear and holds up the road’s traffic until the missing train can be found. ”

“ Ordinarily, there is no danger to be apprehended from in front, because the dispatcher will permit no train coming toward them to pass the next station until the train which is in trouble arrives there.
As soon as the heated journal has been cooled sufficiently to allow the train to proceed, the engineer blows four blasts on the whistle to recall the brakeman. But, obviously, during the time that he is walking back to the train and the train itself is « 63 » getting under way, another train may come along at full speed and run into it. ”

“ The burden of keeping things moving and of getting the trains over the road in the shortest possible time, falls principally upon the dispatcher at headquarters, but every operator along the road bears his part, and an important part. He must keep awake and alert for any orders the dispatcher may wish to send him; he must note the passage of every train and report to the dispatcher the exact moment at which it passed; and he must be sure that the station signals are properly displayed, and that all orders are properly delivered. ”

“ By this method, the dispatcher keeps a record on the sheet before him of the progress of every train. He knows the exact position of every train, or, at least, he knows the last station passed by each, and the probable time of its arrival, barring accident, at the next station. His problem is to keep all the trains moving, to keep a clear track for the passengers so that they can run on time, and to arrange meeting-points for trains going in opposite directions so that there will be no unnecessary delays. ”

“ One of the lessons a dispatcher has to learn is to know when he is up against it; when he has figured badly; and when not to make a bad matter worse by vainly trying to retrieve a hopeless delay. A good dispatcher will know without being told that he has made a poor meeting point. Educate him to consider that as an error to be avoided under like conditions in the future; not as a mistake to be made worse by putting out more orders that may fail to help the stabbed train enough, and may result in having every fellow on the road delayed. ”

“ The operator, worn out by long hours, sometimes goes to sleep beside his key. His slumber is so deep that the roar of passing trains does not disturb it, nor the clicking of his sounder, as messages flash over the wire. But let his call be sounded, that short and insistent combination of dots and dashes which means his office—a single letter usually—and he will start awake. The ear has caught the call, has sent it into the brain, and some second-self there rouses the sleeper and tells him he is wanted. ”

“ Two things rather startled the young engineer, for they seemed to confirm hints and suspicions already in the wind. In a guarded way the official had referred to “harmony in the train dispatcher’s office.” He had next made an allusion to the fact that if competitive rivalry grew fierce, it might attract under cover a lot of disreputable criminals, and he spoke of extra precaution when the pay trips of the line were made, tallying precisely with suspicions already entertained by Ralph. ”

“ Fear of censure for delaying some important train makes the conductor "leery" about starting and the dispatcher timid about directing a prompt movement. When we begin wrong, how not-to-do-it methods always follow. The chief dispatcher will let freight be delayed in a yard for a full train with power needed at the other end, if he can start a light caboose without its being included in the average train load showing. How much better, and how much easier, to run two fractional trains in the direction of unbalanced traffic than one light caboose and another dreary drag! ”

“ The private has only to obey orders, without bothering as to their wisdom or folly; if a defeat follows, it is the general who must answer for it. So each dispatcher has under him, for eight hours every day, one hundred miles of track, and a regiment of operators and trainmen, who must obey his orders without question. That stretch of track is the battlefield, and the victory to be gained is to move over it, without accident, and on time, such passenger and freight trains as the business of the road demands. ”

“ The Dispatcher should be a proficient operator. He may not himself transmit his orders, but he should be able to read all that passes on the wire, in order to have an intelligent understanding of what is going on. He should be thoroughly acquainted with the location and length of the various sidings, the grades and curves, the capacity of the engines, and other matters which may affect the movements of the trains he has in hand, and some experience as conductor will be of value. He should be a man of « 19 » more than average ability, of good judgment, clear head, and strictly temperate habits. ”

“ He was unnerved and in a direful condition of suspense. Only the glad thought that no loss of life attended the collision sustained him.
The train dispatcher's assistant put in an appearance in about twenty minutes. ”

“ In arranging for those, at least, who have not become wedded to any particular method, general consideration should govern. If contests or inquiries arise on the wire when the Dispatcher is sending, time is occupied which he may very much need, and where the amount of work is large it will leave the Dispatcher more at liberty to attend to his special duty if he simply prepares his orders and hands them to an operator for the subsequent steps, and this is by some carefully insisted upon. ”

“ We are sorry to lose a first-class engineer, but we need you somewhere else, and need you badly.”
They were seated in the private office of the superintendent of the Great Northern, that august official and the young engineer of the Overland Express, and a long, earnest and serious colloquy had just ended.
“From what I have told you and from what you have personally discovered, it is more than apparent that a plot is on foot among our train dispatchers to cripple the running time of the road for the benefit of the opposition.”
“There is little doubt of that, I think,” said Ralph. ”

“ For each train that goes out, then, five men must be in readiness. The caller looks through his book, sees whose turn it is, goes to the dwellings of the men to be called, and notifies them of the hour they must be on duty. If any of them are ill or absent, he goes on and calls some one else. The passenger-trainmen, having regular runs, know, of course, the hours they must report for duty and do not need to be called. They are also paid a monthly salary, whereas the earnings of the freight crews vary with the amount of business done by the road. For each man must wait his turn. ”

“ Within the knowledge of the author a disastrous « 6 » collision resulted from an oversight in regard to the delivery of an order where a skilful official undertook to assist a dispatcher in an emergency. Between the two an important point was omitted; each thought the other had attended to it. Extreme care is necessary to carry out exactly the methods fixed upon for the proper preparation and issuing of these messages, and confusion is likely to result from interference with those charged with this duty. ”

“ If communication absolutely fails before the completion of this process, all that he has done goes for nothing unless communication is quickly restored. It is of the utmost importance that the Dispatcher know what will or will not be done by a train to which an order has been addressed, as this knowledge guides him in giving other orders. It would not be proper, even, to assume that a train would be held by the presence of an order addressed to it unless the accuracy of the order is assured, for an error may have occurred in receiving the address and the wrong train number may have been noted. ”

“ This is the problem which confronts the dispatcher every time he sits down before his desk.
All this flashed through Allan’s mind in that moment of reflection. And yet he did not really hesitate. He knew that the only road of advancement open to him lay through the dispatchers’ office. There was no way around. If he faltered now, he must remain an operator always.
“Of course I want the job, sir,” he said. “The only question is whether I’m good enough.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” said Mr. Schofield, grimly. ”

“ The Dispatcher's duty is not simply to direct each movement as the exigency arrives. He should be constantly on the alert to provide as far as possible in advance for the arrangements necessary for keeping his trains moving, and his mind should be free from anything that may interfere with this. ”

“ In those it is described as an extra and treated as any other train, but in the meantime it must keep out of the way of all regular trains, and the Dispatcher must keep it in hand and especially guard against having more than one extra on the same part of the track at the same time. Here is an element of danger where the necessities require frequent extra trains. Whenever practicable, trains should be run on a regular schedule, but it will often happen that there is no regular train upon which signals « 123 » may be carried for a train that must be run, and it must go as an extra. ”

“ Whenever I see an announcement that a division has adopted the telephone for train dispatching, I always feel that there should be an accompanying apology for being several years behind the times. For years progressive young railway men advocated the telephone only to be assured by old-time dispatcher officials of the unwisdom of such a course. Time and practical tests have shown that not only is the telephone practicable for dispatching, but it actually makes operation safer because of the increased human touch. ”

“ The official who is an old dispatcher has to fight in himself the temptation to be the whole cheese. He has to learn to trust subordinates with details. Every position entails some inherent temptations. The absolute, unquestioned authority given a dispatcher in train movements breeds a temptation to be autocratic and unreasonable, to put out too many orders, to give too many instructions. Therefore, try to get your dispatchers in touch with your crews. If the former are in a skyscraper uptown, get authority to build an office for them at the terminal where most of the crews live. ”

“ The dispatchers of the future will graduate from the train, engine and yard service, through the dispatcher's office to higher official positions. The man who gives the order will be a man who has once carried out such an order himself. The man below will obey the more cheerfully and the more intelligently because of increased confidence in the man above.
When the record is made up by the future historian, with that discriminating perspective which time alone can give, high will be the place accorded the railroad officials and employes of America. ”

“ There was, both at Byers and West Junction, a long siding upon which trains could be held until the track ahead was clear, but they were used only when absolutely necessary, for the ideal and constant endeavour of dispatcher, operator, and every other employee of a railroad is to keep things moving.
Only by keeping things moving, can a railroad be profitably operated. One stalled train soon blocks a dozen others, and any derangement of the time-card means delayed mails, wrathful passengers, irate trainmen, and a general tangle of traffic almost certain to result in accident. ”

“ The engine, with a full tank of the best coal, had already been run out of the roundhouse, and the train-dispatcher had the freights safely side-tracked, and satisfactory “meets” with the passenger-trains about figured out, when he was interrupted in his study of the train-sheet by a nervous ring at the telephone. The dispatcher answered it himself, and the foreman of the roundhouse announced that Pearson was sick, and unable to take the special out.
“That’s bad,” mused the dispatcher, but added, a moment later: “Well, send the next best man, and get a move on ”