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Actually, the paper train sheet lasted a long time into the computerized CTC machine era. Some offices only stopped using paper sheets as recently as 5 or so years ago. An old head like BaltACD can answer this better, because the old relay machines with levers were gone from most roads by the time I hired out, but as I recall being told, the dispatcher watched the track lights and entered the correct ID manually on the train sheet each time a train lit up a track light at a control point. A bell dinged on some machines, too. A recording pen on a moving paper roll (or wheel) also recorded train movements graphically -- you'd insert a new roll or wheel every 24 hours or some shorter period. Essentially the same thing occurred with the early computerized CTC machines. <br /> <br />I should add, all improvements technology and the elimination of old types of busywork have been matched -- or exceeded -- by a commensurate increase in workload and new and truly egregious types of busywork. Technology hasn't made the dispatcher's job easier, only harder, because it has enabled the territories covered by one man to become mammoth. The old image of the dispatcher studying his trainsheet while smoke slowly curls upward from the lit cigarette in one hand before issuing some pithy and brilliant order that meets four trains and a track machine, has been replaced by a madhouse of 10 to 20 phone lines and radio calls all lit up and waiting from before dawn to after dusk, while 30 or more trains are looking for a signal and crew times tick toward pumpkin time -- and after dusk, consoles are combined. Every time I walk into a dispatching office these days, the urge to actually, physically, bolt for the door and run until I'm over the horizon is almost uncontrollable. <br /> <br />OS
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