Dispatcher Woes

The Christmas Session was the second one we had remote dispatching (from far way Berlin!) and it worked well again. After 2 hours, the shift of the remote dispatcher was over and I took over.
 This was not easy, because the first-trick dispatcher did not provide me with documentation about each trains whereabouts! Of course, how could he? After all the information was on his desk and could not be transferred to Vienna!

So I had to ask each known train who and where it was and in which direction it was going. This is where CTC really has it's advantages, even if it is still not completed in JMRI. One train usually gets only 2 Track Warrants (From Staging to Avery and then to Staging) and the rest is done by signal indication. (Which, anyhow, confuses some engineers ;-) "...this is 202 in Adair - dispatcher, my warrant says to go to East Staging, but the signal is red and the switch is against me..." "Hold on, 202 - be glad that the signal is red because if it were not you would be dead by now, there is a train coming up against you..." (Names and locations deliberately changed!)


I really enjoyed beeing the dispatcher again because of this and the fact that many engineers are now able to make up the multi-tractions themselves and assign a FRED without my help. And then there is my youngest son who can do all this (and is the last one being able to climb into the confines of the upper helix. But as he has grown significantly in the last year I doubt if he will be doing this any longer!) and helps me alot.

With CTC all it takes is to set the turnout levers, the signal goes green (or yellow) and without any Track Warrant the train continues. Setting up a meet is a snap - just think ahead where you will let it it happen, align the turnout levers and don't forget to set them back after it has happend. Remind the engineers to report when they are clear so that the procedure is accelerated (not all cabooses are lighted, so a block occupation indicator is not always correct) and off you go.

Sometimes, though, you will create a gridlock with 3 trains on 2 tracks which will cause havoc on the rest of the trains as planned meets evaporate and well laid out plans are nullified.
In this moments, the safety logic built into the CTC panel will work against you as the dispatcher cannot align a turnout when the block it is in is occupied. This is a lesson learned and I will have to find a way to allow the dispatcher to align the turnout when the block is occupied without letting go of the safety it provides.

I hesitate to admit that I did not use a dispatchers sheet to record the train movements as I had the feeling that it would distract me from thinking ahead by fixing my thoughts on what already had happened not what was going to happen. I know that this is not prototypically correct and I will have to find a way around this. A magnetic board perhaps, where I can shift the train numbers araound? The ultimative geek-like solution would be to use transponding and get the numbers of the locos on the screen in JMRI, but that is no option at the moment...

All in all - happy times for the operations guy as there are so many things we can do now with software that were only possible with expensive hardware afew years ago!

Happy Model Railroading!