Divisions, subdivisions, districts?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hi!

Could someone point me to a good primer on, or give me a quick explanation of the common organization of US railroads in the 50’s and 60’s especially.

How large was a normal ‘division’? What did this structure do - did the division usually have one or more ‘division point yards’? Did the division have its own locomotive roster?

A guess that a division could consist of several ‘subdivisions’. Correct?

And a ‘district’? What is that?

A ‘branchline’ - was that normally part of a division?

I understand that the organization may have differed considerably between railroads, of course.

Thanks in advance!

/Linus

2

A division was a management unit, under a superintendent, consisting of two or more subdivisions. A subdivision was basically the length of line an engine and train crew was expected to cover in one day’s work. Nominally that was about 100 miles, but by the 50s and 60s could be longer. In some cases passenger crews, who travelled faster, might workover two subdivisions or districts.

Some railroads, like my favorite, the Santa Fe, used the term “district” instead of subdivision, but in organizational terms they were the same thing.

(As “division point” is often used in model railroad terms, it might be a terminal at the meeting of two subdivisions or districts just as often as between two adjoining divisions.)

There were many ways of designating branch lines, but the most common was to make each branch line its own subdivision or district. In that case, a crew might start on on a mainline subdivision and complete their run on a branchline subdivision. After a layover, they might start out the next day on the branchline sub. Or they might work a turn, starting on a mainline sub, running out and back on a branchline sub, and returning to their home terminal on the mainline sub. Almost any permutationof these patterns was possible.

On the Santa Fe, mainline districts were generally numbered, first, second, and so on, while branchline districts were named for a station on the district, often but not necessarily the district terminal. And there were places where a named district was a mainline route. Other roads might number or name subdivisions. Some large terminals were designated as subdivisions or districts, and again in that case a crew might start out on one subdivision and complete its run on another.

In a timetable and train order regime, a train must receive a clearance card at its initial station on any subdivision or district that it enters. In the 50s and 60s, that was also generally true for lines operated by signal indication under Centralized Traffic Control.<

3

Great answer, much appreciated - thank you very much for taking your time!

4

Andy gave a great overview, here’s a little more technicolor.

All of these geographical territories are variable in size. A division really has more to do with the number of people jobs or budget responsibility than physical size. A division could be just one terminal or could be thousands of miles of track.

A division might have a single “division point yard”, multiple “division point yards” or no “division point yard”. Some places had a division for the major yard and the road territory was a separate division.

Locomotives may be assigned to a division, or assigned for maintenance at a particlular terminal, but they wouldn’t necessarily be a separate roster. Locomotive can and would be shifted around between divisions over the years. There are exceptions for example divisions that were jointly operated by multiple railroads might have a separate roster for the shared power.

The division would generally be the main route or routes, each of which could be all or part of one or more subdivisions and all the secondary routes (branchlines/subdivisions/industrial leads/secondaries) that are connected to the main routes. The MP Louisiana Div., headquartered at Avondale, LA had 3 major route subdivisions, about 15-20 secondary subdivisions and 3 major switching yards plus 3 minor switching yards.

Different roads use different names for different geographical territories

5

Dave Husman wrote: “A district was an ATSF division.”

Sorry Dave, not correct. An ATSF district was the equivalent of a subdivision on other railroads. The Santa Fe did have divisions, which were composed of two or more districts.

For example, the Los Angeles Division had four numbered mainline districts, several named branchline districts, such as the Redlands District and the Escondido District, and one named district, the Olive District, that served as a mainline shortcut between the Third and Fourth Districts for trains between San Bernardino and San Diego.

The division headquarters was at San Bernardino, where the First, Second, and Third Districts all came together. The “division point” was Barstow, where the First District of the LA Division connected with the Needles and Mojave Districts (both mainline districts, although named) of the Arizona Division.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

6

Andy,
Thanks for the answer and taking your time to do so. I have printed your explaination and will file it for future reference.

7

Oops, my bad, Andy is correct.

One other consideration is that the boundries and names of subdivisions, divisions, regions, etc are all subject to change. Over the course of 10 years a railroad can have 36 divisions, 12 divisions, 24 divisions (seen it happen). What was one subdivision is now 3 subdivisions.

Probably the periods of greatest change were before WW1 and after the 1960’s. Before WW1 the small independent railroads were being consolidated into the railroads we are familiar with in the 1950’s. Starting in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and continueing into the 2000’s were the periods of the mega mergers In both of those times the physical size of the railroads changed dramatically and so the management structure changed to adapt to the different territory.

8

Employee timetables are a good source to find the actual boundaries of divisions, subdivisions, etc. It wouldn’t be unusual for names and boundaries to change over time, so getting timetables consistent with the period modeled would be best.

9

Some railroads had divisions that covered several states, while some railroads had divisions that were quite small. The Missabe Road wasn’t all that big geographically, but had two divisions based on the two railroads that had merged to create the DM&IR (the Duluth Missabe and Northern, and the Duluth and Iron Range). Trains going from one division to the other had to do a crew change; often they worked it out so two trains met going opposite directions and the crews just swapped trains.

10

The Wabash RR had divisions and districts too. For example, the Montpelier Division at Montpelier, Ohio had the 3rd District (Detroit to Montpelier), the 1st District (Toledo,Ohio to Peru, Indiana ), the 2nd District (Peru to Tilton, Illinois) and the 4th District (Montpelier to Chicago), though the Wabash tackage on the 4th District technically ended at Clarke Jct, Indiana near Gary. Thus, trains btw Detroit and St. Louis would run on the 3rd, 1st and 2nd Districts on the Montpelier Divison. At Montpelier was a yard, large depot, roundhouse with servicing faclities, superintendent’s office plus all other administrative offices for the division. The west end of the 4th District was controlled by the Chicago Terminal Division and it did run on other railroads like the Chicago & Western Indiana and the Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal RR. Of course, there were other divisions on the Wabash like the Decatur Division, Moberly Division, Buffalo Division etc. But the district numbers continued up in the teens. No district number was duplicated even if it was in another division. There were a couple of short branches in the Montpelier Division but they just followed under the district they connected to but with a seperate timetable.

I stand to be corrected, but I think on the Nickel Plate a district was the equivilent of a division and and what the Wabash would call a district was called a sub district on the NKP?

11

Yes, employee timetables are a good source for this info but as to not changing often, Mark, that is not so. They did change more often than you think because of mergers and other conditions. The time of the Depression saw some radical consolidations. For example, on the New York Central the Lansing Division was consolidated into the Toledo Division and HiIlsdale, Michigan’s administrative offices and dispathers were moved. There were other changes system wide. Also, on the Wabash during the Depression, for example, the Detroit Divison was folded into the Montpelier Divison and likewise there were other changes elsewhere. What the auto age had not taken away in traffic the Depression did. Cost cutting measures were necessary in facilities and manpower. And many railroads were overbuilt in the first place and when it came time to “rationalize the plant”, the divisions were consolidated and infrastructure shrank. Also, often with mergers, new mangement has different ideas and divisions and districts change. I’m sure that others here can attest to division changes on their favorite railroad if the railroad has been around long enough.

12

Wabash, I said “It wouldn’t be unusual for names and boundaries to change …”, not that they didn’t change often.

13

I’m not an expert on the Nickel Plate Road, but I have friends who are rather heavily involved with it and some of its lore rubs off. The Nickel Plate’s divisions were broken down into numbered subdivisions, but it used the term “district” to designate parts of the system it added by aquiring or merging with other roads. Thus the Clover Leaf District was the NKP’s name for its former Toledo, St. Louis & Western lines, since the TStL&W had been nicknamed the “Clover Leaf.”

Another railroad to use “district” in this way was the Union Pacific. Its former Los Angeles & Salt Lake lines, between Ogden, Utah, and LA, were at one time designated the “South Central District.”

In both these examples, the districts referred to were composed of two or more divisions, and obviously this was quite different from the way “district” was used on the Santa Fe or the Wabash. It’s the English language, friends, infinitely flexible but often inconsistent.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

14

Sorry that I read your reply wrong Mark. It makes sense to me now.

And thanks for the clarification on the NKP Andy.

15

Expanding on Andy’s NKP example of the Cloverleaf District, it had four subdivisions. The first sub ran from Toledo, OH to Delphos, OH for 72.7 miles. The second sub ran from Delphos, OH to Frankfort, IN for 134 miles. The third sub ran from Frankfort, IN to Charleston, IL for 112.8 miles. The fourth sub ran from Charleston, IL to St. Louis, MO for 136.7 miles. The number of stations on each of these subdivisions was pretty much the same, so the length of a subdivision may well have been based on the amount of work a crew could do in the time allowed, plus interchanges with other railroads. Also, the Cloverleaf was single tracked for much of its length, so in an age preceding CTC, there may have been limits on how much traffic could be run on a given subdivision. The first sub had six scheduled freights per day (three each direction) and two passenger trains. With freight extras working the subdivision, there would have been meets to deal with. I find the PRR most confusing as their structure changed a lot over the years. I think the breakdown of Divisions, Districts, Subdivisions, and Branches surely varies from line to line. Your best definition is really going to be the employee timetables for the line and the era you are interested in.