The dispatchers are often controlling the trains in an abstract and symbolic manner on video screens.
They have to relate the symbols to real objects, places, and people in their minds.
Do the dispatchers get out of the control room and tour the rail system?
Even if they did, it would be hard for them to master the vast geography of the territory they control.
In a Trains piece, Doyle McCormack (sp.), the PA restorer, told of his dispatcher father having to go out on the line once a year. And that was to stay qualified on his 100-mile district!
Today, a locomotive-engineer friend complains of Texas-based dispatchers often doing things like putting his coal train in the hole at the bottom of the worst hill on the division. We can be reasonably sure the dispatcher isn’t stupid … but he IS a thousand miles removed from my friend’s train in North Dakota!
The dispatcher’s view on the computer monitors would be enhanced by topographical maps made from satellite gathered measurments and images.
I have long had the impression that the DS (or, Delayer) had to know the topography of the area of his responsibility. Pity the man who has to work five different areas during his work week–I assume that each DS works five 8 hour shifts a week; it would take four DS’s, each working 5 shifts–plus one who moves around from area to area to provide 24/7 coverage.
Why didn’t you say so in your original post? Maybe dispatchers don’t have to get out of their bunkers anymore.
Current ATDA contract on my carrier does not permit Relief jobs covering more than one desk (territory). The Tag Day (unfilled rest day) is covered from the extra list.
Despite road knowledge ‘S…T Happens’ and mistakes get caused by a bad decision that was made 4 hours earlier and was unable to be rectified by unfolding events.
Successful Dispatching is all about VISION. The ability to know enough about the operations that will be happening over the next 6 to 8 hours, and the ability to plan for those movements to not be in conflict with each other. Knowing the length, tonnage, power and HOS times for each train on his territory and where each train can fit on sidings on single track territories as well as the consequences of stopping at train at those sidings (grades for getting started as well as grade crossings in the siding).
Trains have specific work they are expected to accomplish - pickups, set offs, crew changes, yarding in a terminal, moving to a different subdivision, passenger operations, station stops - etc. etc. etc. In most of these actions the train doing the work must be on a specific track at a specific location to accomplish its task. Trains may be prevented from doing their normal ‘work’ because the yard or terminal is not ready for their move - maybe for 10 minutes - maybe for an hour - maybe for 4 hours - maybe for more than 12 hours - the circumstance are constantly changing.
The simple act of lining signals is the least of the Dispatchers concerns. Handling ‘mandatory directives’ with train crews and MofW personnel which require transmission of the directive to the field personnel in a specified form as well as the field personnel repeating the directive they have copied in the exact form it was transmitted - this a
I drive I-40 between Williams, AZ and Albuquerque several times a year and have my scanner turned on to listen to the BNSF operations which parallell the highway. Most of you know this is double track CTC with 50 MPH x-overs about every 10 miles and it has Amtraks 3 and 4 to mix with the BNSF’s 100 ± trains each day. I am amazed at how well the crews and the DS’s make this work.
There is a DS assigned to each: Belen-Gallup; Gallup-Winslow; Winsolw-Seligman and Seligman-Needles. The very polite communication which occurs indicates that these people have become accquainted and respect each other.
Yes, there are anomolies where the s… encounters the fan; and when the crews have to be picked up because of HOS, but sometimes trains are stopped, crews exchanged and everything keeps going.
If any of you have the opportunity to listen as you follow the Transcon on I-40 I recommend this for your entertainment.
Hiccups that give DSs ulcers - a portion of the CSX Chicago Line turned into a parking lot, at least for a little while, when a train suffered either an unintended emergency application or got tagged by the defect detector (I missed which it was), which not only delayed the train while it was inspected, but also caused the crew to run out of time, so the train got parked a little further down the line. On the main.
Then a train that had apparently been hung up behind the first had it’s lead loco quit, which threatened to lengthen the parking lot. They got that one started again.
The line has plenty of crossovers, but at oh-dark-thirty, there’s a lot of traffic on the line, too, so I now understand why at least one of the DSs on that section keeps his head shaved…
What makes you think he shaves it to make it look that way… ?
Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I think I know this one! He shaves his head so he doesn’t pull his hair out?
No, he pulled it out so completely he doesn’t have to shave it ‘pre-emptively’. And what little grows in gets pulled out before it can ‘show’…
Having been involved in aviation for over thirty years I am more familiar with air traffic control but presume “rail traffic control” is decidedly paralell. As Balt says, if you don’t plan ahead, the hole you’re digging keeps getting deeper.
The difference is in many cases the ATC can change the dimensions of the ‘playing field’ by working in another flight level. In railroading - the playing field and resources you start with are all the ones you have to play with - and those resources can fail creating additional problems.
But PLAN is a four letter word the neither discipline can do without - not only for the original plan - but the plans you have to be reviewing in your head for your response when something in Plan A fails and Plan B fails etc. etc.
While I’m sure they have track and grade profiles available, I don’t think they are displayed on the “working” screens. Most of our crew change locations now have displays showing the dispatcher’s screens. We can see where trains are and what the dispatcher is doing. They have a lot, but not all, of the same detail the dispatcher has.
They are not to scale. In one spot, at junction points for example, the screen might show 1 or 2 miles in 6 inches. In another there might be 10 or 15 miles packed into 6 inches. Just depends on how many control points and their individual complexity required to be displayed.
Jeff
I worked for 45 years in th information technology industry When I was a computer operator, I had situation ranging from 1 to 5 programs abruptly ending at the same time to a powe failure that brought the entire data center down. All you can do is take a deep breath and let your training take over and solve the problems.
Dispatchers may also have access to track geometry car video which shows a similar view to a train traveling down the track, often available in both directions. Some newer video is similar to “street view” where the viewer can scan 360 degrees around the area.
I believe I owe Andrew an apology for misreading his post. He seems to be saying it would be DESIRABLE for dispatchers to have these maps, not that they have them already. Sorry, sir.
Are you speaking from experience, or just guessing?
Dispatchers can’t be exposed to sunlight, get wet, and don’t feed them after midnight.
I can’t speak for now but I know that dispatchers used to ride some of the territories when they’d let them. Frequently, we’d hear that they’d request to ride but were told that they couldn’t spare the manpower for them to be out of the office. Our universal gripe was that they’d always ride the fastest trains instead of what we thought they should ride, the trains that took the worst beatings across the road, for a look at what we thought was “real life”.