Saw the Q106 again this evening (in God-awful light sigh) coming through Terre Haute. “Funny” thing happened to it, though. The DS (female) told the Q670 and the Q106, in that order, to keep 'em coming through town, signal indication. The 670 made it through just fine. As the 106 came by me at CP72, he was going slower than usual. Sure 'nuff, he came to a dead stop, with his head end just short of Locust St, and his train blocking all those crossings by the college. He had a Stop at West Haley. The SB Desk had lined a freakin Z train north through the Haleys. WTH??? It only turned into about a 15 minute delay, but jeez, I thought the Schneider deal was HOT system-wide. I was shocked to see it stabbed by a foreign train of coal empties.
Side Note: While the 106 was stopped, I saw a mother and young child looking at it, as if comtemplating hopping through it. (People had been crossing the line all evening, heading to a fireworks display) I drove down there to caution them not to, as the train might move any minute, and she assured me they wouldn’t. As I was talking to them, a college aged couple walked up to the train, sized it up, and hopped right up onto a well car and over the train. As hot as that train is, ready to lurch forward at any second, I was afraid I was going to see somebody mangled right in front of me.
That train has a specific cut-off at both ends (KC and at Marion, OH) and a specific availability expectation at the opposite end (about 32 hrs after cut-off.) As along at CSX and KCS make those commitments, all is well.
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess if it was ahead of its scheduled running time, the stop is no big deal. It still surprises me how it got stopped. It was a surprise to the IB Desk Dispatcher, too, or she would have held him at First Street (so as not to block crossings and the CP72 crossover). I guess I should be used to it. I’ve seen JAX put it to INDY several times; I was just shocked to see it happen to that train.
The first westbound train that ran (June 5th departure from Marion) arrived at KC 13 hrs early on a 32 hr run. Not bad. Overall, they’ve been arriving at both ends about 1-2 hrs early.
CSX has had a maint curfew which has made things a bit tight. That just ended so hopefully things settle into a rythym now.
He who has control of the signal, has control of the interlocking…it is as true today with dispatcher controled remote interlockings as it was when the interlockings were operator controlled on site. The dispatcher that controls the signal knows the management that he has to report to and differing division managments within the same company have differing priorities.