Nostalgia & History > SP Coast Dispatcher 2 This one should be second.

More morning report.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/16 15:46 by Exespee.

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Re the first couple of pages, did you experience seizures when staring at these things? Worse than a strobe light.

EO
Urp

Gooooooooooooooooood greif!  what a ungangly order.

I see the name Fluitt.  Wondering if that was Stan Fluitt's dad.  Stan was a brakeman/conductor in SLO.


Allen

Now that the dramamine has kicked in, I find these reports very intriguing, including the line in the paragraph below. "EAST END CUESTA 7 MINS IA..." "IA" means "in adding", I guess, but everywhere else "cut in" seems to be used. Note that there was a 25 minute delay cutting off the helpers. You've got to wonder what went on there, but whatever it was, it must not have been well received at Market Street. Also, four minute delay at SLO to service train. Do delays shown at stations represent time spent in excess of alloted dwell time, or were they listed with the actual delay shown on the conductors' reports?

Also, note the Salinas delay is duplicated. Some clerk forgot to take his dramamine.

bradleymckay Wrote:
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> I see the name Fluitt.  Wondering if that was
> Stan Fluitt's dad.  Stan was a brakeman/conductor
> in SLO.

Allen, a 1947 Coast roster shows a CE Fluitt with a yard date of 9-8-45, but no Fluitt in the trainmen's ranks.


EO
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/16 05:14 by hogheaded.

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hogheaded Wrote:

> Allen, a 1947 Coast roster shows a CE Fluitt with
> a yard date of 9-8-45, but no Fluitt in the
> trainmen's ranks.
> EO

As far as I remember Stan was a brakeman in SLO late '70's and early '80's.  C.E. Fluitt might have been Clayton Fluitt.

If you have a Coast engineer or conductor seny roster for about 1980/1981 please send me a private message. 

Thank you.


Allen
 

bradleymckay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I see the name Fluitt.  Wondering if that was
> Stan Fluitt's dad.  Stan was a brakeman/conductor
> in SLO.
>
>
> Allen

Allen,
CE Fluitt was Stan's Dad. Stan hired out around 1973/74 in train service at San Luis Obispo.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now that the dramamine has kicked in, I find these
> reports very intriguing, including the line in the
> paragraph below. "EAST END CUESTA 7 MINS IA..."
> "IA" means "in adding", I guess, but everywhere
> else "cut in" seems to be used. Note that there
> was a 25 minute delay cutting off the helpers.
> You've got to wonder what went on there, but
> whatever it was, it must not have been well
> received at Market Street. Also, four minute delay
> at SLO to service train. Do delays shown at
> stations represent time spent in excess of alloted
> dwell time, or were they listed with the actual
> delay shown on the conductors' reports?
>
> Also, note the Salinas delay is duplicated. Some
> clerk forgot to take his dramamine.
>
> bradleymckay Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I see the name Fluitt.  Wondering if that was
> > Stan Fluitt's dad.  Stan was a
> brakeman/conductor
> > in SLO.
>
> Allen, a 1947 Coast roster shows a CE Fluitt with
> a yard date of 9-8-45, but no Fluitt in the
> trainmen's ranks.
>
>
> EO
>  
It looks like the LA 25 was at Serrano cutting out the helper.  The usual move was to stop at Serrano and the helper eng which was cut in ahead of the cab would back over the switch and cut the cab.  Dispr would flip the switch and the helper head to SLO ahead of the train.  Disp would realign the switch and the crew would let the cab roll down to a joint.  Note on page 1 that LA 25 arr SLO at 1:45 PM so he followed 98 whose OT arr at SLO was 1:20.  This was a standard move.  The LA was a nice catch from Wat Jct as they usually departed on the arrival of 75 and were a pretty straight shot to SLO.  Delays came from the condr's report.
 
Looking at this a little closer I see that the LA 25 and the SF 125 were meeting at Serrano which complicates the above described move.  After backing the helper and cab over the switch and cutting the cab the dspr would have to head the helper on top of SF 125 then let the cab roll down to a joint, then the helper back out and follow LA 25 to SLO.  Meanwhile 98 is cooling his heels at east end of Cuesta.
 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/16 09:05 by Exespee.

Exespee Wrote:
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>  Delays came from
> the condr's report. 


The train wire would have sounded like this:

OS BI

BI

____ arrived ____with (Load Empty Ms) (SP used 1000 lb Ms instead of 2000 lb tons)

allright

and he was delayed

alllllllllright

here this much here this much here this much (spatch writing all of this on the trainsheet)

allright

{although, I always told my operators to not be redundant and start right in if they didn't hear me working someone else:
BI ____ at ___ with ___ and he was delayed
Allright
here and here etc.
allright
This is the way it worked on Morse}


As the day wore on, the chief would get the delays from the sheet and add them to the report. The report was often kept in the mill (typewriter) to be added as time went by. The report was made in as many copies as there were local addresses. This chief was lucky, he only had three local addresses, so there were three plus one for the telegraph office plus one for the live file on the Chief's desk. Some of the B&OCT and C&O morning reports I worked on had a dozen copies - smack those typewriter keys hard, it isn't a 70 WPM kind of typing.

The addresses are listed in pecking order, the most important person first, the least last. The first address got the top copy. The last address got the bottom (least legible) copy. I was severely admonished for getting a guy in Baltimore out of order on the morning report. He was promoted and should have been addressed one person higher in the addresses. It would have been nice to hear about it before the transgression.

If the report wasn't left in the mill, it had to be put back in to be added to. That involved getting the new addition exactly lined up with the previous material. If you got an entry crooked or out of line, you'd hear about it (and do not let the carbon copies get out of register). I heard once about a dispatchers office in Chicago somewhere that had five mills, one for each report the office issued, so that the reports didn't have to be taken out, then lined back up again (which we on B&OCT had to do for five, if I remember correctly, reports.

C&O had an elegant solution. The trainsheet was printed on vellum. Every morning, the Chief made diazo prints of the trainsheet and distributed them to local management.

TAW



 

Stan Fluitt quit SP in the late 70's - early 80's.  I believe he went to work for the California Men's Colony.

sphogger

Great look at operation on the Coast at the time. I noted that what appeared to br the date after the symbol was shown as 125 or 126 rather than just 25 or 26. The WPB was even stranger with 138 following the symbol.

Cliff



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/16 12:13 by MyfordBrowning.

MyfordBrowning Wrote:
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> Great look at operation on the Coast at the time.
> I noted that what appeared to br the date after
> the symbol was shown as 125 or 126 rather than
> just 25 or 26. The WPB was even stranger with 138
> following the symbol.

When I worked in Bakersfield, some of the trains, notably the fruit blocks, had sequential numbers instead of train of a date. Maybe that is the case here.

TAW

SLOCONDR Wrote:
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> Allen,
> CE Fluitt was Stan's Dad. Stan hired out around
> 1973/74 in train service at San Luis Obispo.

Thank you Virlon!


Allen

bradleymckay Wrote:
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> If you have a Coast engineer or conductor seny
> roster for about 1980/1981...

Sorry, Allen, nothing that recent pertaining to SLO.

I'm about to place several PDF-format Coast (with a smattering of others) Division seniority rosters for several crafts, from 1925-1960, on my website. I'll post a notice in Railroaders' Nostalgia when they are ready - possibly later today.

EO