Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX Moving Train Dispatchers

A reliable source said that by the end of this year, Train Dispatchers will be re-located back to Halethorpe, Md. from Jacksonville Fla. They will control the territory from Baltimore to Philadelphia,Richmond, and Pittsburgh. Additional assignments are not known. This is a continuing effort by CSX to de-centralize their dispatching operations. Dispatchers have already been moved to Avon Yard in Indianapolis and Calumet City, Il. from Jacksonville.

WOW! What a news break.

Latest news is the train dispatchers will be on the j-o-b at the original location at Halethorpe Md in the Canco Building before they went to Jacksonville by the end of this year.

O.T.R.A.

Where will they go after Baltimore??????????????????

AMANWTF Wrote:
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> Where will they go after
> Baltimore??????????????????


India

Just the Baltimore Division dispatchers are coming back to Halethorpe from what I understand and have been told. More and more NS every day.

Reliable sources have been saying this for 3 years now.

It can only be for the better. Too much sunshine down in JAX fries the brain. Too much TWC territory too, but that's another matter.

This is True!! The Baltimore region desks in Jacksonville have been notified to pack up the u-hauls . This should happen as the poster has said, by the end of the year.

Others desks re-locations might and this is speculation, be in Cincinnati and/or Nashville, in addition to Calumet city and Indy.

CSXhogger Wrote:
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> This is True!! The Baltimore region desks in
> Jacksonville have been notified to pack up the
> u-hauls . This should happen as the poster has
> said, by the end of the year.


*scratches chin*

Wonder when or if they'll start hiring new trainees for the Halethorpe Offices. You know some of those guys aren't gonna want to leave sunny Jacksonville to go to a wonderful "Garden community" like Baltimore.

--Reaper--

Notice was served 2 weeks ago about the impending move however, more late breaking news has the move on a temporary hold to work out some union issues. It's quite obvious that most of the dispatchers will not return to the Baltimore area and CSX will have to hire brand new people, very interesting to say the least.

What difference will it make if your dispatcher is 2000 miles away or 200 miles away? They will have the same computers, same tracks, same yardmasters, same brains. How will this be better?

They will find some clerks to push the pencil !!!!!!! Brains are optional

The idea is not all the eggs in one basket, Disaster insurance.

JMan Wrote:
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> The idea is not all the eggs in one basket,
> Disaster insurance.


I think you're right JMan. Florida is getting to be a higher risk with more dastardly hurricanes and to a much lesser extent--forest fires. Scientists (not just the global warming ones) are predicting more storms and more powerful at that. Some insurance companies have pulled out of Florida or just want to provide auto coverage. I understand that Florida was attempting to pass a law that said if insurers provided insurance for autos, they had to for homes too. Was that ever passed?

It is most likely the "disbursement of resources" concept. Though I agree with an earlier post wondering how it is different to have a dispatching office in Baltimore that's connected with the same exact links that connect an office in Jacksonville.

Fear-mongers spreading "the inconvenient truth" have decided that Florida hurricanes are going to get worse in coming years. These forecasters haven't yet revealed how they know that...or offered any past prediction accuracy records to suggest why we should believe what they say.
One possible benefit of all the Global-warming frenzy: more people will leave Florida!

Danny Harmon
Tampa

It's just common sense. If any catastrophe hit a centralized office the disruption of service would be massive. It's not just natural disasters.

The de-centralization at least allows the sections of railroad not affected to continue to function.

The original Dufford Center in JAX was designed to withstand storms and other natural disasters (like UP's "bunker" in Omaha), but like UP, as more functions were centralized, the operation outgrew the storm-resistant building and overflowed into nearby office space that was not protected (I thought I read that CSX purchased a former hotel/motel complex next door for this purpose). The unfortunate upshot of that was significant portions of their operational network were now vulnerable to Mother Nature.

CSX has had to shut down and evacuate the JAX center at least twice I am aware of due to impending hurricanes, etc. When that happened, the whole railroad ground to a halt, including trackage hundreds of miles away from any danger.

Don Phillips wrote in Trains about how assinine it was for the Chicago-Grand Rapids Amtrak service (Pere Marquette) to have to be annulled in Michigan because of a hurricane in Florida, over 800 miles away.

The notion of centralization of "C&C" (Command & Control) functions also lost a lot of lustre on September 11, 2001. If the brokerage houses in the WTC hadn't had off-site backup of their network files, you would have seen a financial crisis of biblical proportions in the wake of that tragedy.

NZ

Questions about the continuing seperation of dispatching responsibilities within CSX.

1. Do any of the 'satelite' facilities have the ability to manage the data if the primary data facility is somehow knocked out? It would do little good to scatter the people to multiple locations if those locations do not have the ability to carry other location(s) if the primary data center is out of service.

2. Do the 'satelite' facilities have the physical tools (space workstations etc.) in resrve to accomodate a location that may be knocked out of service? How easy is it to re-direct the data from control points in the field to a backup location? I would suspect that each location has a primary backup already designated - but what if that location is the one that gets knocked off line? Is the data system flexible enough to compensate?

3. Is there any 'cross-polination' in redundancies between the former Conrail facilities & the 'legacy' CSX ones? Are they on a common operating system to allow this?

4. How are people needs dealt with? Do the existing dispatchers receive training on the territories that their location is designated to back up? If so, how often do they get 'refresher' courses? How is it insured that there will be sufficient 'manpower' in place to handle the increased workload if work is moved to a backup facility?

5. What method of communication exists between for dispatcher to dispatcher communication between the various facilities. I would suspect that the continued de-centralization has increased the usage of those internal channels - are they sufficient? For example, two of the busier junction points in my area (Deshler & Fostoria) have converging lines that are now controlled by dispatchers in 3 different locations. (In Fostoria's case, communication must also be coordnated with F Tower)