Yesterday, on Tracks Ahead, they showed the Harriman office (UP) at Omaha. I did not realize that dispatchers were so centralized. I got the impression that all UP dispatchers work out of Omaha. In Milwaukee, three subs converge at Butler yard - Adams, Shoreline, Milwaukee. Are the dispatchers for these really in Omaha?
If so, is this a typical setup for RR’s? CP, with Watertown sub and C&M(?) west and east of MKE respectively, would have their dispatchers where?
Yardmasters, at least UP’s Butler, are at the yard. I know because I poked my head into the office one day and recognized the voice of the ‘guy on the radio’. What do they ‘see’ of the bigger picture. That is, traffic outside the yard?
There was a trend in the last couple decades to centralize all the dispachers. UP in Omaha,BNSF in Ft. Worth,CSX in Jacksonville. But recently some railroads have set up joint dispaching in high density areas like San Bernadino and Houston.
That’s partly why they call it “centralized traffic control”…the American side of the CP (Soo Line) has the dispatchers in the Soo Line building in Minneapolis,Mn…I don’t know where the Canadian side is-maybe Calgary ?
In Fargo/ Moorehead there is a line the BNSF runs on. In Moorehead Minnesota there is an area called Moorehead junction. This is were the double track BNSF mainline crosses over the Ottertail Valley railroad. Heres a picture of the area. All the wyes and the tracks leading off the area are controled by dispatchers located in Austin Texas 1500 miles away.
The diamond is actually to the right of the picture and the wye in front, is one of the eight swicthes located in this part.
the BNSF yard would be a mile from this spot and it is all controled by the dispatchers in Texas.
This is mostly true for many railroads.
NS dispatchers are located in each division headquarters city, for example, the Pocahontas Division is headquartered in Bluefield, WV, and the dispatchers are also there.
CSXT only dispatches the original CSX side of the railroad from Jacksonville. The Conrail territory is dispatched from Selkirk (Albany) NY and (I believe) Indianapolis, although that part is a guess.
Its a good thing the CR territories haven’t been moved to Jax. I don’t think the folks on the Boston Line could handle (or understand) the southern drawl on the radio!
I listen in on the NS Chicago - Fort Wayne line and it is dispatched out of Fort Wayne…or at least I think so. NS withstood the trend to keep things centralized. CSX now seems to be moving back to decentralization. Lets face it. All of that control in one point, which is also inthe hurricane district doesnt exactly make sense.
I could see certain advantages to central dispaching, especially when the dispachers need to communicate with eachother to cordinate moves. But your right, putting all your eggs in one basket seems a bit risky, especially in hurricane territory. I think these joint regional dispaching centers like in San Bernadino are a good idea when you have multiple freight roads and Amtrak and commuter trains all in the same area.
I wonder how many ex SP employees stuck with all the moves from Roseville to Denver to Omaha and back to California (San Berdoo)
It would be just as bad to have a “drawler” dispatching in the upper Midwest. True story: I once had a boss of Finnish extraction who was originally from MIN-NE-SO-TA, YA. I have a VERY thick Southern drawl. It took us about 3 months to get to where we could communicate, and there were still times when one of us would have to spell a word. Quite an experience.
When I was doing my MBA studies about 15 years ago, I did research and a paper on centralization vs decentralization and compared UP with Ma Bell. IIRC the cost drivers are as follows:
-when communication was slow and expensive (precomputer days) then decentralization made economic sense.
-when communication became cheap, but computing power was expensive then centralization made sense to best utilization computing. This also allowed significant reductions in the layers of management.
-now both communication and computing are cheap, decentralization avoids the risks of centralization and provides significant redundancy - if you can deal with remote management.
We should be glad the dispatchers are not speaking with an Indian accent!
