Eastern Railroad Discussion > Meet delays?

The below question made me think of another question. When watching meets on the NS, it seems like it’s often a good 5 or 10 minutes once a passing train clears the plant before the route is indicated for the opposing movement. Is that because the system is slow to show a block is clear or is it the because the dispatcher might be busy and doesn’t line the route right away?

Steve Gass
Linden, VA
B-LineRailfan

In a perfect world, the signals should be “stacked in” for once the train clears the block.

But sometimes the dispatchers forget to do it. It’s not like it used to be, dispatcher in most places cover 500+ miles of territory, so sometimes they forget. Causing the train to have to tone them up to get a signal.

Another reason could be that there is a train ahead of them. A lot of engineers don’t like running on approach signals, so they’ll wait a few minute for the train ahead of them to get a couple of blocks ahead so they don’t have to keep looking at approach signals the whole way.

Posted from iPhone

Thanks - that makes sense

Steve Gass
Linden, VA
B-LineRailfan

tuxedorailfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> Another reason could be that there is a train
> ahead of them. A lot of engineers don’t like
> running on approach signals, so they’ll wait a
> few minute for the train ahead of them to get a
> couple of blocks ahead so they don’t have to
> keep looking at approach signals the whole way.

That part doesn't work. If the train in the hole just met an oposing train, there will be no train ahead in the block.

It may not be that the dispatcher frogot to stack the route. Asuming that all CTC installations everywhere have the capability (I'm not sure they do - probably but not sure), there may be a reason to not stack the next move, The dispatcher may have stuck out a permit behind the opposing train. Maybe it's the track inspector following the train. Maybe it's the signal maintainer working on a switch between control points.Could be that the dispatcher needed to see the meet happen in order to put the calipers on the next move.

TAW