Eastern Railroad Discussion > Rules question: Reporting when by a CP?

Greetings!

On the NS Cleveland Line, I will often hear a dispatcher ask an engineer to report when his train is by a certain location. A couple of times recently, I've been trackside at the designated location, and the conversations have mystified me a bit. Here's one example:

CP Walton is east of CP Maple. Both Walton and Maple are control points protecting crossovers. Walton is at MP 107.7, Maple is at MP 110.3. (May not be exact, but correct to within 0.2 mile.) I'm about a half mile east of Maple, waiting to photograph a westbound. I can see the eastern signal of CP Maple. Just as the westbound appears around the curve, the dispatcher asks him to report when he is east of Walton. At that instant, his head end is about 1.5 miles west of the Walton interlocking. The engineer replies, "Roger. It'll be about a mile and a half." He can't be talking about clearing Walton interlocking, since NS doesn't run three-mile trains on that line. The train passes, and I watch it rumble away into the distance. Just as the tail end passes the CP Maple signal, I hear the engineer report, "NS 1234 east of Walton with a marker."

My question is: what precisely does "east of Walton" mean? Does it mean east of the Walton interlocking, in which case the engineer waited about two miles longer than he needed to, or does it mean east of the block of track whose entrance was controlled by the CP Walton signal -- in other words, does it mean east of the track between Walton and Maple?

Thanks!

Rob

RobR wrote:
>
> Greetings!
>
>
> My question is: what precisely does "east of Walton" mean?
> Does it mean east of the Walton interlocking, in which case the
> engineer waited about two miles longer than he needed to, or
> does it mean east of the block of track whose entrance was
> controlled by the CP Walton signal -- in other words, does it
> mean east of the track between Walton and Maple?
>

Under NORAC operating rules, a train cannot report itself clear unless it has a working two way telemetry and has fulfilled one of the following situations:

A- It has passed over a detect detector falling outside the area you wish to be clear of, and gotten a good axle count (which the dummies at NS have chosen to remove from the radio readout).

-or-

B- The head end is more three or more miles past the point you wish to be reported clear of. (which sounds like what you are describing)

The above do not apply if another train or employee can report the rear of your train past the location with a marker (working or not) on the rear end.

Runs4TheNS,

Thanks very much! That clears up my confusion.

The detector near me (formerly calling itself the Conrail White detector, now just reporting that it's at MP 112.9) still calls out the axle count. However, they took away the train speed that it used to call out. An NS dispatcher once told me it was to cut down on unnecessary radio traffic in the interest of safety.

A CSX detector on the southeast side of Cleveland that I can occasionally pick up also reports the axle count.

Rob