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, trainmasters, maintenance of way workers, and signal maintainers also contact dispatchers to report track status information. Dispatchers collect this information and use it to create track bulletins for their train crews that spell out track conditions.

“The main goal is safety,” said 17-year dispatcher Kari Stephens. Stephens typically works the first shift, 5:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Like all the other Wichita dispatchers, she is capable of monitoring and managing any railroads assigned to her on a given shift by toggling from tab to tab on one of the desk monitors. “We all work together to make sure it is safe out in the field.”

Chief Dispatcher Angel Pridemore, another 17-year veteran, echoes Stephens’ statement. “Our main role is to make sure all our team members in the field are able to go home safely to their families, and to keep the public safe.”

Trains and people around tracks simply can’t work safely without dispatchers. That’s especially true in “dark territory,” the portions of a railroad not controlled by signals. That’s where dispatchers use track warrant control, a very specific system to direct movement on railroads and allow trains or workers to operate on a section of track.

“We give the authority to operate within certain limits,” says dispatcher Jeff Kebert, who works the third shift from 9:45 p.m. to 6 a.m. and has been at the job eight years.

Besides authorizing what people or equipment can be in blocks of track at a given time, dispatchers are controlling signals, monitoring trains and crews, communicating with Class I partners about the transfer of railcars, creating train schedules, writing track warrants, emailing bulletins, filling out spreadsheets, and more.

It’s not surprising, then, that more than one dispatcher said “attention to detail” was an important dispatcher trait. Pridemore adds “compassion,” because, “We must make sure that we care about every person in the field. It makes us make less mistakes when we know there are real people out there counting on us.”

It takes a lot of training to do this job. New dispatchers start with two-week “ground school,” the Watco training course that new conductors and engineers attend. Then they have dispatch school, followed by sitting with an experienced dispatcher, shadowing at first and later handling a few tasks. They might continue this for six months to a year before they’re ready to dispatch on their own.

There are reasons dispatchers stick with such a demanding job, and one is the people.

“The people I work with are good, caring, and fun people,” said Tandi Colibert, who normally dispatches for the Alabama Southern, Decatur & Eastern Illinois, Fox Valley & Lake Superior, and Ringneck & Western railroads. “Many are like family.”

The family feeling extends to the people at “their” railroads whom they talk to almost every day. “Some of these people you talk to more than your family,” noted Travis Fellers, yet another dispatcher who’s been at it 17 years.

When it comes to the family in Wichita, there’s much more to be said. But Pridemore sums it up well. “I have a pretty amazing team.”