gpullman (Ed) was kind enough to post a Chicago & Western Indiana photo album on the Chicago & Western Indiana thread, and a 2009 photo caught my attention. It was a color photo of Pullman Junction at 95h Street and Stony Island Avenue on the southeast side of Chicago.
Pullman Junction is a famous Chicago junction where 10 different railroads crossed in its heyday. It is still quite active today.
Running east-west through the junction were the BRC, BOCT, Rock Island (CRIP) and the Pere Marquette.
Running in a more north-south route and crossing the east-west tracks were the Wabash, Erie, Monon, C&WI, C&O and Nickel Plate.
That photo is looking east down the BOCT, Rock Island and Pere Marquette tracks. To the left of those tracks is the BRC tracks. Curving from the upper right to the lower left, across the east-east west tracks, are the Wabash, Erie, Monon, C&WI, C&O and Nickel Plate.
There are too many Chicago junctions to talk about all of them, but a few like Alton and Pullman just had so much traffic from so many railroads that I hope our fellow members find the discussion, photos and diagrams interesting.
Now how cool is this? It looks like the âClassic Trainsâ Forum has come roaring back to life and the âChicago Syndicateâ has taken over completely!
Hey, itâs all good! If Iâve got something worthwhile to say Iâll join in otherwise Iâll just enjoy the conversation!
The reality is that the junctions âgrewâ over time. From two carriers crossing each other and over they years up to the final manned configurations While each carrier had their own book of rules, the rules for each carrier were similar enough that when it came to such high activity junctions everybody knew the ârules of the gameâ. The Operators at each junction knew the name of the company on the top of their pay checks and handled priority accordingly. Train Dispatchers worked with the operators and most all operations were conducted by Signal Indication (no Timetable & Train Orders method of operation) in high activity era.
Operators communicated with the Operators of adjoining towers/junction locations as well as the Dispatchers of each carrier at the junction. Needless to say the communications would be short and consise - nominally Train ID, Engine number and OS of the departure - which the Dispatcher logged on their train sheets and the adjoining Operators used as their advance notification.
For the most part, moves would be repetitive on a day for day basis. What happened on Monday would happen on every Monday and it would likely be different than what happened on Tuesday - as both freight and passenger were subject to specific moves on specific days. (The City of Miami, South Wind and Dixie Flagler - providing daily service between Chicago & Miami with daily service on three different routings and originating carriers). By the same token specific industries might only be serviced on specific days.
With the advent of CADS (Computer Assisted Dispatching System) the high activity junctions have always been a tough nut to crack. Question #1 which carrierâs Dispatcher will have control of the junction? Question #2 how much of the Dispatcherâs time will be devoted to the junction, versus other territory? Question #3 - How much money will be necessary to facilitate placing the junction and its signaling into a carriers CADS?
Sometime the answers to the questions is - leave the mess alone, for now.
that puts the operation into prospective BaltACD never thought about passenger carriers being set time everyday and fright changing daily . it is amazing how they were able to keep up thank you.
So, in general terms, based on your experience, how long do you think it would have taken a rookie tower operator to really get the nack of remembering the âdailiesâ when these big junctions were at their busiest back in the day? (Iâm a little slow so for me personally I doubt Iâd have the routine down pat until at least 3 months had passed.)
Some of the Towers at âcomplicatedâ junctions likely had an Operator that handled to communications with the Train Dispatcher(s) and the adjoining towers on each of the routes through the junction. The Operator would likely have one or more âLevermenâ that would actually line the routes and signals as directed by the Operator.
There are limits as to just how much work a position, any position in any industry, can perform correctly and safely.
When I first went to Jacksonville and CSXâs Dispatching Center, MOST all the dispatchers were people that had dispatched the territories they were dispatching in Jacksonville were the same territories they had dispatched when they were located in field locations. It wasnât long after I got to Jacksonville that discipline and retirements started creating vacancies, vacancies that forced CSX to create a specific training curriculum for new Dispatchers. Once the newly qualified Dispatcher began working the existing territories it became evident that the inexperience prevented them from being able to fully do the job in the manner that the experienced Dispatchers had been doing. The response of CSX Management was to begin to split some of the existing territories so that the work load would not exceed the abilities of the new Dispatchers.
As info, the Dispatcher training curriculum was about 6 months devoted to learning the Book of Rules and its application to the Dispatcherâs craft as well as learning the intricacies of the CADS system and hot to manipulate its features correctly. After successfully completing the âclassroomâ portion of the training the trainees were assigned to Divisions in the Dispatching Center. Trainees were required to become Qualified on three dispatching desks on that Division. Trainees were allotted two weeks per trick per desk - thus a minimum of 18 weeks in OJT. Not everyone managed to get qualified within that span of time and additional time was alloted.
In my experience I never worked at a location that was extensive enough to require a Leverman in addition to the Operator - I just know that the existed.
How dispatchers and tower men kept control of all those diamonds is beyond me! 
