Show THE TRAIN DISPA dispatcher ills and responsibilities gray hairs at th thirty airty A week crowded into eight ellit hours facts and incidents in the it Busin business esq from froin uie tile cleveland lie herald raid great cares almost universally hasten nature in heaping up the a appearances pe arances of age 1 oung men suddenly anly falling heirs to great response b abilities bili ties soon beco become me prematurely old and not a lew have lost their identity even to their nearest friends beneath the weight of care suddenly iud denly imposed upon them men glen ru rushing through lifo with the bu burdens and responsibilities of ordinary mortals on oil their shoulders little appreciate preci reci ate the terrible heavy burdens borne borne by men upon whose shoulders have been laid th elives of hundreds of people and millions of dollars of property yes sir I 1 dont mind tellin telling you why it ie is answered the conductor conductor cofone of one of the accommodation trains running out of the city in ill response to a reporters inquiry as to why his hair was so streaked etre aked with gray while his face indicated a young man scarcely over thirty many have asked me if I 1 had bad not at some period of my life beena been a victim of some awful mf calamity you have read of course of hair turning torning gr gray I 1 y in a single night through fright mine was not caused that way was I 1 born that way oh no at twenty my hair was as as black as a coal these streaks of gray were caused by ray my three or gr four years experience as a train dispatcher on a great trunk line running out of chicago people who climb on a passenger train when she is two or three houra hours late little imagine what endless planning and management it takes to get her through safely let a freight get behind and we can call handle her by running her on another trains time but a passenger breaks up on the tile road A train dispatcher must be familiar with every possible combination of of circumstances he ile must know on just what portion of the road fast time can be made and give orders accordingly he must never give an order for certain time to be made unless he is positively certain tl that bat the grade an and condition of the weather will permit time be ft T VY 1 train to run from station i A an fn tu i and another from B to A when tho the same a me order tomorrow to morrow would cause a collision you have got to knew all men on the line why on the road I 1 worked on oa there would be engineers and conductors that could never get got a train through I 1 on oil time then there would be others that would never be late except in case me of accident why sometimes during my eight hours of dut duty r 1 would give train orders just th think ink of that a moment here flere is a passenger train tran four boura kours late and a freight bide ide tracked at almost every station of course that puts every train behind time first 1 I have to order the operator to put out ili his s flag and hold bold the train for orders and then I 1 have te to send the order and wait for it to be repeated back at the same time a tran may be passing a station five miles away I 1 where I 1 want to hold and alid sidetrack side track her all the timo I 1 must not riot only keep a clear track for the passenger train but must unnecessarily detain the freights sometimes right in the middle of a rush of business like this tho the wiro wire will break or so some in e operator will wil I 1 have b his is I 1 key ley L ey open then everything is to pay foi fortunately the tram train dispatchers pat chers orders is the law every employee is bound to obey it so we do not have to worry about that did I 1 ever have an accident no but ive come mighty near it once I 1 left the office by permission in care of my assistant and when I 1 returned I 1 found that he had two trains coming towards each other on a single trac tracked track kand nd only a station between them fortunately I 1 got a ft message to the station in time to fla flag the first train that got there bulia but if one of them had happened to have pa passed sed there would have been a fearful accident it waa wa a a very very natural mistake my assistant ila had d been with me two years he had ev everything e r ahing sidetracked side tracked nil all right but had ad tor forgotten gotten the he unwritten ladof the road prohibiting two tro trains trai s passing ss 1 u g on n a single track tri ick on another 11 1 iera 0 occasion e c a sion I 1 lost a train lost a train yes sir lost it completely it was a local freight and wits a little late it left F P twenty minutes behind time and waa was duo due at 31 in forty minutes where it was ordered to sidetrack side track for no 3 a fast ex arms u F and IN were eleven miles spart art and no 3 could not noe leave F P until the local was reported report eil sidetracked at 31 well I 1 waited an all hour and then called 31 who bud hud the message for the local and asked hi him where the freight was he ile know in the meantime the express was at F and the passengers getting mad thirty minutes more and still no train then I 1 ordered no 3 to run cautiously to M Shedid she did so but found no locals to say ray that wo we were paralyzed is putting it mildly ten tep e aj minutes later AY a little station near the he city reported the local there she had got by M X in some way without disturbing the operator di diogenes bogenes never neve r hunted so diligently for an honest man in the degenerate deg generate days in which ho he lived as gedid we did for that train why did you leave the business 11 n ess because I 1 was growing a year every eve ry week I 1 had the v work ork of ten men on oil my shoulders you often hear about the brave engineer clinging with ith firm prin resolve and calm determination to the throttle while hile the tw engine is plunging on to inesita inevitable destruction ilia ilis responsibility is nothing lie ile has only a single train and has no duty but to obey the rules ITh the etrain train dispatcher ai has a hundred trains under his fin fill ger that presses against the key A moments delay to a passenger train a trifling accident to a freight frei glit and the dispatcher is cuss cusand ed the eight hours you put in bending over your c ilir key seems like a week i our head swims and grows rows dizy ben beneath ea t 11 it its s awful I 1 i ty no more train dispatching for me if i f you it please I 1 was offered that position lo 10 al tiou on this road with a comfortable salary but told them all I 1 wanted was a train all allthee those gray hairs that you notice were caused by my short experience as train dispatcher |