With time table & train order operation the dispatcher has a train sheet, train order book and other “tools”.
What are the tools from the dispatcher in 1980, I guess today it’s the computer. Has he still the train sheet? When does they disappear?
Wolfgang
1980 would still be timetable and train orders in most places. Track warrants first showed up in the GCOR rulebook in 1986.
The train sheet is still in use on smaller operations. The track warrant computer helps avoid cornfield meets and such, but the train sheet is used for a record of what happened when (time at sub change, times at stations, etc). Some if this gets filled later, off the delay report. The customer service and car forwarding depts. also use this information for billing, car hire, demurrage, etc. I think the CTC machine would log similar information.
In terminal areas, you might not have track warrants issued, if everything is in yard limits. Just need to check any bulletins that may affect your movement, and watch out for other trains, red boards, impropery lined switches, etc., that you may encounter.
Train sheets are created, maintained, and updated either digitally or on paper. It’s the law. The railroad has to maintain them and keep them safe for 7 years. That’s also the law. It doesn’t matter whether your Method of Operation is Timetable and Train Order, TWC, DTC, CTC, OCS, or Block Register: you still have to maintain a train sheet that records all the information required by law.
Hardly anyone other than the smallest railroads with one train at a time still use paper, because there are very inexpensive PC-based TWC systems available. We last used a paper train sheet in 2000 at the Class 1 I worked at then. The last time I saw one in use at a regional railroad or large short line was about 2003.
RWM
On the major class 1’s the train sheet and the rule book are all found in the computer, well the equivalent to the train sheet. There is no document or no document is created that resembles a TT&TO train sheet. Train sheets dissappeared back in the mid 1980’s when track warrants were implemented. To add to Railway Man’s post, the railroads don’t have to keep a “train sheet” they have to be able to provide the information on a train sheet so the movements of the trains can be determined. The “train sheet” information isn’t produced in anything like the same format as a traditional train sheet.
The old relay-type CTC machine recorded automatically onto the train graph, which was a piece of paper entirely separate from the train sheet. The train sheet was maintained by the dispatcher manually. The train graph recorded the “OS” occupancies, that is, the time when a Control Point was occupied by a train movement – when a train enters it and when it leaves. An OS occupancy generates a signal to the CTC machine. A CAD console digitally records the information that used to go onto the paper train graph plus all the keystrokes and whatever is displayed on the console screens, enabling the console to be “replayed” exactly as it appeared to the dispatcher in real time. This is time-stamped so it’s possible to play back both the console and the telephone and radio transmissions all in correspondence, which is of course done any time an accident or event occurs. Speaking from a dispatcher’s perspective, the tapes are your friend; if you’ve done your job correctly, your job is safe.
On a CAD console the OS information that
My employer still uses a train sheet. Haven’t been to the office in a while. The dispatcher has two computers in the room, one with the CAMBS system for the track warrants, and the other with the RMI for customer service-car information. Customer service isn’t there 24-7, so the DS handles a good part of this work 2nd and 3rd trick (moving trains in the computer, spotting cars, handling dispo requests, etc.). No signalled territory, or AEI readers anywhere on the system.