Been in the rail industry for 21 years. I've been in the communications industry for 25 years on the side. That's the first time I've ever seen a tuning fork used to key up the dispatcher. Awesome stuff.
Our Renzenberger drivers in Stockton, Ca had two tuning forks. When the radio systems went to narrow band, the tone changed to multiple tones. The tuning fork was representative of the DTMF sound made by pressing the digit 1 on the radio keypad. But narrow band brought about newer radios that had keypads as well as the new requirement to refine the dispatch or other department call in. For example, the dispatch might be digits 3-6-1 - * for the road dispatcher, but 3-6-4* for field support.
The one instance which brought a smile to my face was when an S.P. dispatcher (who will remain nameless), was dealing with a BN train on joint trackage -- when the BN engineer asked for clearance ahead of an S.P. train -- this dispatcher replied with a simple question. "What color is the nose of your locomotive?" Yes, this dispatcher had to deal with some reaction from "upstairs", but it still brought a chuckle to his telling of the story.
This video is very reminiscent of my time in the 80's and 90 working for the Santa Fe Rwy at the Albuquerque Division Operations Center Dispatching Office. We had a similar, but also different setup. All Field Personnel had DTMF key pads to contact the DS Office, even the lowly Crew Taxi's. We handled Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma. SF Dispatchers were aided by Communications Coordinators, and Asst. Chief Dispatcher's. A lot of the pressures those SP dispatcher's were complaining about were handled by us Communications Coordinators. CTC, Track & Time, Track Warrants were handled by the Dispatchers. Emergency and General Communications, calling out Field Personnel such as Signal Dept, MOW, Mechanical, Lining up crew pickups and setouts and Computer Data input was all on the Communications Coordinator. A Communications Coordinator also had to be a Qualified Control Operator. However, the FRA did not like the Communications Coordinators making updates to a Dispatcher's Train sheets. All we updated was OS, Pickups & Setout, Engine Consist changes and ETD updates. FRA instructed the Santa Fe to limit our access to the Train Sheets. By this time Santa Fe had also made the decision to consolidate all of if Train Dispatching Operation in Chicago and the Communications Coordinators jobs were abolished. Santa Fe then merged with BN and now the Dispatching Operations is in Ft Worth.
In the 80's I was studying to be a dispatcher for SP when dispatch was here in Tucson. I studied the rule book and the supervisor of dispatch was helping me to learn the job and I saw what the dispatchers did at "the board". The dispatchers are like air traffic controllers except they have to know more about the trains than an air controller needs to know. The train dispatcher needs to know the priority of the train, the length of the train the hours of the crew and the length of the sidings along with a lot of other things. The job is very busy and at times hectic. I elected to stay as a police officer rather than move to Roseville which is where dispatch was moving. I take my hat off to dispatchers.
Airlines have their own dispatchers that manage the planes/cargo/pilots, in addition to ATC which coordinates the specific progression. Not to mention that, except at airports, there's no maintenance of way work to worry about.
@@rosecitytransit I was just trying to show that the dispatcher job is very important and complicated not to say they were the same. I am a pilot and understand fully the difference.
Almost fifty years ago I got a train station job where I would several hours talking and listening every day. I quickly learned to forgo using the word "Right" unless I was talking about directions. Instead of answering a question with a Yes/No response I got in the habit of always saying "Correct" or "Negative".
As a retiree that spent the final 26 years of my 51+ year career in Dispatching in a centralized Computer Assisted Train Dispatching system - the problem is that territories are laid out based more on the number of signals and miles of track that a Dispatcher is responsible for than then number of personnel the Dispatcher is required to communicate with to operate his railroad - that includes MofW personnel, Signal Personnel as well as Train & Engine crews as well as Terminal Management personnel. It is EASY to line signals and move trains. Talking to all the required personnel take TIME AND THOUGHT. Time and thought that is never considered in the size of the territory.
@@averagewso, Outer space. Like way out man. I should have been more specific. That movie where they burn Earths last trees. Bruce Dern, Silent running.
Nice of SP to make a whole video to tell their employees: We will be remaining understaffed. We don't care how long you have to wait to talk to someone.
I was an engineer for the SP and UP for 53 years. Most of the dispatchers were pretty good. On a few occasions I visited the dispatching center in Redlands and Los Angeles. I saw the DS s at work and realized how busy they were. Hats off to them.
Whoo, whoo, whoo. As a 33 year airline pilot I can easily say that a RR dispatcher is NOT like an Air Traffic Controller. From my understanding, he’d be more like rolling the duties of an airline dispatcher AND air traffic controller into one! In the airlines I have a dispatcher who prepares and files my flight plan with the ATRC. Then ATC “manages” my flight. Integrating my flight with all other traffic from taxi-out to taxi-in. So, there are more people involved with aircraft movement; allowing for better efficiency & quick response in any emergency situation. Inflight for example; if I declare an emergency to atc that individual has the ability (most times) to call in another controller to work all normal flights in his/her sector so as to give FULL ATTENTION to the emergency aircraft. I also have my dispatcher at my disposal to assist in handling the problem. Doesn’t sound to me like the RR dispatcher has many he/she can have help out…more like they get it ALL dropped in their laps. My hats off to these folks!
Trains aren't like airplanes in that there are very few directions for a train to go. Also, weather and fuel is less of an issue. Train separation is much longer, you never get one train arriving every 90 seconds on the US freight network, like you do at JFK. That's why you have to wait on hold for minutes when you want to talk to the dispatcher.
Also in high traffic areas, trains have automatic signals so they don't need action by a dispatcher/signaler to move in routine operations, just like cars. There's no stop lights in the air.
My father started working for southern pacific after he got out of Vietnam. Once the teletype went the way of the dodo he started operating 3 tressels on the oregon coast. Coos bay ,Reedsport and Florence. I loved going out on those bridges .the original steam engine that powered the one in coos bay was still in the house on the tressel
Wont go into specifics and only tell part of the story . Many years ago a Track Inspector called Control on the crappy old wire telephone line and asked permission to access track "NO WAY" was response, of course he was keen to get going and so he heard what he wanted to hear OK. ... [ crunch ]
Hi Don! I’m still plugging along. VP now…Most everyone from SLO have passed. Barney, Steve Newman, Dave Carson, you name it. Give me a call one day and we can catch up.
The respective Unions okayed the railroad's plan to eradicate the caboose, and then they cut off the two brakemen from the train crews. You go from a 4-5 man crew down to 2 and maybe down to 1 in some circumstances. The railroads do what they want because the Unions let them. As Chuck D once said "Dont believe the hype.."
Running the train dispatch is NOTHING like ATCs. "Boo-whooo, I have 300 miles of signals ringing at the same time". Not every gate/signal is simultaneously calling in a 300 mile stretch. The problem is that it is unionized. I had an uncle and cousin that were both train engineers. The amount of $$$profit$$$ shipping by rail is huge and there no reason the equipment can't support a system like Starlink, and/or better comms with the coast-to-coast cellular towers and network protocols (LTE, 4G, 5G). All the $$$ has gone to the pockets instead of infrastructure maintenance and improvements.
I've often thought that railroads would benefit greatly by laying fiber optic cable alongside their tracks. Everythng could be tied in together with this fiber network and work much better.
@@williamjones4483 ....SP had fiber optics cables along their main tracks since the 70's. Ya remember SPRINT? The telephone company that came to life with the advent of cell-phones? That was formerly known as "Southern Pacific Railroad Intercity Telephone."
@@williamjones4483 most long-distance fiber optic lines ARE on Railroad right-of-way. When you spot a level(3) data center, there is going to be a train track very close by! Very often, when railroad tracks are pulled up, the continuous right-of-way is retained even though there is no longer any rail service. Perhaps a bike trail to keep easements from going away...
You're SO CLOSE to getting it. All of that revenue/profit flows upward to management, executives, and shareholders. Making labor unions the boogeyman has been HIGHLY successful at diverting attention from the actual beneficiaries of profits diverted from safety and efficiency.
Been in the rail industry for 21 years. I've been in the communications industry for 25 years on the side. That's the first time I've ever seen a tuning fork used to key up the dispatcher. Awesome stuff.
Primitive stuff. They won't pay for equipment to do it the right way.
@@markevan1 pretty sure comm equipment on this level has been phased out for 20 years now. as old as this video is.
@@markevan1 exactly. Too cheap to buy radios with built in tone encoders for the MOW guys.
Our Renzenberger drivers in Stockton, Ca had two tuning forks. When the radio systems went to narrow band, the tone changed to multiple tones. The tuning fork was representative of the DTMF sound made by pressing the digit 1 on the radio keypad. But narrow band brought about newer radios that had keypads as well as the new requirement to refine the dispatch or other department call in. For example, the dispatch might be digits 3-6-1 - * for the road dispatcher, but 3-6-4* for field support.
The one instance which brought a smile to my face was when an S.P. dispatcher (who will remain nameless), was dealing with a BN train on joint trackage -- when the BN engineer asked for clearance ahead of an S.P. train -- this dispatcher replied with a simple question. "What color is the nose of your locomotive?" Yes, this dispatcher had to deal with some reaction from "upstairs", but it still brought a chuckle to his telling of the story.
Pat that's great! I LIKE MSK DS 248 ,250.
She is great and just was more fun when she was DS 10 and coast & SBA sub ds..
This video is very reminiscent of my time in the 80's and 90 working for the Santa Fe Rwy at the Albuquerque Division Operations Center Dispatching Office. We had a similar, but also different setup. All Field Personnel had DTMF key pads to contact the DS Office, even the lowly Crew Taxi's. We handled Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma. SF Dispatchers were aided by Communications Coordinators, and Asst. Chief Dispatcher's. A lot of the pressures those SP dispatcher's were complaining about were handled by us Communications Coordinators. CTC, Track & Time, Track Warrants were handled by the Dispatchers. Emergency and General Communications, calling out Field Personnel such as Signal Dept, MOW, Mechanical, Lining up crew pickups and setouts and Computer Data input was all on the Communications Coordinator. A Communications Coordinator also had to be a Qualified Control Operator. However, the FRA did not like the Communications Coordinators making updates to a Dispatcher's Train sheets. All we updated was OS, Pickups & Setout, Engine Consist changes and ETD updates. FRA instructed the Santa Fe to limit our access to the Train Sheets. By this time Santa Fe had also made the decision to consolidate all of if Train Dispatching Operation in Chicago and the Communications Coordinators jobs were abolished. Santa Fe then merged with BN and now the Dispatching Operations is in Ft Worth.
Welp, that's the best "I need funding" plea I've seen for a while! 🤣
8:08 I had a non-speaking part in this video. Video was produced early 1995 before the cubicle walls were replaced with taller ones to reduce noise.
Video of Westley Hunter had to be from 94?
In the 80's I was studying to be a dispatcher for SP when dispatch was here in Tucson. I studied the rule book and the supervisor of dispatch was helping me to learn the job and I saw what the dispatchers did at "the board". The dispatchers are like air traffic controllers except they have to know more about the trains than an air controller needs to know. The train dispatcher needs to know the priority of the train, the length of the train the hours of the crew and the length of the sidings along with a lot of other things. The job is very busy and at times hectic. I elected to stay as a police officer rather than move to Roseville which is where dispatch was moving. I take my hat off to dispatchers.
Airlines have their own dispatchers that manage the planes/cargo/pilots, in addition to ATC which coordinates the specific progression. Not to mention that, except at airports, there's no maintenance of way work to worry about.
@@rosecitytransit I was just trying to show that the dispatcher job is very important and complicated not to say they were the same. I am a pilot and understand fully the difference.
Roseville in the 80s was an amazing place to live and work. But you probably made the right choice
Almost fifty years ago I got a train station job where I would several hours talking and listening every day. I quickly learned to forgo using the word "Right" unless I was talking about directions. Instead of answering a question with a Yes/No response I got in the habit of always saying "Correct" or "Negative".
As a retiree that spent the final 26 years of my 51+ year career in Dispatching in a centralized Computer Assisted Train Dispatching system - the problem is that territories are laid out based more on the number of signals and miles of track that a Dispatcher is responsible for than then number of personnel the Dispatcher is required to communicate with to operate his railroad - that includes MofW personnel, Signal Personnel as well as Train & Engine crews as well as Terminal Management personnel. It is EASY to line signals and move trains. Talking to all the required personnel take TIME AND THOUGHT. Time and thought that is never considered in the size of the territory.
Were you dispatching in Houston?
Wait till we go out to space
@@CONCERTMANchicago Think you are a bit late, we kinda did that in the 1960's
@@averagewso, Outer space. Like way out man. I should have been more specific. That movie where they burn Earths last trees. Bruce Dern, Silent running.
Nice of SP to make a whole video to tell their employees: We will be remaining understaffed. We don't care how long you have to wait to talk to someone.
To be fair they probably had like 7 months left until that was UP's problem.
Using a tuning fork instead of DTMF tones, that's interesting.
The tuning forks didn't last very long. We went to keying up the mic to do the same thing.
Wonder if that would make it STSF single tone single frequency lol
Still a super simple neat way to get older radios to engage a remote circuit!
ya thats cool as hell...looks like everyone hates the dispatchers in this video.
Some guys could whistle and hit the frequency for SP. I still have a tuning fork
I was an engineer for the SP and UP for 53 years. Most of the dispatchers were pretty good. On a few occasions I visited the dispatching center in Redlands and Los Angeles. I saw the DS s at work and realized how busy they were. Hats off to them.
I might have worked with you. I was out of colton from 98 to 2006.
@@casanova419 probably so worked the J Yard hauler, Torrance, El Segundo, the Coast, Saugus, Gemco, Oxnard, Gemco, ICTF, Industry
if dispatchers are that overwhelmed hire more… No they won't and the top brass there raking in cash…
The railroad not hiring enough people to keep the trains safe
My boyfriend still has his original VHS copy of this film; and one of the Denver Dispatchers in this film trained him when he went to work for UP.
Wow... I have stumbled into an amazing new world!
The train station at Sacramento still says "Southern Pacific Lines" on the building.
Love their computers.
About the time I hired on. 100 years ago. LOL.
We need "That is correct" today more than ever before!
great old footage !
I've read somewhere that SP created what used to be Sprint.
Southern Pacific INTernal communications. Lots of Lenkurt 45A microwave and Type 46 MUX
@@desertbob6835 SP Railroad Internal Network Telephoney (I believe)
SP was a good railroad - Uncle Pete ruined that like it did everywhere else (MP, WP, KATY, etc...)
1990's around 30 years old probably upgraded to something better today.
Thanks Paul!
That was a awesome video!!!!!
Yeah especially seeing CLEAN SP equipment, as the ES Pee wasn't noted for having the cleanest rolling stock.
Cotton Belt ruled!
Whoo, whoo, whoo. As a 33 year airline pilot I can easily say that a RR dispatcher is NOT like an Air Traffic Controller. From my understanding, he’d be more like rolling the duties of an airline dispatcher AND air traffic controller into one! In the airlines I have a dispatcher who prepares and files my flight plan with the ATRC. Then ATC “manages” my flight. Integrating my flight with all other traffic from taxi-out to taxi-in. So, there are more people involved with aircraft movement; allowing for better efficiency & quick response in any emergency situation. Inflight for example; if I declare an emergency to atc that individual has the ability (most times) to call in another controller to work all normal flights in his/her sector so as to give FULL ATTENTION to the emergency aircraft. I also have my dispatcher at my disposal to assist in handling the problem. Doesn’t sound to me like the RR dispatcher has many he/she can have help out…more like they get it ALL dropped in their laps. My hats off to these folks!
RR dispatchers have many they can have to help out
Trains aren't like airplanes in that there are very few directions for a train to go. Also, weather and fuel is less of an issue. Train separation is much longer, you never get one train arriving every 90 seconds on the US freight network, like you do at JFK. That's why you have to wait on hold for minutes when you want to talk to the dispatcher.
@@straightpipediesel plus there's maintenance of way work and other things that don't happen in the air
Also in high traffic areas, trains have automatic signals so they don't need action by a dispatcher/signaler to move in routine operations, just like cars. There's no stop lights in the air.
This is great!
Wow... great catch. Funny how the cars were honking trying to get there attention... keep moving forward. Lol...
My father started working for southern pacific after he got out of Vietnam. Once the teletype went the way of the dodo he started operating 3 tressels on the oregon coast. Coos bay ,Reedsport and Florence. I loved going out on those bridges .the original steam engine that powered the one in coos bay was still in the house on the tressel
3 trestles
I believe "interlockings" would have been a better word than "interchanges" at the 2 minute mark.
These people work hard. People could get hurt if they make a mistake.
At 6:00, that's the first female voiced detector I've ever heard.
All the SP detectors were. There were two voices. The other voice was pretty sexy sounding.
@@azrailroader Interesting! Wish NS had that.
1:00 content starts
2:08 That territory looks familiar!
Wont go into specifics and only tell part of the story . Many years ago a Track Inspector called Control on the crappy old wire telephone line and asked permission to access track "NO WAY" was response, of course he was keen to get going and so he heard what he wanted to hear OK. ... [ crunch ]
this is so old tect.
A tuning fork? Are you serious? DTMF tone radio patching had been in place since the 1960’s. Who the hell walks around with a tuning fork?
Thanks Paul. Where is Mike Chavez?
Mike passed away several years ago. His wake was a roast…lots of great Mike stories. He was one of a kind and will never be duplicated
@R.T. McCarthy Hey! Mac! How are you? You make retirement?
Barney Brown? Brackett? How are they?
Hi Don!
I’m still plugging along. VP now…Most everyone from SLO have passed. Barney, Steve Newman, Dave Carson, you name it.
Give me a call one day and we can catch up.
It's nice to see many original SP members on here. I was born months before the UP/SP takeover so absolutely late to that era lol
The respective Unions okayed the railroad's plan to eradicate the caboose, and then they cut off the two brakemen from the train crews. You go from a 4-5 man crew down to 2 and maybe down to 1 in some circumstances. The railroads do what they want because the Unions let them. As Chuck D once said "Dont believe the hype.."
Running the train dispatch is NOTHING like ATCs. "Boo-whooo, I have 300 miles of signals ringing at the same time". Not every gate/signal is simultaneously calling in a 300 mile stretch. The problem is that it is unionized. I had an uncle and cousin that were both train engineers. The amount of $$$profit$$$ shipping by rail is huge and there no reason the equipment can't support a system like Starlink, and/or better comms with the coast-to-coast cellular towers and network protocols (LTE, 4G, 5G). All the $$$ has gone to the pockets instead of infrastructure maintenance and improvements.
I've often thought that railroads would benefit greatly by laying fiber optic cable alongside their tracks. Everythng could be tied in together with this fiber network and work much better.
@@williamjones4483 ....SP had fiber optics cables along their main tracks since the 70's. Ya remember SPRINT? The telephone company that came to life with the advent of cell-phones? That was formerly known as "Southern Pacific Railroad Intercity Telephone."
@@williamjones4483 most long-distance fiber optic lines ARE on Railroad right-of-way. When you spot a level(3) data center, there is going to be a train track very close by! Very often, when railroad tracks are pulled up, the continuous right-of-way is retained even though there is no longer any rail service. Perhaps a bike trail to keep easements from going away...
You're SO CLOSE to getting it. All of that revenue/profit flows upward to management, executives, and shareholders. Making labor unions the boogeyman has been HIGHLY successful at diverting attention from the actual beneficiaries of profits diverted from safety and efficiency.
This is why they all derailing