Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-03-30
TRAIN DISPATCHING.
WORK so RESPONSIBLE AND RISKY
is YET FASCINATING.


ture''-Some Examples.
II tell you, boys, it's the most fascinat
ing work ever tried, and I've been rail
reading for 25 years and taken a turn al
everything from brakeman to division SUI
perintendent."
So spoke the train dispatcher TO a com
pany of railroad men and the reporter
Why" said the latter, Il thought train
dispatching was too risky to make the
sense of responsibility comfortable"
1T may be partly that at bottom, but q
train dispatcher to do his work must lose
sight of the awful consequences that might
follow a mistake. If he didn't, he'd lose
his nerve every time. Why, every train, oil
single locomotive for that matter, of the
hundreds whose movements he directs
every day is fraught with greater posi-
bi1ities of disaster, involving life or prop
erty, or both, than any man can contem-
plate and not want to desert the response
bility.''
But how can man put out of his mind
altogether those possibilities. so that he's
Mt to move trains without hesitation and
not get rattled?" asked the reporter.
We'll, it's the same answer to that as in
other cases where nerve is needed. It's the
confidence that comes with experience. II
you've run trains without accident, why
When the danger of catastrophe is lost
sight OF, y resumed the dispatcher, the fas-
cination comes in in the compleXity of the
problems which present themselves every
hour. How to get the most trains through
in opposite directions, giving each its
right over the others, Is the sum OF dis
patcher's task. 1t isn't enough to get each
train as it comes along through safely:
you've got to deal with scores at the same
time, look ahead and keep them moving"
You ought to be good chess player
suggested the reporter.
i do pretend to play a pretty fair game
and you're RIGHT. The same faculties that
sell in chess come into play in train dispat~h-
ing, but with trains you're dealing with
men that are, when under way out of
your control for time, SO that the difficult
ties of the game are in one way increased
by the introduction of moving pieces. So
while you don't wildly realize the possible
consequences of your move on the steel
ruled board. the dim consciousness You
have of responsibility makes the railroad
game big one.
And it's something only the human
mind can grapple with I've seen mechan-
ical contrivances used to follow on a board
the movements of trains with the idea of
checking the liability of the dispatcher to
drop a stitch and allowing him to think of
else without losing the situa-
ton. But, after all, it's the man who must |
De depended on to know that the board is |
rtSnS III 1t gets set wrong, the board of |
pegs only EN- harnesses him in trying to re- |
cover his picture as the boys call it.
"A train dispatcher has got to have n |
mental picture of the relative positions at |
any given time of all the trains under his /
hands. II that's gone, God help himi
by, I've seen man stand between |
TWO telegraph operators debating orders to /
one and the other as fast as he could talk
many "A time without anything between his /
and disasters, except the chang
ng, but at every minute whole and exact |
picture of all the miles of track which he
-uns. Suppose it is double track, with a
ew miles CT single track between and sid
ngs, his mind must work like lightning to
Keep them going and avoid collisions.
i &c seen MAN standing in the opera
ors' tower in such situations, debating, |
yrow suddenly white as a cloth. He had
ost his picture A moment Of awful sus-
'ense, and then with slsfisdt sigh, almost a
'roah, OF rerst be would recover it.
- Ehass instant unblurrcd, mental image
ties tf55c1i.ss faculty developed by the dis
atcher's business,
To give you an idea how complicated
hese mental photographs may be and how
many points, any one of perhaps fatal i'm
,ortance, the mind must take in at once, l
vas at one time dispatcher over n section of
touble track road of GO miles. Regular
rains passed a given point every four min
ties In this section was 10 miles of single
rack-a 'hogback is, grade both
Ways to its middle, requiring two locomo-
ives to pull trains up to the highest poirt,
When they left either of the double tracks.
With the regular traffic on the latter,
nd the locomotives coming back from the
logback, twice the ordinary numb and
ust as likely to cause loss to property, if
lot to life or trains, it quick work.
You must take in, too, the presence of trains
unning under special orders to put them
through Add to that the liability to an
c. Il for props to be forwarded
to the coInpany's mines to guard
Igairst a threatened cavein, and you have
|. good idea of the problems a train dis
,atcher has TO graphic with
Every once in awhile "a dispatcher gets
realizing glimpse of the responsibility
llaced on him by the way he is pulled up
or any irregularity. His superIors must
ie the strictest disciplinarians to guard the ,
.ornuany against losses For an illustra-
ion: One winter night l had train which /
had positive orders to put through 1t !
vas blocked at n certain point by passen- /
-er train stalled in the snow. l could over I
,one the obstacle in two ways-either push ,
he passenger through with an extra loco /
motive. or take the urgent lralh DIG, :
switch it to another track and go around ;
the. passenger train. The first way would /
take about 10 minutes, the other perhaps
An hour and a half. 1t was late to lose !
time, SO sent an order to push the passen- !
ger train out of the way. 1t was done, and
through my other train went all right.
made the usual note of the maneuver in
my daily report to the division superintend-
emit, and in day two got message that
ne would like to see me.
1.-The superintendent was one of the kind
who doesn't make any fuss, but goes to the
heart of the matter in hand. While speak
ing to me about some cnmmonplace sub