NI dispatcher

Hi;
I listen to the action on the River sub, controlled by the NI dispatcher's desk in Selkirk. I am curious to know what other territories the NI desk handles, and what does "NI" stand for?

Thanks

CP

This was covered here a few years ago. Will have to do some digging.

I went clear back to 7/19/10, and this is all that I could find:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 53&t=82000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I am certain that there is a more in depth thread on here somewhere though.

CSX uses 2 letter ID's for their Dispatcher Desks. All the desks at Albany have a 'N' first identifier. The NI handles the River Line and down to Park Jct. at Philadelphia, including Arsenal, Penrose and Greenwich Yard at S. Philadelphia. These territories connect to the Baltimore based BE desk which handles from Vine Street in Philadelphia to Saint Denis in Baltimore.

I miss the good 'ole "Riverline Dispatcher"

mmi16 wrote:CSX uses 2 letter ID's for their Dispatcher Desks. All the desks at Albany have a 'N' first identifier. The NI handles the River Line and down to Park Jct. at Philadelphia, including Arsenal, Penrose and Greenwich Yard at S. Philadelphia. These territories connect to the Baltimore based BE desk which handles from Vine Street in Philadelphia to Saint Denis in Baltimore.

Thanks! I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't - after all, wasn't all CSX dispatching done from Jacksonville FL at one time? I know that's where they still have their mechanical/trouble desk.
It seems to me that not only does one desk handle multiple territories, but that one person at that desk has to multitask constantly. Sometimes I hear crews on the RL trying to key up the dispatchers' radio (using the DTMF codes), but no one answers for some time. Dispatcher doing some other task...

CP

mainetrain wrote:I miss the good 'ole "Riverline Dispatcher"

You mean the Penn Central Riverline Dispatcher?
I believe I was once told that the Penn Central dispatchers were all at NYP, but Conrail moved them to E-port, and then to Trenton. I don't know whether that info is valid - it was something someone I met while railfanning told me, and it was a long time ago.
Interestingly, the Riverline shared its road channel (160.800) with Amtrak's NEC for a long time. The crews on the Riverline used to get "stepped on" by Amtrak towers all the time - then they moved the Riverline to 160.980 - which it still uses today.
I also recall that Penn Central and Conrail used more or less centralized radio transmitters for the Riverline. There was one atop the Alpine tower, which covered everything from North Bergen to Haverstraw and probably even farther north. Then there was another transmitter somewhere up around Haverstraw, and a couple more up the line.

CP

CPSK wrote:

mmi16 wrote:CSX uses 2 letter ID's for their Dispatcher Desks. All the desks at Albany have a 'N' first identifier. The NI handles the River Line and down to Park Jct. at Philadelphia, including Arsenal, Penrose and Greenwich Yard at S. Philadelphia. These territories connect to the Baltimore based BE desk which handles from Vine Street in Philadelphia to Saint Denis in Baltimore.

Thanks! I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't - after all, wasn't all CSX dispatching done from Jacksonville FL at one time? I know that's where they still have their mechanical/trouble desk.
It seems to me that not only does one desk handle multiple territories, but that one person at that desk has to multitask constantly. Sometimes I hear crews on the RL trying to key up the dispatchers' radio (using the DTMF codes), but no one answers for some time. Dispatcher doing some other task...

CP

All Dispatching territories encompass a hundred miles or more and most have multiple subdivisions and those subdivisions may operate on different rule sets. Each train that comes on a territory is a new task - more trains, more tasks. A trackman wants track time - another task; signal maintainer needs to do testing at a control point - another task; train approaching a 'new' slow order - another task in transmitting the slow order; a foreign line train wants to cross a controlled crossing at grade - another task; received report of malfunctioning road grade crossing protection - another task to create the protection and more tasks in communicating the protection to trains that will pass the area. Dispatchers are constantly multi-tasking.

With the radio set up, those on the Road Channel can only hear conversations in their immediate area taking place on the same channel. They cannot hear conversations taking place on the road channel on the 'other end' of the rail road. With a number of trains operating, calling signals and passing over defect detectors - the road channel can be a VERY BUSY place. Dispatcher's have their 'own channel' on each territory, when necessary to communicate a 'Mandatory Directive' to a train, the train will be contacted on the road channel and instructed to meet the dispatcher on the dispatchers channel so that the communication can take place without interruption. With the present radio set up, the dispatcher can only monitor the road channel from a selected radio tower. When trains 'tone in' they activate a identifier on the dispatchers radio/telephone console to identify the nearest tower where the tone in happened; the dispatcher will answer this call consistant with work in progress.

mmi16 wrote:

CPSK wrote:

mmi16 wrote:CSX uses 2 letter ID's for their Dispatcher Desks. All the desks at Albany have a 'N' first identifier. The NI handles the River Line and down to Park Jct. at Philadelphia, including Arsenal, Penrose and Greenwich Yard at S. Philadelphia. These territories connect to the Baltimore based BE desk which handles from Vine Street in Philadelphia to Saint Denis in Baltimore.

Thanks! I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't - after all, wasn't all CSX dispatching done from Jacksonville FL at one time? I know that's where they still have their mechanical/trouble desk.
It seems to me that not only does one desk handle multiple territories, but that one person at that desk has to multitask constantly. Sometimes I hear crews on the RL trying to key up the dispatchers' radio (using the DTMF codes), but no one answers for some time. Dispatcher doing some other task...

CP

All Dispatching territories encompass a hundred miles or more and most have multiple subdivisions and those subdivisions may operate on different rule sets. Each train that comes on a territory is a new task - more trains, more tasks. A trackman wants track time - another task; signal maintainer needs to do testing at a control point - another task; train approaching a 'new' slow order - another task in transmitting the slow order; a foreign line train wants to cross a controlled crossing at grade - another task; received report of malfunctioning road grade crossing protection - another task to create the protection and more tasks in communicating the protection to trains that will pass the area. Dispatchers are constantly multi-tasking.

With the radio set up, those on the Road Channel can only hear conversations in their immediate area taking place on the same channel. They cannot hear conversations taking place on the road channel on the 'other end' of the rail road. With a number of trains operating, calling signals and passing over defect detectors - the road channel can be a VERY BUSY place. Dispatcher's have their 'own channel' on each territory, when necessary to communicate a 'Mandatory Directive' to a train, the train will be contacted on the road channel and instructed to meet the dispatcher on the dispatchers channel so that the communication can take place without interruption. With the present radio set up, the dispatcher can only monitor the road channel from a selected radio tower. When trains 'tone in' they activate a identifier on the dispatchers radio/telephone console to identify the nearest tower where the tone in happened; the dispatcher will answer this call consistant with work in progress.

I think I misled you in my statement " I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't". What I meant to say is that I shouldn't be surprised, as I am aware that many dispatching desks do handle large territories.
I am familiar with the radio system, which has changed over the past 20 years.
I was thinking today about what happens when railroad communications "go digital", but I believe there is another thread on that subject, so I won't get into it here.

CP

CPSK wrote:

mmi16 wrote:

CPSK wrote:

mmi16 wrote:CSX uses 2 letter ID's for their Dispatcher Desks. All the desks at Albany have a 'N' first identifier. The NI handles the River Line and down to Park Jct. at Philadelphia, including Arsenal, Penrose and Greenwich Yard at S. Philadelphia. These territories connect to the Baltimore based BE desk which handles from Vine Street in Philadelphia to Saint Denis in Baltimore.

Thanks! I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't - after all, wasn't all CSX dispatching done from Jacksonville FL at one time? I know that's where they still have their mechanical/trouble desk.
It seems to me that not only does one desk handle multiple territories, but that one person at that desk has to multitask constantly. Sometimes I hear crews on the RL trying to key up the dispatchers' radio (using the DTMF codes), but no one answers for some time. Dispatcher doing some other task...

CP

All Dispatching territories encompass a hundred miles or more and most have multiple subdivisions and those subdivisions may operate on different rule sets. Each train that comes on a territory is a new task - more trains, more tasks. A trackman wants track time - another task; signal maintainer needs to do testing at a control point - another task; train approaching a 'new' slow order - another task in transmitting the slow order; a foreign line train wants to cross a controlled crossing at grade - another task; received report of malfunctioning road grade crossing protection - another task to create the protection and more tasks in communicating the protection to trains that will pass the area. Dispatchers are constantly multi-tasking.

With the radio set up, those on the Road Channel can only hear conversations in their immediate area taking place on the same channel. They cannot hear conversations taking place on the road channel on the 'other end' of the rail road. With a number of trains operating, calling signals and passing over defect detectors - the road channel can be a VERY BUSY place. Dispatcher's have their 'own channel' on each territory, when necessary to communicate a 'Mandatory Directive' to a train, the train will be contacted on the road channel and instructed to meet the dispatcher on the dispatchers channel so that the communication can take place without interruption. With the present radio set up, the dispatcher can only monitor the road channel from a selected radio tower. When trains 'tone in' they activate a identifier on the dispatchers radio/telephone console to identify the nearest tower where the tone in happened; the dispatcher will answer this call consistant with work in progress.

I think I misled you in my statement " I'm kind of surprised that Selkirk handles territory all the way down to Philly - but it shouldn't". What I meant to say is that I shouldn't be surprised, as I am aware that many dispatching desks do handle large territories.
I am familiar with the radio system, which has changed over the past 20 years.
I was thinking today about what happens when railroad communications "go digital", but I believe there is another thread on that subject, so I won't get into it here.

CP

CSX radios went digital a couple of years ago when the size of the railroad bandwidth was narrowed. With analog radio a radio distant from a tower could generally be heard well enough to be understandable. With the 'drop out' of digital segments under those circumstance - the radios are not intelligible.