Eastern Railroad Discussion > Dispatchers & Their Unusual Call Letters (Initials)

Dispatchers always give their initials at the end of communications that involve issuing / closing out of track authorities, slow orders and verifying bulletins etc. Most use the standard “Phonetic Alphabet” Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc. 

But there are those that come up with their own version for their initials.Here are just few I hear on a regular basis in my area. 
RBM = Ranch Bacon Mayonnaise
JCG = Just Can't Go
TTD = Tinkle Tinkle Delta 

Any others out there that are unique and/or unusual?
Thanks 

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

There is a Pittsbugh East dispatcher  PJS - Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

GDL  Great Darn Late
DVD  Dumb Very Dumb
DJD   Dumb Just Dumb
FAR  Forward and Reverse
PWM Please wait minute
RGM  Rail Grinding Machine
AC  Alternate connection

Despite the nicknames,  they were all good train dispatchers.

2b Charlie Webster  worked  the cn on the ashcroft and yale sub and we called him cold water and whiskey. This was in  1963

ozzie korsnes
saupstadringen 28b
trondheim norway

There are some dispatchers who aren't worth the paychecks they are getting, and the crews have a field day with their initials, none of which can be reprinted here.

I can't remember too many of them, at least that can be posted, but I do recall a funny story that happened one night. There was a guy CKT, who dispatched briefly in Ft Wayne about 15 years ago. He had a bit of a temper. He was having a rough night on the Columbus-Sandusky desk. Out of frustration at a crew that couldn't hear him too well on the radio, he ended a directive with "Charlie Kilo Tango!!! That's C as in cat, K if you DON'T KNOW how to spell cat, T!" We were all rolling at that one.

^^What irhoghead said above. As for dispatchers giving themselves cute phonetic spellings for their initials, my road frowns on it; one dispatcher tried it for a few weeks, then abruptly stopped. The really good phonetic spellings come from the crews, and very few of them are allowed here.

Way back in Rock Island days, we had a disptcher whose initials
were WAK.  I don't think he ever went by this, but the trains crews
referred to him as "Wait All Night".
 and swore that it was very descriptive!
zr190

MDG- my dear gal
JC

Posted from Android

All I know is that my initials--TWM--would be perfect for dispatching:   Trains Won't Move

I wonder what John Marty's was...

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

halfmoonharold Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't remember too many of them, at least that
> can be posted, but I do recall a funny story that
> happened one night. There was a guy CKT, who
> dispatched briefly in Ft Wayne about 15 years ago.
> He had a bit of a temper. He was having a rough
> night on the Columbus-Sandusky desk. Out of
> frustration at a crew that couldn't hear him too
> well on the radio, he ended a directive with
> "Charlie Kilo Tango!!! That's C as in cat, K if
> you DON'T KNOW how to spell cat, T!" We were all
> rolling at that one.

Some I knew and/or worked with:

AMS - Cotton Belt - A Miserable Sight
BES -  Cotton Belt - Bacon Eggs & Sausage
TLB -  MoPac - Tired Little Boy
GWD -  MoPac - God Whatta Dispatcher
WLL -  MoPac - Wide Load Lewis (Willie weighed 300+ pounds)
SAT - NS - Stops All Trains
CTP - NS - Car and Truck Payment
WLW - MoPac - always said his initials were for "The Nation's Station" WLW AM 700 in Cincinnati
DBD - MoPac - Damn Bad Dispatcher
MUJ - MoPac - Mixed Up Jones


 
 

  

At least where I work on CSX, initials are never given in the phoenetic alphabet, just spoken as the letters.

However, that just leads the trainmen to come up with their own variations for notorious dispatchers.  For example, on one desk we have "JWS".  Which translates roughly to "Just Won't Speak" or "Just Wait Some" because he takes 10x as long to answer the radio as every other dispatcher.

The long time dispatcher that ran the Lehigh line for Conrail was named Gary.
Maybe some of the New Jersey/Pa. fans on here will remember him. He made to move over to Norfolk Southern with the takeover, but has since retired.

He was always great on the radio and the crews and track foremen and maintainers really liked him.
So did the railfan's.

So right after the NS takeover, he started calling out Form D's like this and continued til he retired.

"Form D, C-123456, that's C as in Conrail".

Always made my day!

ALV---Another Lonely Victim
TMT--Too Many Trains 

Brian Stevens

A couple I dealt with were "Just Can't Dispatch" and "Takes Lunch Hourly."
On the Western Pacific, dispatchers used the chief's initials. Seemed silly, as it was always the same.
I've heard that on some railroads, dispatchers used made-up initials rather than their own to maintain anonymity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/18 21:33 by wpamtk.

How about JHP--just hardly perfect.

wpamtk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> On the Western Pacific, dispatchers used the
> chief's initials. Seemed silly, as it was always
> the same.

Not really. That demonstrated that the dispatcher was acting on the authority of the Chief. On some railroads, they signed the Superintendent, which was the original way that the authority was handled.


> I've heard that on some railroads, dispatchers
> used made-up initials rather than their own to
> maintain anonymity.

That was common practice when Morse was used. Each operator could adopt a private "sign" that had to be different from that of any other operator on the division, which extended to dispatchers too. Some folks chose a sign that sounded good to them (on Morse) or had some other meaning to them. The initials thing started in the 80s. I worked in two offices in which there were two dispatchers with the same initials. The senior guy used his initials and the junior guy had to adopt a new "sign" so the point of using the dispatcher's initials was lost anyway.

In Morse, an operator or dispatcher asked who he was working with (receiving the traffic-message) by sine (... .. -. .). In telephone work the dispatcher asked "Sign?" or "how do you sign?".  The dispatcher didn't usually need to ask. The operator would give his sign when the dispatcher finished sending. In the late 70s, BN started dumping clerks into operator jobs. The figured that since they were now in the same union, they had a right. Some hadn't even taken a rules test or even a class. As the practice was starting, I knew the end was near when I was sticking out a work message at Spokane for a train. I finished sending and there was silence from the other end. Prompting the operator to acknowledge, I asked
Sign?
...silence
How do you sign?
...silence
Spokane?
...Spokane
How do you sign?
...With a pen, why?

TAW

When I started on the B&O, train orders were written over the initials of the superintendent, then changed to the Chief Dispatcher's initials, finally over the initials of the dispatcher who was issuing the train order,  That was all before 1985.  In my career as a dispatcher for several railroads, I can remember some dispatcher initials, some not repeatable.  BLB was Bad Little Boy, DLG was Daryl Likes Girls, WJS was We're Just Sitting.  Crews on the Soo Line nailed me with Wrong Main Johnson, which stuck to the end of my career.  I tried to counter them by telling them WMJ stood for White Michael Jordan, but no one ever believed me.  I guess they must have seen me on the court.

I note that trainee dispatchers always give the initials of the dispatcher who is coaching them....as the trainee does not have any actual authority and is not actually logged into the CAD system which he is using, but is shadowing the man who is training him.