Omaha daily bee., 1883-04-26
THE TRAIN DISPATCHER.
His Work and Responsibilities Gray
Hairs at Thirty-A Week Crowd
ed Into Eight Hours-Fscts
and Incidents in the
Business.

rtOh tht NioNthhhu IL
Great cares almost universally
hasten nature In heaping up the ap.
pesrances of age. Young men sud.
denly falling heirs to great response.
bilities 500 become prematurely old,
and not few have lost their identity,
oven to their nearest friends, beneath
the weight Of care suddenly imposed
upon them. Men rushing through
life with the burdens and respensibili-
ties Of ordinary mortals on their
shoulders, little appreciate the terri.
bly, heavy burdens horne by men upon
whose shoulders have been laid the
lives of hundreds of people and mill.
Ions Of dollars Of property.
"Yes, sir, I don't mind telling you
why 1t Is" answered the conductor of
one of the accommodation trains run.
ming out of the city, In response to .
reporters inquiry as to why his hair
wss so streaked with gray, while his
face indicated o young man scarcely
over thirty. "Many have asked me If
l had not at some period of my life
been the victim of some sudden and
awful calamity. You have read, Of
course, of hair turning gray In a single
tight through fright. Mine was not
caused that way. Was 1 born that
way2 Oh, no; at twenty my HAIR was
as black as a coal. These streaks of
gray were caused by my three or four
years experience as q train dispatcher
on q great trunk line running out of
Chicago.
People who climb on a passenger
train when she is two or three hours
late little imagine what endless plan
ming and management 1t takes to get
her through safely. Let a freight get
behind time and we can handle her by
running her on another trains time;
but a passenger breaks up everything
on the road. A train Dispatcher must
be familiar with every possible com.
bination of circumstances. He must
know on Just what portions Of the
road fast time can bs made, and give
orders accordingly. He must never
give an order for certain time to be
madeunless he Is positively ceitainthat
the grade and condition of the weather
will permit of such time being made.
To-day l may order Q train to run
from station A to B, and another
from B to A, when the same order to.
morrow, preciI late q collision. You
have got to know all men on the line.
Why, on the road I worked on there
would be engineers and conductors
that could never get a train through
on time. Then there would be others
tt at would eve be late except in case
of accident. Why, sometimes during
my eight hours of duty I would give
250 train orders. just think of that q
moment. Here Is q passenger train
four hours late and q freight
side tracked at almost every
station. OF course that puts
every train behind time. First l
have to order the operator to put out
his flag and hold the train for orders,
and then l have to send the order and
walt for 1t to be repeated back At
the same time a train may be passing
a station fine miles away, where !
want to hold and side track her. All
the time l must not only keep a clear
track for the passenger train, but
must unnecessarily detain the treights.
Sometimes right in the middle Of q
rush Of business like this the wire
will break or some operator will have
his key open. Then everything Is to
pay. Fortunately the train dispatch.
er's order Ia the law. Every employe
is bound to obey 1t. So We do not
have to worry about that.
"Did / ever have an acclden,2 No;
but I've come mighty near 1t. Once
I left the Office by permission in care
! of my assistant, and when I returned
I found that he had two trains coming
toward each other on a single track,
AID only 9 station between them.
Fortunately, l got q message to the
station in time to flag the first train
that got there, but If one of them had
happened to have passed there would
have been a fearful accident. 1t wa,
a very natural mistake. My assistant
had been with me two years. He hat
everything s~ide.tracked all right, bu'
had forgotten the 'unwritten law o.
the road prohibiting two trains passing
on a single track. On another occa
sion l lost q train"
"Lost a train2"
eyes, sir, lost 1t completely. 1t wa
q local freight, and wal . little late.
1t left + twenty minutes bchinG
time, and was due at M In forty min
utes, where Is was ordered to sid,
track for No. 8, q fast express. F
and M. were eleven miles apart, ane
No. 3 could not leave f. until the
local was reported side. tracked at M
Well, / waited an hour, and Their
called M, who had the message TO,
the local, and asked him where tn,
freight was. He didn't know. In tn,
meantime the express vas at F., ant
the passengers were getting mad
Thirty minutes more and still
no train. Then I ordered No. 3 t,
run oautionly to M. She did so, Blu
fouod no locals. To say that We yer,
paraly zed Is putting It mildly. Tsl
minutes later W., q little station nea
the city, reported the local there. Sh
had had got by M. In some way with
out disturbing the operator. Dlogene
never hunted so diligently for q
honest man In the degenerate days Il
which he lived, as We did for ths
train"
"Why did you leave the buslness2
because / was gro wing q yea
every week. / had the woik Of to-
mon upon my shoulders. You oftel
hear about the brave engineer clingip
with firm resolve and calm resignatio
to the throttle while the engine
plunging on toward inevitable d.
struction. His respo. sibility Is moth
ing. He has only a single train, an