The November Dispatch 2022

Dispatchers: Dedicated to Railroad Safety Railroad dispatchers are the traffic controllers at work 24/7, year-round to make railroad operations safe.

There are some rules and tools that help with basic track control. Railroad timetables provide instructions and guidelines for each location, like showing maps, speed limits, and safety instructions for each location, they identify sections of track, can have “yard limits” that restrict train speed, and require little, if any, dispatcher involvement. There is some automation in railroad signaling for our Centralized Traffic Control (CTC).

But dispatchers are the ones who are dedicated to actively protecting railroaders and the public in real time.

Fourteen Watco railroads provide their own dispatching. At the Dispatch Center in Wichita, Kansas, dispatchers provide vital control for the majority of Watco railroads operating throughout the U.S. The 20 dispatchers there are spread over three shifts and cover 32 railroads.

Describing it as busy doesn’t really cut it. On each shift, up to six dispatchers each sit at a wrap-around desk with six large computer monitors, multiple keyboards and telephones, and sometimes a radio microphone.

Large railroad maps hang high on the walls around the room.

Phones ring almost constantly. Sheriffs and 911 dispatchers are phoning in to report a vehicle stuck on the track, a malfunctioning signal, a trespasser, or another issue. Watco conductors, general managers, 10 The Dispatch | November 2022