Train dispatchers are required to be intimately familiar with the physical characteristics of the railroad territory for which they are responsible, as well as the operating capabilities of the locomotive power being used. They were addressed to a particular train or trains and directed that train or trains to do whatever the train dispatcher had decided needed to be done: meet another train, wait at specified locations, run late on its published schedule, be cautious under the circumstances described or numerous other actions. Train orders supplemented the timetable and the rule book. The operating, or official, timetable established train numbers and schedules meeting points for those trains showed the length of passing tracks at each station as well as indicating the locations where train orders might be issued and contained a variety of other information which might be necessary or useful to train crews operating trains over the territory covered. The operating rule book, later standardized for all railroads, contained the basic rules for the operation of trains, such as the meaning of the all fixed, audible and hand signals the form, format and meaning of train orders and the duties and obligations of each class of employee. įrom that beginning, a system of train dispatching evolved. Charles Minot, a Division Superintendent on the Erie Railroad is credited with the first effort to control the movement of a train beyond the rule book and operating timetable, when, in September 1851, he sent a telegram to a railroad employee at another location directing that all trains be held at that point until the train Minot was riding could arrive.

Rail traffic controller simulator