Standard Signal System

[Railway Man]

I guess that begs the question of defining "centralized".  None of the rail dispatching centers are "national".  Even the heavily centralized roads cover less than 1/4 the rail mileage in the US.  So how many dispatchers do you put in a office to make it centralized?  One division, two divisions?  A region? 

Then there are the shortlines that contract out their dispatching to a third party, so the railroad is in Arkansas and the dispatch office is in Vermont, not even touching the railroad. 

Dave H.

It does ask the question.  I spend some of my time engaged in the design and planning of dispatching offices, so I slice it this way:

Traditionally railroads had division-level dispatching offices.  Divisional offices were combined to regional offices in the 1980s, and at smaller class Is such as D&RGW and KCS, that meant there was only one office needed for the whole railroad.  (D&RGW, for example, had dispatcher's offices at Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Green River, Funston, Sulphur Springs, Helper, and Alamosa, circa 1960.)  Circa 1990, railroads began combining regional-level offices into central offices.  I think what I would call "centralized" is a large Class I (UP, BNSF, CSX, NS, CN, CP) with ONE primary office.  NS is the only large Class I that did not centralize.

Here's the current status as I recollect. 

BNSF -- centralized to Fort Worth, but spun out satellite offices to Chicago, Kansas City, Houston (Spring), and Los Angeles (San Bernardino).

CN -- regionalized to Montreal, Edmonton, and Chicago (Homewood), is combining Stevens Point with Homewood.  GTW is still at Troy, Mich., I think.

CPR -- regionalized to Calgary, Montreal, Minneapolis.  Had a Latta office but that's gone to INRD.  I can't recall where D&H is dispatched from -- Montreal perhaps?

CSX -- centralized everything from Chessie System and Seaboard System to Jacksonville, but when it acquired Conrail those offices mostly remained intact and where they were.  Has announced it will decentralize.

DM&E/IC&E -- one office in Sioux Falls 

KCS -- Shreveport; left GWWR in Kansas City and combined it with UP, BNSF, and KCT into the joint office there.  KSCM is dispatched from Monterrey.

MRL -- Missoula 

NS -- never centralized 

UP -- centralized to Omaha, but spun out satellite offices to Chicago, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Spring, San Bernardino, and Roseville.

Predictions are free and worth nothing, but here's mine.  Centralization has gone about as far as it's going to go, and the momentum is now toward decentralization.

RWM 

[n012944]

Nick & Dave:

 I still believe after 9-11 the FAA were able to ground all flights by having a centralized location underneath the umbrellas you had their regionals.

That may very well be true, but I don't see how that relates to railroad operations.  Without the centralized location, how long would it have taken to make a few phone calls?

Besides, there is no centralized/national ATC center that I know of - they are all regional.

You have a centrilized ATC in Washington and they are in contact with the Regionals.

So in the end it is set up much like a railroad.  You have the "blue room" at the headquarters, which are in contact with the dispatching centers.  However there is little reason to change the set up to follow airline practice.  Also, let us not forget that airlines also have dispatchers, that do eveything that a railroad dispatcher does, except actually "line signals" so to speak.  They file a flight plan with ATC on how they would wish the flight to fly,  plan a fuel load, get the flight crew the paperwork, and also be in contact with the flight crew in the air to help advise in different situations.  Some of the situations could be planning around weather,  finding an alternate airport to land if there is an emergency situation on board, or a maintenace problem on the aircraft.  For the majority of the airlines that are based in the US, they have just one dispatch center for the airline.

[jeaton]

"There is no difference between managing a railroad and managing any other production facility that is four feet eight and a half inches wide and 10,000 miles long."  Co-worker, many years ago.

Considering that the railroad dispatching function is one of the major controls of day to day operations, I can understand how Operating VP's and their home office staff people would push the idea of centralizing the function.  Given the relative primative nature of communication devices existing at the middle of the last century, centralization was just not possible.  The Operating Departmant VP had to have his division superintendents out along the line and generally had to rely on voice communication (or road trips) to get the big picture necessary for good decisions at the senior officer level.  As communication technology evolved, it became possible to eliminate some managerial jobs that did not do much more than function as middle men relaying communications between senior management and the boots on the ground. 

Advances in data transmission technology made it possible for the dispatching function to be centralized and even if it wasn't real, centralizing may have made the VP and his home office staff feel that they had greater control of the railroad.  Perhaps some may have realized that the major downside of centralizing was that the dispatchers would be taken out of the real world environment and be made to operate in the virtual world of computer screens and bodyless voices.  I submit that the communication technology of the 1990's did not have the capacity to allow a geographic dispersment of the dispatching function and at the same time allow for the centralized "big screen" view of the railroad.

The latest advance data and voice technology make a geographicly dispersed operation possible while at the same time providing the "big screen" view of the entire railroad to the home office.  Best of both worlds?

[Railway Man]

Jay:

I like the comments you made regarding railroad operation and management thinking.  But I suggest that the capabilities you're ascribing to current technology do not exist.  There's no big picture available today other than the one in the dispatcher's head, just like it was in 1900. 

The technological threshold allowing centralized dispatching had two watersheds.  The first was circa 1940, for timetable and train-order operation.  Prior to that date long-distance telecommunications wasn't nearly good enough.  The second was circa 1960, for CTC operation, with the advent of microwave backbones (and prior to that the capability to regenerate codes to allow for long distance transmission, and prior to that the advent of codes instead of hard-wire to each switch and signal).  Theoretically after 1960 any Class I could have gone to 100% centralization, but for a variety of reasons none did for another two decades.

I appreciate your speculating about the changes in technology that improve the "big picture" but fundamentally nothing has changed since the era of the 20-foot long train sheet flowing off the ends of the desk and cigarette smoke slowly curling from the ashtray as the DS contemplates where his railroad will be four hours in the future.  The display on the flat-screens is nothing more than a train sheet that automatically OS's trains, instead of the dispatcher taking OS reports from operators at lonely stations on the line and inking them onto his train sheet.  Automatic functions are naiive babysteps, mostly they are nothing more than autoclears and stacked moves that save on mouse clicks.  The DS still has to build the picture in his head of all the likely future outcomes and update his plan to best fit the most likely outcome while reserving contingency for some of the less attractive outcomes. 

I disagree that technological change caused the dispatcher to become disconnected from the railroad out-of-doors.  Organizational change caused that.  The job of dispatching was from the very beginning of time disconnected from the railroad out-of-doors because the dispatching art is abstract and conceptual.  What changed is that the dispatcher no longer in most cases has physical connections with the operating crafts, clerks, operators, and officers in the field that he built after shifts, in visiting his territory, and in the course of daily activity, because the dispatcher is now at such a physical distance from the field and the dispatcher is in a very large office with very little opportunity to build long-term relationships.  The dispatcher in a divisional office had perhaps two to six desks to sit at in a 40-year career, enabling him to get to know every officer, every operator, and every train crew except the boomers.  Now, the dispatcher in a centralized office bounces among dozens of desks, visits the field rarely, and has very little opportunity to build relationships unless he/she is very high seniority and can own a desk for years.  No one wanders in from the yard, or drops by for a chat.  At most railroads you can't look out the window and see the trains, even.  

There is substantial interest by railroads in designing software to automate and improve on the DS's planning function.  Various motives are at work here but one of the more defensible motives is that good DSs seem to be born, not made, it's virtually impossible to look at a pool of candidates and pick out which ones will have the chops, and once you have them it's hard to keep them happy as also by nature good DSs seem to be people who fit poorly into the humdrum of routine and the strictures of modern corporate life.  Five decades ago railroads could be happy homes for all sorts of social misfits but society today is much different.

Much money has been expended by railroads and vendors such as GE and US&S to develop automatic planning software, efforts which to date have been unsuccessful.  To offer a prediction, I do not think we will see successful efforts in my lifetime; the problems are complex, multilayered, and idiosyncratic.

You are correct that electronics allows the "big screen" view of the whole railroad.  Very impressive to visitors but in my opinion completely useless.

Best of both worlds?  Same old world in one sense, worst of both worlds in another.

RWM

[jeffhergert]

 

I disagree that technological change caused the dispatcher to become disconnected from the railroad out-of-doors.  Organizational change caused that.  The job of dispatching was from the very beginning of time disconnected from the railroad out-of-doors because the dispatching art is abstract and conceptual.  What changed is that the dispatcher no longer in most cases has physical connections with the operating crafts, clerks, operators, and officers in the field that he built after shifts, in visiting his territory, and in the course of daily activity, because the dispatcher is now at such a physical distance from the field and the dispatcher is in a very large office with very little opportunity to build long-term relationships.  The dispatcher in a divisional office had perhaps two to six desks to sit at in a 40-year career, enabling him to get to know every officer, every operator, and every train crew except the boomers.  Now, the dispatcher in a centralized office bounces among dozens of desks, visits the field rarely, and has very little opportunity to build relationships unless he/she is very high seniority and can own a desk for years.  No one wanders in from the yard, or drops by for a chat.  At most railroads you can't look out the window and see the trains, even.  

 

Not to mention that in years past, most dispatchers came from the ranks of telegraphers/train order clerks/tower operators.  They worked out in the field and knew the crews and M of W people.  They were able to see first hand how some moves were done and how long it took to do them. 

Now unless someone is a craft transfer, dispatchers are hired off the street so to speak.  That's not to say someone like that can't be a great dispatcher, some are.  They have to learn things on the job that in years past a dispatcher would have learned working out along the line.

Jeff  

[Railway Man]

Not to mention that in years past, most dispatchers came from the ranks of telegraphers/train order clerks/tower operators.  They worked out in the field and knew the crews and M of W people.  They were able to see first hand how some moves were done and how long it took to do them. 

Now unless someone is a craft transfer, dispatchers are hired off the street so to speak.  That's not to say someone like that can't be a great dispatcher, some are.  They have to learn things on the job that in years past a dispatcher would have learned working out along the line.

Jeff  

Thanks for adding this important truth.  Some of the best dispatchers I've worked with came out of train service and maintenance-of-way.  

The other significant advantage to the traditional progression from operator to dispatcher is it allowed to everyone in the dispatcher's office a long look at the operator before the promotion was offered, and conversely it gave the operator a long look at the dispatcher's job enabling he/she to decide if it was something to which they were suited.  Many excellent operators came to the conclusion that the job wasn't for them and remained operators for life.  One of the major problems in hiring dispatchers now, particularly from the clerk's ranks or off the street, is that the new hires have not a clue what they're in for.  The job is not easily described.  Many new hires flounder for months and never master the job.  But by that point the railroad and the employee both have invested so heavily that neither will admit the failure and move on ... which leads to another reason why there's strong interest in developing planning software, since that's the salient element of the job that poor dispatchers never acquire.  Ironically, once such a tool was perfected it would in effect downgrade the job of dispatcher to operator.

Another approach would be to reinvent some sort of job that would emulate the operator's job of old, that would profitably employ those who do not or cannot move up.  I haven't seen any thought put toward that idea.  

It's another irony that the invention of CTC and radio, which eliminated the need for the control operator and the telegraph operator, had as an unintended consequence elimination of most of the apprenticeship pathway for the dispatcher.  Forty years ago it didn't much matter but today the price is paid.  

RWM 

[Anonymous]

I had a incident in trucking with dispatch being apparently out of touch and too much into his computer. bear with me here.

I was roped in to the company headquarters to meet my bosses so I went there, parked next to the building and while cooling turbo down I recieved a satellite message. Are you here yet? I said "Sure, look outside your window!" The wall was all blank with no windows, the dispatcher was up on the third floor in a large room full of cubicles.

He didnt get enough information from his satellite tracking to see precisely where I was at at the time.

Tracking is wonderful these days, they can nail you down at about 30-50 feet diameter of error anywhere on the globe.

I am reminded of a tv commerical with the line "Dont agitate the dots."

[dehusman]

I would say that the "centralization" arguement is not so much centralization vs. decentralization but one of to what degree they are centralized.

It appear's from Railway Man's post that even the "de-centralized' railroads only have 2 or 3 main dispatching offices (I will dicount the small satellite terminal dispatch offices).    Even the smaller class 1 are over 10,000 miles.  That makes each center handling over 3,000 miles of track.  Hardly a local division dispatch office.  With thousands of miles of territory I doubt the majority of the trainmen can just drop in any time and I doubt that the division officers are sitting in the same office or even the same building.

It looks to me that they are all centralized, they are all a size that pre mega-merger would have ben 'system' level offices for some of the predecessor roads.

Dave H.

[Railway Man]

I would say that the "centralization" arguement is not so much centralization vs. decentralization but one of to what degree they are centralized.

It appear's from Railway Man's post that even the "de-centralized' railroads only have 2 or 3 main dispatching offices (I will dicount the small satellite terminal dispatch offices).    Even the smaller class 1 are over 10,000 miles.  That makes each center handling over 3,000 miles of track.  Hardly a local division dispatch office.  With thousands of miles of territory I doubt the majority of the trainmen can just drop in any time and I doubt that the division officers are sitting in the same office or even the same building.

It looks to me that they are all centralized, they are all a size that pre mega-merger would have ben 'system' level offices for some of the predecessor roads.

Dave H.

I really don't know the situation at NS (or for that matter FEC). 

KCS is "centralized" in that there's one primary office but the map of the railway is such that only two of the eight crew districts it dispatches don't have an endpoint in Shreveport.  MRL is similar; of its three crew districts only one doesn't touch Missoula. 

Another change is the location of the office.  Traditionally dispatching offices were adjacent to trackside, such as in the division office building which was either in the same building as the passenger station, or right next to it.  The trend in the last 40 years has been toward dispatching offices in the corporate office building downtown or wherever.  Rio Grande was that way (Park Central), MRL is in a business park several miles away, DM&E/IC&E is in a city that the system doesn't serve, Conrail moved offices to its downtown office buildings (e.g., Indianapolis).  KCS is one of the last I know of that is still at trackside, at Deramus Yard, but as I noted earlier, I really don't know the situation at NS.

RWM

[jeaton]

RWM

Thanks for your comments on my post.  I probably wasn't that clear, but I didn't mean to suggest that processing technology is even remotely close to doing the job of a dispatcher.  It is clear to me that the dispatcher's function of making a plan that visualizes the location of trains hours out from the present requires much more than a rote knowledge of how things work.  Terms like intuition, a sixth sense and gut feel come to mind.  (and don't forget to keep an eye on developing weather conditions.)  Maybe in a long time that comes with advancements in AI technology, but I don't think that is much past being up to the intellegence of a slug.

What I was proposing was that there may have been a certain appeal to having the dispatching function centralized due to a perception that it could provide greater and more efficient control of operations.  Clearly, data transmission technology was available to support centralization, but at the time, bandwidth capacity, at least affordable capacity was a constraint.  Voice communication was (and still is) effective, but very inefficient. For CTC digital transmission capacity was sufficient to send instructions to switches and signals, get a return confirmation and data on track occupancy, but not much more.   Probably the larger deal of centralization was that the data was processed for display on a computer screens and, I guess, to generate computerized train sheets and other kinds of records.

If you compare then to now, I think that it would be found that practical and affordable data transmission capacity has dramaticly increased.  I suggested that dispatchers function in a virtual world in that they are far from the people and the hardware of the railroad that they run.  I think that today's data transmission capacity could allow somewhat of a reverse in that the dispatching function could be physically located in the territory, but with a virtual centralization.  Anybody with authority, equipment and a data link can look at the same data displayed for the dispatcher and the home office can still have the same system wide display of the status of the railroad.

Bottom line is that if dispersing the dispatching function over the system, say at crew district home terminals, improves the function, it could now be accomplished and still allow for home office oversight via monitor or system wide display. 

[daveklepper]

This thread has wandered off the main topic of uniform systems for signalling, although centralizing dispatching is certainly strongly related.   One comment seems needed:  Every engineer and trainman makes qualification trips over the actual railroad lines he/she will operate before actually assuming duties.  The specific local characteristics of signal systems are learned at that time along with a whole lot of other important data concerning topography, track layouts, visibility situations, freight customrers, siding arrangements, etc., etc.   None of this other stuff can in any way be unified across a nation's system!

Do dispatchers nornmally also make road qualification trips?   Before assuming duties?

[Dakguy201]

I wonder how much 9-11, to say nothing of natural disasters such as Katrina, has encouraged management to build redundantcy into the system via establishing regional centers that can fill in for one another during an extended period of disruption.  Certainly, one might believe CSX's move away from a highly centralized system in Florida was undertaken with that in mind.

[cogloadreturns]

The EU is attempting to impose a centralised form of signalling upon the member state countries in the form of the European Train Management System. There are three variants to this Levels 1,2 and 3. 1 overlays the exisiting systems which are imposed, two does away with bits of lineside kit for radio signalling but still blocked (aka the TGV) and three is all singing and dancing - radio block, smart trains et al. As any decent signalling engineer would tell you number 3 and the management system is a long way away. A long long long way away.

Interoperability is the key buzzphrase, basically they (the EU) would like to see trains run from Cornwall to Warsaw only constrained by the drivers bladder. There is already an EU railway agency (based in France), the passenger timetable in Europe changes on the same date in December (although the Uk is looking to abandon this) and with the opening of HS1 there is talk about German ICE trains running through to St Pancras - they can use the high speed lines however they have to fight their way through the Chunnel Safety Authority and negotiate other nationalised safety systems which are interlocked with the signalling. Makes for an awful amount of safety equipment on a train.

Now there are several quite useful aspects of standardising signalling design - cheaper unit costs from bulk, standardising engine design in terms of signalling spec leading to cheaper costs, the start of a standard rulebook to encompass all railways. However as to "dispatching" - the trend in the UK is for larger signalling centres however you will still require guys on the ground for when the thieves knick the copper.

Incidentally - and this drives me crackers - England does not encompass Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands (technically not part of the UK), the Isle of Man, the Orkneys and where I am typing from at the minute, the Island of Unst which is part of the Shetland Archipeligo. It is the UK. Rather like me saying that "in California" - meaning the rest of the USA. Rant Over - sorry about that....!

[Railway Man]

This thread has wandered off the main topic of uniform systems for signalling, although centralizing dispatching is certainly strongly related.   One comment seems needed:  Every engineer and trainman makes qualification trips over the actual railroad lines he/she will operate before actually assuming duties.  The specific local characteristics of signal systems are learned at that time along with a whole lot of other important data concerning topography, track layouts, visibility situations, freight customrers, siding arrangements, etc., etc.   None of this other stuff can in any way be unified across a nation's system!

Do dispatchers nornmally also make road qualification trips?   Before assuming duties?

Practices, as we've learned from others on this forum, vary.  At railroads I am familiar with the familiarization for a new dispatcher may consist of a single trip one-way over a single subdivision (same one for everyone); a single trip over the actual subdivision on which they will initially break-in; and single round trip over each new subdivision they want to qualify on.  I don't know of any railroad that makes it a must-have for a marked-up dispatcher to ride a new territory that dispatcher will mark up on. Some of the best dispatchers I have worked with regularly use vacation time to ride locals on their territory, where you see and learn a lot more than on a through freight.

There's a reasonable point to be made that familiarization trips aren't as necessary as they were in the past because of improvements in communications, disappearance of a lot of the locals and yards, and overall standardization of operations.  It comes down to a cost-benefit decision by management of the cost of dispatcher familiarization vs. the cost of train delays and inefficient practices.  One is quantifiable and guaranteed and the other is not quantifiable and not guaranteed.

RWM    

[chefjavier]

Nick & Dave:

 I still believe after 9-11 the FAA were able to ground all flights by having a centralized location underneath the umbrellas you had their regionals.

That may very well be true, but I don't see how that relates to railroad operations.  Without the centralized location, how long would it have taken to make a few phone calls?

Besides, there is no centralized/national ATC center that I know of - they are all regional.

You have a centrilized ATC in Washington and they are in contact with the Regionals.

So in the end it is set up much like a railroad.  You have the "blue room" at the headquarters, which are in contact with the dispatching centers.  However there is little reason to change the set up to follow airline practice.  Also, let us not forget that airlines also have dispatchers, that do eveything that a railroad dispatcher does, except actually "line signals" so to speak.  They file a flight plan with ATC on how they would wish the flight to fly,  plan a fuel load, get the flight crew the paperwork, and also be in contact with the flight crew in the air to help advise in different situations.  Some of the situations could be planning around weather,  finding an alternate airport to land if there is an emergency situation on board, or a maintenace problem on the aircraft.  For the majority of the airlines that are based in the US, they have just one dispatch center for the airline.

I don't understand your point but I think we should look to ways in getting the signals centralized just like Europe.

[Railway Man]

The EU is attempting to impose a centralised form of signalling upon the member state countries in the form of the European Train Management System. There are three variants to this Levels 1,2 and 3. 1 overlays the exisiting systems which are imposed, two does away with bits of lineside kit for radio signalling but still blocked (aka the TGV) and three is all singing and dancing - radio block, smart trains et al. As any decent signalling engineer would tell you number 3 and the management system is a long way away. A long long long way away.

Interoperability is the key buzzphrase, basically they (the EU) would like to see trains run from Cornwall to Warsaw only constrained by the drivers bladder. There is already an EU railway agency (based in France), the passenger timetable in Europe changes on the same date in December (although the Uk is looking to abandon this) and with the opening of HS1 there is talk about German ICE trains running through to St Pancras - they can use the high speed lines however they have to fight their way through the Chunnel Safety Authority and negotiate other nationalised safety systems which are interlocked with the signalling. Makes for an awful amount of safety equipment on a train.

Now there are several quite useful aspects of standardising signalling design - cheaper unit costs from bulk, standardising engine design in terms of signalling spec leading to cheaper costs, the start of a standard rulebook to encompass all railways. However as to "dispatching" - the trend in the UK is for larger signalling centres however you will still require guys on the ground for when the thieves knick the copper.

Incidentally - and this drives me crackers - England does not encompass Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands (technically not part of the UK), the Isle of Man, the Orkneys and where I am typing from at the minute, the Island of Unst which is part of the Shetland Archipeligo. It is the UK. Rather like me saying that "in California" - meaning the rest of the USA. Rant Over - sorry about that....!

Nice write up on ETMS. 

I can see advantages to a unified Method of Operation in Europe given the high density of traffic, short distances between borders, and desire for run-throughs, as well as the large amount of train-control kit locomotives must carry with them.  In North America railways have largely succeeded in avoiding the need to install train-control stuff on locomotives, but we're just about to cross that Rubicon with CBTC.  It's going to be interesting to see how North American railways resolve the three conflicting goals of interoperability, avoidance of a sole-source vendor, and adaptation for each railway's characteristics.

I notice you avoided the temptation for cheap irony with Level III and "standardization ... [allows for] cheaper unit costs."  We were quoted a price for Level III for a developing-world railway a few years ago.  The cost took our breath away, but what was truly astonishing was the collossal amount of vendor and engineering bureaucracy we'd be stuck with, to say nothing of the attitude that "our system is perfect, if you have to upend your railway to accommodate us you'll be the better off for it."

So what's the correct terminology for Britain and Ireland?  The British Isles?  Something else?

RWM

[Anonymous]

FAA in Leesburg VA has a ear and eye to the skies over the United States at all times. (Or try to)

I was reviewing this thread and found a post where we were able to do a full groundstop and empty the skies during 9-11. No one center did this. It was every tower, every dispatch and anything that had a runway and a live body on the property with a radio that made it work. Gander for example collected many flights coming off the Atlantic and found themselves with a closed airport FULL of planes parked hither, thither, yonder and anyplace they had space. And hundreds of guests.

As soon as the one of the very high levels of Government Officials (One of the Cabinet members with the President.. not sure which) said "Get them planes the *&^% down Pilots discretion be &^%$!! it became a national problem to empty the sky.

No one has ever done this. But that morning on 9-11 they made it work. Fast.

We cannot move several million out of a city ahead of a hurricane fast enough but we can pull thousands of planes down in a few hours. Imagine that.

If every private car was under control of a dispatcher and every section of road, gravel path or interstate was under positive control... well... we wont get much done will we?

Now I dont know anything about rail dispatch but I have seen and hear of railroad derailments, flooded major bridges, broken bridges, tunnel fires etc over the years and understand that if a section of mainline should fail, there is alot of people involved very quickly to route trains over someone else's track somewhere else.

Now with trucking, if there was a problem with routing, I generated a new route and made it work without asking my dispatcher "Mother May I?" and wasting time waiting on a answer.

Dispatchers are wonderful but sometimes you have to have the ability to be free to make decisions within the framework of your mission objectives.

[spokyone]

our system is perfect, if you have to upend your railway to accommodate us you'll be the better off for it.

[n012944]

Nick & Dave:

 I still believe after 9-11 the FAA were able to ground all flights by having a centralized location underneath the umbrellas you had their regionals.

That may very well be true, but I don't see how that relates to railroad operations.  Without the centralized location, how long would it have taken to make a few phone calls?

Besides, there is no centralized/national ATC center that I know of - they are all regional.

You have a centrilized ATC in Washington and they are in contact with the Regionals.

So in the end it is set up much like a railroad.  You have the "blue room" at the headquarters, which are in contact with the dispatching centers.  However there is little reason to change the set up to follow airline practice.  Also, let us not forget that airlines also have dispatchers, that do eveything that a railroad dispatcher does, except actually "line signals" so to speak.  They file a flight plan with ATC on how they would wish the flight to fly,  plan a fuel load, get the flight crew the paperwork, and also be in contact with the flight crew in the air to help advise in different situations.  Some of the situations could be planning around weather,  finding an alternate airport to land if there is an emergency situation on board, or a maintenace problem on the aircraft.  For the majority of the airlines that are based in the US, they have just one dispatch center for the airline.

I don't understand your point but I think we should look to ways in getting the signals centralized just like Europe.

My point is that the airlines are not as centralized as you make it out to be.

[chefjavier]

Nick & Dave:

 I still believe after 9-11 the FAA were able to ground all flights by having a centralized location underneath the umbrellas you had their regionals.

That may very well be true, but I don't see how that relates to railroad operations.  Without the centralized location, how long would it have taken to make a few phone calls?

Besides, there is no centralized/national ATC center that I know of - they are all regional.

You have a centrilized ATC in Washington and they are in contact with the Regionals.

So in the end it is set up much like a railroad.  You have the "blue room" at the headquarters, which are in contact with the dispatching centers.  However there is little reason to change the set up to follow airline practice.  Also, let us not forget that airlines also have dispatchers, that do eveything that a railroad dispatcher does, except actually "line signals" so to speak.  They file a flight plan with ATC on how they would wish the flight to fly,  plan a fuel load, get the flight crew the paperwork, and also be in contact with the flight crew in the air to help advise in different situations.  Some of the situations could be planning around weather,  finding an alternate airport to land if there is an emergency situation on board, or a maintenace problem on the aircraft.  For the majority of the airlines that are based in the US, they have just one dispatch center for the airline.

I don't understand your point but I think we should look to ways in getting the signals centralized just like Europe.

My point is that the airlines are not as centralized as you make it out to be.

I don't want to burst your bubble but who's update their map information sheet http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.js The flight delay information is use by Hotels, Airlines, and consumers. The FAA mainstains the webiste plus the weather information for pilots. Now, are you still telling me in not centralized?

[n012944]

I don't want to burst your bubble but who's update their map information sheet http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.js The flight delay information is use by Hotels, Airlines, and consumers. The FAA mainstains the webiste plus the weather information for pilots. Now, are you still telling me in not centralized?

(Cut out some of the quotes, the 3d effect was starting to get a little crazy)

So you are saying that since there is a web site that shows BASIC delays that it is centralized?  Here in Chicago alone there are two different ATC centers, not counting the towers at the actual airport.  Also you are wrong, airlines do not use that website, and neither do most commercial pilots.

[tree68]

I don't want to burst your bubble but who's update their map information sheet http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.js The flight delay information is use by Hotels, Airlines, and consumers. The FAA mainstains the webiste plus the weather information for pilots. Now, are you still telling me in not centralized?

(Cut out some of the quotes, the 3d effect was starting to get a little crazy)

So you are saying that since there is a web site that shows BASIC delays that it is centralized?  Here in Chicago alone there are two different ATC centers, not counting the towers at the actual airport.  Also you are wrong, airlines do not use that website, and neither do most commercial pilots.

There is no central ATC center.  The folks in VA may be in touch with all of the centers, and may take information from them to use for status reports, but it's not like they can sit down at a radar console and handle the air traffic for the Boston center or override all of the aviation radio frequencies.  That's all done locally. 

As for railroads, could there be a single national dispatch center? It is certainly technically possible.  Is it economically feasible or even desirable?  Nope.

A national standard for signalling?  Like I said in my first post in this thread, there already is.  But the devil is in the details, and that's where the differences chiefly occur.  Standardization has been ongoing for some time now, chiefly due to the mergers that have taken place.  I don't know if the mergers will continue (that's been beaten to death already), but I think that you will see a continued move toward a nationwide (or even continental) custom, if not standard.

[Railway Man]

The FAA site referenced above has this disclaimer front and center:

:

The status information provided on this site indicates general airport conditions; it is not flight-specific.

If you want something much more useful, try flightaware.com.

RWM