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WHISKEY SIERRA CHARLIE's
Trinidad desk: Tuesday, December 4, 2001: 15:19 MST
This is what the start of a typical weekday afternoon shift looks like on the CTC portion
of the BNSF Twin Peaks Subdivision between Trinidad, CO and Des Moines, NM.
Return to WSC's Dispatching Stories
All photographs, illustrations, and text on this web page © 2002 by Wes Carr.
DISPATCHING STORIES
>From west to east, here's what's happening:
At Trinidad, the M-AMADEN1-03 (Amarillo, TX - Denver, CO manifest freight) is on the main
track. The train's outbound crew went on duty at 1500, but is still getting paperwork
together. The crew will have to cut their power off and go downtown to pick up a couple
of cars before leaving town.
At Beshoar, a maintenance of way foreman is putting some track machines away in the back
track off the siding. He has track and time authority on the main track between the east
siding switch at Beshoar and the east switch at Trinidad, and another track and time
authority for the siding. I have placed a block (the blue arrow) on the west siding
switch, signifying that I have given him permission to take the west siding switch Beshoar
"on hand" to enter the siding. The block will prevent me from lining the switch
until I have verified that the foreman has returned the switch to "power".
Leaving the siding at Beshoar (after having met the MAMADEN113 and then waiting for
foreman Martinez to get by them) is the eastbound CNRMAMH008 (loaded coal, North Rochelle
Mine, WY - Amarillo, TX - Harrington Plant). At Barela, the coal load will meet a westbound
work train (WTRITRI1-04B) which has just left Trinchere. Consisting entirely of ballast
empties, the work train will run to Trinidad, run the power to the opposite end of the train,
and deliver it to the former Santa Fe. The train will operate over Raton Pass en route to
Belen, NM, where it will head east on the Clovis Subdivision en route to Pedernal, New
New Mexico for reloading.
A rail detector has been working in the Des Moines area most of the day, and it's under
the command of BNSF Foreman Gonzales as it works between Folsom and Branson. The switches
are still blocked from a few minutes earlier when Gonzales had permission to take them
on hand to enter the siding at Alps. He has since released his track and time from the
siding at Alps, but hasn't reported the switches back on power to me yet.
Between Alps and Folsom, Foreman Cardenas is making repairs to a defect that the rail
detector found (and which was protected by restrictive label IL:
DEFECT
).
Showing up at East Folsom and about to get stopped is westbound EMONJRM077 (Empty Coal,
Mossville, LA to Jacob Ranch Mine, WY). Before Foreman Cardenas went to work repairing the
defect, I placed signal blocks (the light blue
triangles) at the west end of Folsom to remind me to hold trains there. This will often
catch the eye of an astute chief dispatcher, who has the capability to view dispatchers'
DIGICON screens from his own workstation.
Finally, the ID's of two more trains -- EHAFEBM062 (Coal Empty, Halstead, TX to Eagle Butte
Mine, WY; out of Texline at 1450) and HFTWLAU103 (Fort Worth to Laurel, MT
high priority manifest, on duty at Texline since 1355 but not out yet) -- have been placed
on the screen at CTC Des Moines, the location where the trains will enter CTC territory
after travelling over 54 miles of TWC ABS territory from Texline.
Coincidentally, the HFTWLAU103 (the same one whose ID is shown on this screen) was
involved in a fatal collision with a parked grain train on the Casper
Subdivision at Arminto, WY four days later on December 7. My heart and prayers go out to
the family of the Casper engineer who died as a result of this tragic accident.
Some explanations of the DIGICON CTC screen:
Station names (usually the "station" is just a passing siding) and the corresponding milepost of the station
sign at each station appear in white at the top of the screen.
The
green
letter "
M
" above each station name signify that the corresponding
control points are in Manual control (as opposed to Automatic control, which the dispatcher has the option of using.) A
green
number
1
next to the letter M indicates the presence of a stacked, or stored route, which will execute after the presently lined route is used. Stored
routes are also indicated in
orange
on the track diagram. A dispatcher may "stack" or "store" multiple routes at a control point, but only the
first one will be displayed in
orange.
On the track diagram, the main track, sidings, and dual-controlled switches (ones which a dispatcher can control remotely from his desk,
or which
can be operated locally "in the field") are displayed. Other tracks, such as industrial spurs and back tracks, are not displayed, nor are the
hand-operated switches which allow access to these tracks.
Blue
labels (L1, etc) on the screen serve as informational tools to alert dispatchers to speed restrictions and other conditions.
A dispatcher can protect a newly-placed speed restriction or other restrictive condition
by making the label a
RESTRICTIVE label (illustrated in
light blue
), which
will prevent the dispatcher from lining a route over that track section until he confirms
that the train has been informed of the restrictive condition.
Other types of blocking devices (signal blocks ** see west end of Folsom **,
switch blocks ** see west switch Beshoar and both ends of Alps **, and a "Quick Block"
feature) are available as well.
Cleared signal routes appear on the screen in
green
.
This does NOT indicate the signal aspect displayed to crews "in the field" ; it merely indicates to
the dispatcher that a route has been selected and cleared. The signal indications displayed to train crews
may be green, yellow, lunar, etc.,
depending on the signal system and "field" conditions, but on the DIGICON screen, all cleared routes appear green.
I haven't illustrated it, but requested route that hasn't been cleared in "the field" yet
will appear on the screen as
.
Once the route has been established in the
field, it will become
solid green
on the dispatcher's screen.
Trains are represented by a
red
indication (with an arrow designating the direction of the train's movement into that track section) on the
track diagram. Normally displayed as white, an unoccupied section of track will turn red when a train enters it, breaking the signal circuit.
A section of track may also turn red in the event of a broken rail, broken bond wire, or when a shunting device is placed on the tracks.
The resulting indication on the dispatcher's CTC screen may be referred to as one of several different terms: "track indication",
"track light", "BK", etc. Occupied, or shunted sections of track which are protected by track and time authority, will
show
lavender
(illustrated between Alps and Branson, and between Alps and Folsom where MW forces are working.)
Sections
of track protected by Track and Time Authority (a form of
main track authority for maintenance of way workers) appears
blue
.
The two digit symbol above each train on the track diagram is merely an abbreviated DIGICON symbol; the corresponding
BNSF train symbol along with each train's identifying locomotive appear at the bottom of the screen in the WESTBOUND and
EASTBOUND columns. In the Overview Screen, DIGICON also abbreviates the ID's of Labels and MW Foremen,
and the dispatcher must consult the listings at the bottom of the screen to see
who or what they correspond to. Since space on the graphic display is limited, the screen cannot
display the ID's of two or more trains, labels, or MW foremen (or any combination thereof)
occupying the same track section. In such a case, the computer will assign
all ID's a single two-digit ID (in this case " IL "), and the dispatcher must consult the bottom of the
screen in order to identify the trains. Case in point: in this example, the " IL " ID
represents the overlapping Track and Time Authorities of Foremen Gonzales and Cardenas, and also
represents the restrictive label (
DEFECT
) placed by the
dispatcher.
Train ID's may be one of several different colors; the colors usually represent the trains' schedule adherence
according to the following guidelines:
green
- on time or ahead of schedule;
yellow
- less than an hour behind schedule;
red
- more than an hour behind schedule.
ID's for some of the "hottest" (highest priority) intermodal trains will often appear
silver
, as do the ID's
of empty coal trains being rerouted to a different coal mine than the train's point of origin.
Train ID's may also appear
lavender
if the train leaves CTC limits within the middle of a track segment, such as clearing
the main through a hand-throw switch.
At the far left of the screen is the former BN "yard" at Trinidad, Colorado. In reality, the yard only consists of three tracks: the Main,
Pass 1, and Pass 2, with a short spur track at the west end of Pass 2 (the West Spur) and another short spur the East Spur) at the east end
of Pass 1. Notice that at the west end of the yard, the control point consists of a switch from the main to Pass 1, and another from Pass 1
to Pass 2. There is no corresponding power switch from Pass 1 to Pass 2 at the east end; that switch must be hand-operated by
crews on trains leaving or entering Passes 1/2 at the east end of the yard.
You may notice some other interesting inconsistencies in the display: note that the distance between sidings varies (almost 16 miles
between Barela and Trinchere, for example, while the distance from Folsom to Des Moines is only 8 miles), yet the distance between each
siding on the DIGICON display is always the same. By the same token, sidings appear to be almost as long as each section of single track,
when in fact, the lengths of each of the sidings is 8,600 feet or less. Obviously, track curvature and grades are not represented. The
CTC screen is just a representation of the tracks and trains of which the dispatcher has control. It should be considered "not to scale."
In the bottom right corner of the screen, note the number and dispatcher's initials. Each BNSF dispatching desk has a unique 1-, 2-, or
3-digit number. Most of the former Santa Fe dispatching desks are identified by these numbers ("BNSF DS-6", for example), while the
former BN dispatching desks have, for the most part, retained the names by which they were known prior to the merger (Trinidad,
Alliance East, Fort Worth West, etc.) The dispatcher's initials appear below the workstation ID.
Dispatchers also have access to a second DIGICON
screen (not shown here) which provides locomotive information, train totals (loads-empties-tonnage-footage), as well as other information relating to the train's crew and their time on duty, the time
of the train's most recent O.S. (movement through a control point), the train's schedule adherence, and several other things.
WSC
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The opinions expressed are the webmaster's and do not represent the
opinions of the BNSF Railway.
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