Railroaders' Nostalgia > B&OCT Train Dispatchers ~1971

Here's another old beat up print. I can't find my B&OCT negatives. I'm hoping that they are still safely tucked away in a box in the storage unit. This was opening day of the Barr Yard dispatchers office. I think late 1971. It's written on the negative envelope, wherever it is. This is the only time that anyone could remember that all of the B&OCT train dispatchers were in the same room at the same time. The rules examiner was on hand to conduct a short "rules class" (so everyone would get paid) to familiarize everyone with the layout of the new office, parking, and how to use the new communication panel on the dispatcher's table. The picture was taken with my Zeiss Ikon Nettar half frame 120 camera https://img1.iwascoding.com/4/paid/2013/04/28/10/CF897145AA114DF284F7D415D033301B.jpg using just office lighting. I set the exposure and showed the rules examiner how to use the viewfinder and trip the shutter. I hustled back to take my place in the picture. He was so nervous about using a camera that he tripped the shutter without waiting for me to be fully in sight. That was it, no time for more.
Left to right

• Back row: Paul Jenkins (PEJ)-first trick, John Jenkins (JFJ)-Chief Dispatcher, Don Phelps (DLP)-student, Charlie Hall (CWH)-student, Don Beaty (DEB)-3d trick chief, George Carlberg (GEC)-relief chief
• Middle row: TAW-2d chief, Charlie Hellwig (CDH)-relief trick dispatcher, Jerry Johnstone (JAJ)-extra dispatcher/relief operator CGW Jct. (KC/Forest Park)
• Front row: Bob Heller (ERH)-second trick, Bob Steele (BJS)-3d trick, Tony Franicich (ARF)-extra dispatcher/1st operator C&A (Argo)

Tony and Jerry had enough of the pressure cooker of dispatching by the time that they could hold relatively light tower jobs within walking distance of home, so they became professional extra men.

TAW

---

TAW does not look a lot like I TAW I knew.

TAW were you in the witness protection program? Looks like that you hiding behind the person in front of you?

Gary

ACL3042 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW were you in the witness protection program?
> Looks like that you hiding behind the person in
> front of you?
>
Never employ a rules examiner as a photographer.

TAW

Thanks for posting.Always good to see employee pictures.I wish I would have taken more.Too busy with trains and structures.However,in my defense a lot of my coworkers were camera shy or prone to hijinks the grandkids are guilty of these days.Bill Webb

Thanks, Tom for putting a face, (partial, at least) with a voice although I must say most of these guys don’t look like ‘real’ train dispatchers.
You know, haggard faces and mostly balding. These traits, of course, are the result of trying to coax ‘board certified’ hogheads over the spatch’s district and, having failed, resort to pulling their own locks out in dispair and disgust. :>)

Charlie

Posted from iPhone

You don't have to coax me to keep moving...just give me the signals let me have at it!

This showed up in my Flickr feed the other day: 
https://flic.kr/p/QjmsMn

 

kevink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This showed up in my Flickr feed the other day: 
> https://flic.kr/p/QjmsMn
>
Thanks a lot for that. Don was one of my protégés.

The comments mention the size of the trainsheet. Traffic was probably down a lot from my experience when that picture was taken, since I worked before Amtrak andwhen  the Altenheim between Rockwell and Forest Park, the CGW, Robey yard, and other such were still active, so a trainsheet might have covered a full day as was the case anywhere else. Before I left, the trainsheet was 12 hours, not 24, changed at noon AND midnight..

TAW

Left over paper train sheets from my territory were about four feet wide......I couldn't imagine what I'd do if after getting that thing nearly full and not being able to find an empty spot for a particular piece of information. 

Wow, I had never heard that such a photo existed.
It is impossible for me to say "thank you" enough to express it fully.

I had the priveledge of working with everyone in the photo except for JAJ and Tom,
who had left for the SP right before I was hired in August, 1972.  I think your departure
opened the door for me to get hired by JFJ.  I had been in the signal gang the previous
three summers, and Signal Supervisor Art Wiedle introduced me to Mr. Jenkins.
He hired me on the spot and I was at Clearing Industrial Clinic the next morning and
posting at North Harvey with "Mitch" (E.F. Michel) the following day.

This is and will forever be my all-time favorite photo posted on TO.

Thanks again, x 1,000,000 plus.