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Adding timetable and train order control to the C&W: Pt. I


Dispatcher Rick Kang is busy updating the trainsheet in the dis- patcher’s office, a spare room off the layout room (above left).


these problems and even got myself in- vited to a few more sessions to try them out. From reading hobby magazines for nearly 40 years I had a good idea of what this person called a dispatcher did, and realized I would probably need one of those, however, I had no interest in signaling or Centralized Traffic Con- trol (CTC) and neither was it right for my lightly-used secondary-line proto- type, anyway. Several local layouts used radio headsets through which crews could check in with the dispatcher, “OS” their trains and get directions on when to hold and advance. (OS stands for “On Sheet” and is the reporting of the time when a train passes a station. The dis- patcher enters the time on his train sheet as he keeps track of the progress and all of the locations of trains out on the line.) I borrowed some old Ra- dioShack headsets from a couple of friends and we tried them on the C&W a few times which, given we were oper- ating only every other month, took about seven months of real time. What I found was I didn’t much care for head- sets: I didn’t like wearing them, I didn’t like the cables and I didn’t like messing with them frequently to make them work reliably. One way or another I wanted to get rid of the headsets. After more direct experience on oth-


er layouts and brain-storming with ex- perienced model railroad operators in the area we came to the conclusion that I really needed to go to a time- table and train order (TT&TO) system, which,– whatta ya know–was exactly what my prototype used. I had avoided going this route initially. It seemed like a lot of work and arcane language, whereas what I thought people really wanted to do was “run trains.” I had re-


42


Copies of a rule book and CPR Employee Timetable relevant for the period modeled have proven to be invaluable TT&TO references.


sisted this, but it looked like it might be the best solution to my train control problem. Of course, I hadn’t designed the layout for TT&TO from the outset– not that I would have even understood what that would have meant when I was designing it–and now I faced hav- ing to retrofit TT&TO into the C&W. This created a number of challenges. The first challenge was where to put the dispatcher. I had had the foresight to put a small crew lounge directly outside the layout room (read: my darling wife Christiane insisted on a spare room for the kids) so this would have to be the lo- cation. There was no room for a nice large dispatcher’s desk, however, so a foldable card table would have to do. Much more problematic was the next


challenge. Where would I put the agent- operators who copy and relay train or- ders to the crew? Checking the proto- type timetable I could see that there were six train order stations active on


my modeled portion of the line during my time frame. I realized from the liter- ature and from operating on Anthony Craig’s Kettle Valley Division and Mike Chandler’s Midland Western that agent-operators could double up and support more than one station, though they may frequently become the bottle- necks as they get very busy copying and relaying orders and OS’ing the passing trains. If I split the layout roughly into two pieces, the eastern stations might be covered with one operator and the western stations with the other, then it might be doable. Perhaps I could put small, pull-out operator desks and phones at the end of the aisle ways? It would be cramped, and the additional heat load of two more bodies (2×~200 watts) would not be welcome on hot evenings. Hmm...,


these didn’t seem


like my ideal jobs anyways. Before committing to agent-operators we tried a hybrid experiment. We stuck


Table of select train order operator responsibilities (and the tools/mechanisms for doing this)


Dispatcher responsibilities Oversee status of all trains (train sheet)


Receive and record OS’s (phone[?] and train sheet)


Call trains and issue clearances (train line up/call board, clearance forms)


Set train order semaphores and clear them once the orders have been received (how?)


Develop, write, copy train and record train orders (rule book, train order forms and TO logs)


Crew responsibilities


Understand their place in things (rule book and timetable)


OS their trains (phone?)


Record their passage through junctions (train registers)


Receive train orders and acknowledge they had received them (how?)


Relay TOs to crews (how?)


FEBRUARY 2014


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