The night creature ventures forth

By the time I was 12 I had narrowed my occupational choices to a mere two. One was to be, like my father, a newspaperman. The other option was train dispatching. I chose the former, but my, I have always admired the men and women who direct the trains across their railroads. The best of them are like artists, because keeping a busy railroad fluid requires creative solutions to the problems that arise. ATCS Monitor, the software that gives you a dispatcher’s view of some railroads lines (for more about ATCS, go here), only accentuates my admiration of dispatchers, because you can see tough conflicts coming, decide how you’d resolve them, and then see whether the real dispatcher agrees.

On my trip from Virginia to Florida and back this past week, the only good time to play dispatcher has been in the post-midnight hours. With a 10-hour curfew in effect around Rocky Mount, N.C., daytime pickings are slim. This morning I get up at 3:15 a.m. in Folkston, Ga., to tag along beside northbound intermodal train Q104 (Jacksonville, Fla.-Charleston, S.C.) as it bucks three southbound Amtrak trains and two southbound intermodal hotshots.

I leave Folkston 5 minutes ahead of 8,000-foot-long Q104, and ATCS shows it lined for the first siding to the north, Winoker, Ga., to make way for L031, a North Bergen, N.J., to Jacksonville trailer and container train. What a screamer it is passing Winoker at the 70-mph max. Three big General Electric motors and just 47 boxes, and I have to resist running the other direction for my own safety. Have you ever noticed that fast trains are noisier and more intimidating (scary, actually) at night?

Forty minutes behind L031 is the Auto Train. The next two sidings, Nahunta and Hortense, Ga., are each spaced roughly 10 miles apart. There is no way a heavy Q104 with only two locomotives can reach Hortense in time, so it hops only one siding and almost slows the Auto Train before clearing.

Now it’s 4:30, and here comes the tough part. Q104’s southbound counterpart from Charleston, Q103, will reach Jesup, Ga., 26 miles north of Nahunta, at about 5:10. Q104 should get there a few minutes later. There’s a 7-mile stretch of double track around Jesup; so far, so good. But an on-time Silver Star will leave Savannah, Ga., at 4:35 and get to Jesup within 50 minutes.

I decide the safe course is best. Q104 should wait at Broadhurst, Ga., the first siding south of Jesup, for both southbound trains, with the Silver Star passing Q103 at Jesup. The dispatcher has what turns out to be a better idea. He routes Q104 right up the main track through Jesup and sends Q103 (and the Star a dozen minutes later) through the second track. Near downtown Jesup is a crossover back to the main track. As soon as Q103 clears the crossover, it is lined for the Star to return to the main track. The Star slows for these maneuvers but still gets to Jacksonville 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Q104 never applies its brakes, and Q103 gets a 15-minute hit letting the Silver Star by, but that’s life. It will reach Jax so early nobody will notice this little glitch. The dispatcher is smarter than I am, obviously.

This leaves one priority train for Q104 to dodge: the Silver Meteor. Alas, engine problems in Washington, D.C., and braking problems in Virginia the evening before make it 3 hours late this morning. A beautiful early spring day has begun, although it seems to me it is almost quitting time. At 8:05, Q104, having set out half its train, pulls out of Savannah Yard, 10 minutes after the Meteor’s departure from Charleston, 100 or so miles to the north. The way the passenger train is tearing across the Low Country (and Q104 is inching out of Savannah), I vote to hold the freight at North Hardeeville, just 25 miles from Savannah, where two tracks become one.

The CH Desk dispatcher disagrees. He waits as long as possible, then sets the meet at the next two-track segment to the north, first putting the Meteor down the 79-mph track and Q104 on the 60-mph second track, then taking down the signals and reversing course. Upon seeing this, I remember an overpass near downtown Ridgeland, S.C., and station myself there just in time. The two trains have the decency to pass each other beneath my feet. A perfect meet, I should add.

Isn’t this fun? Yes, but I have another 400 miles to drive, and virtually no other trains to see. A long slog of a day awaits me. But wait! There is 3 a.m. tomorrow, trains will be out ahead of the curfew, and who knows what awaits me? Best I get some sleep, right?—Fred W. Frailey