Nostalgia & History > SP Train Order Tue.: Second Clearance Coast Line Trip

Last week, in reviewing the options for correcting the NWP set of orders containing two different engine numbers for the same train, the use of a Second Clearance was brought up.

I’ve acquired a fair number of train order sets from various railroads and have never seen a Second Clearance except on SP lines. I’m wondering if this was a practice peculiar to the SP, similar to using ½ train order numbers.

Here are a couple of Second Clearance examples that No. 834, originating 7/16/74, received on a single trip: one at SLO and the other at Guadalupe. Obviously busier days on the Coast Line…

1) SLO Clearances addressed to No. 834 7/16/74
2) SLO Check of Train Register and work message
3) SLO T.O. 81

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4) thru 6) SLO T.O.’s 78-705-744 from set addressed to No. 834 7/16/74

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7) thru 9) Guadalupe Clearances + T.O.’s 84-1 addressed to No. 834 7/17/74

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10) thru 12) Santa Barbara Clearance + T.O.’s 14-23 addressed to No. 834 7/17/74

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13) thru 15) Santa Barbara T.O.’s 703-733-743 from set addressed to No. 834 7/17/74

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Sure brings back the memories on the Coast. The operator at GD was Eva that night. She stuck with it, even going to Roseville in the end when DTC started and almost all the clerks were cut off. I ran into her a few times when I would catch a run from Dunsmuir to Roseville and saw her last at the SLO BBQ. She lost a leg to diabetes and retired to Grants Pass, OR. She passed on some years ago. We used to call her "Big Mama" on the radio and she also worked BI and crew dispatchers jobs.

Yes, it rattles the old memory file. Good days.

Nudge

Love reading orders. Got a bunch from the Cotton Rock between 1980 and 84. You really get the picture of what the SP invested in that line. Dozens of work trains a day between Tucumcari and KC, pages of slow orders, house tracks o/s due to machines stored, siding o/s due to ballast cars or rail train. It was a jugging act to get 5 trains across with all this work going on

>Got a bunch from the Cotton Rock between 1980 and 84.

Did you work out there, also?

-E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:
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> >Got a bunch from the Cotton Rock between 1980 and
> 84.
>
> Did you work out there, also?
>
> -E.O.


No, bought them on E-bay. Most interesting are the night work trains. What did they perform at night?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/14 15:10 by WAF.

> > >Got a bunch from the Cotton Rock between 1980
> and
> > 84.
> >
> > Did you work out there, also?
> >
> > -E.O.
>
>
> No, bought them on E-bay. Most interesting are the
> night work trains. What did they perform at night?

Probably ballast trains. I worked south of Tucumcari, where almost all of the work rebuilding the line was done during a daytime window. There was a night turn out of Tucumcari that picked-up ballast cars off of the Santa Fe at Vaughn that were destined for the Cotton Rock, but this was 1984, when most of the Cotton Rock had already been worked over.

-E.O.

WAF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Love reading orders. Got a bunch from the Cotton
> Rock between 1980 and 84. You really get the
> picture of what the SP invested in that line.
> Dozens of work trains a day between Tucumcari and
> KC, pages of slow orders, house tracks o/s due to
> machines stored, siding o/s due to ballast cars or
> rail train. It was a jugging act to get 5 trains
> across with all this work going on


Wes, do you have any issued a Pratt in 1980?



Allen

Seens strange to list a work train working between Pratt and Herlington between 901p and 901a dumping ballast in the dark, unless they had lights strung up. I know about the afternoon Vaughn Turns to p/u loads of ballast.

>I’m wondering if this was a practice peculiar to the SP, similar to using ½ train order numbers.

This "Second" Clearance has me bugged, also. Seems like "Second" is not needed since it has a later OK time.

I don't have my "SP Secret Dispatchers' Manual & Guide to Better Living Through Caffeine" handy, let alone a "dumbed-down" T&E rulebook, so would one of you ex-SP dispatchers please give us the lowdown.


I surely liked DTC.


-E.O.

bradleymckay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WAF Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Love reading orders. Got a bunch from the
> Cotton
> > Rock between 1980 and 84. You really get the
> > picture of what the SP invested in that line.
> > Dozens of work trains a day between Tucumcari
> and
> > KC, pages of slow orders, house tracks o/s due
> to
> > machines stored, siding o/s due to ballast cars
> or
> > rail train. It was a jugging act to get 5
> trains
> > across with all this work going on
>
>
> Wes, do you have any issued a Pratt in 1980?
>
>
>
> Allen


One on 11-12-80 X7775E LACHT

WAF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Seens strange to list a work train working between
> Pratt and Herlington between 901p and 901a dumping
> ballast in the dark, unless they had lights strung
> up. I know about the afternoon Vaughn Turns to p/u
> loads of ballast.

I dunno, just a guess. I was on lots of work trains that dumped ballast in the dark, but maybe that was just my state of mind. Not too complicated, just crack the hoppers 2-4 cars at a time, let 'er rip at walking speed, and NEVER back up. A good track crew could knock off 40 cars in six hours (maybe less), and get payed for twelve. On the other hand, on one of my watches, an Amtrak crew managed to dump about twelve teaspoons of ballast in the same amount of time.

-E.O.

>>This "Second" Clearance has me bugged, also. Seems like "Second" is not needed since it has a later OK time.

>I don't have my "SP Secret Dispatchers' Manual & Guide to Better Living Through Caffeine" handy, let alone a "dumbed-down" T&E rulebook, so would one of you ex-SP dispatchers please give us the lowdown.

Don't need no stinkin' Deespatcher's Seecret Manual; refer to the last paragraph of Rule 221-A in the SP book of Rules, both the 1-1-69 and 1-31-76 editions. The first two sets of orders posted are legitimate "Second clearances", capital S, because the additonal order(s) don't restrict the addressed trains at the station(s) where they were issued. The third set of orders isn't a Second clearance (and doesn't so state at the top), which may have lead to some confusion vis a vis the title of this thread. If the third example's clearance was issued after additional orders were received which restricted the train, then it's not a Second clearance (capital S) but a subsequent clearance issued without "second" written across the top after the first one was given back to the operator, who destroyed it, as is required by Rule 211-A.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/14 20:12 by EtoinShrdlu.

Correct - a second clearance was used only when "helping" orders were issued after the first clearance was issued. Of course the original clearance could have been busted and reissued with the new orders, but use of a second clearance made keeping up with the orders a little easier for the dispatcher and operator. I've seen second clearances used on the Rock Island and Missouri Pacific.

>refer to the last paragraph of Rule 221-A in the SP book of Rules, both the 1-1-69 and 1-31-76 editions.

OK, give me 30 brownies for not having a Rule Book in my grip.

-E.O.

I'll just rat you out to Cy Napper.