XXII What the Pilot Engine Found For a time after the suicide of the off-trick-despatcher the wreck epidemic paused.
We had five extra fuel trains loading at the company's chutes at Coalville, and the despatcher was instructed to work them out on the line during the night, distributing them to the towns that had reported shortages.
There were no passenger trains to meet, and the despatcher was apparently giving us "regardless" rights over everything else, since we made no stops.
Crowley was, also, promoted at this time to the position of Chief Despatcher of the division.
In May, 1891, he was transferred to Watertown as chief train despatcher and later as train master.
Warner was finally succeeded as despatcher at Watertown Junction by N.
There is one pretty keen railroad executive in the land who remembers his joy at being promoted to Despatcher on the old Rome road.
The leading engine, upon which Train Despatcher and Assistant Superintendent W.
If a despatcher took sick there was no handy way of filling in; it was just double up and do the best you could.
In passing, however, it is only fair to say that the circumstance on which the tale is based was so regarded by the despatcher himself, and by those familiar with the circumstance.
When the night operator there called the despatcher again it brought Blackburn out of his gloom like a thunderclap.
The despatcher snatching the train sheet began instantly clearing track for a bridge special.
Sampson afterward claimed that Barnes Tracy, the despatcher that did it, was a Gold Democrat, but this never was proved.
Blackburn was on Doubleday in a wink, and before Walter could right himself the night despatcher had thrown him headlong across the room.
Bucks put up a hand and without a word of comment repeated Blackburn's story just as the despatcher had told it.
It is the obscure despatcher under the lamp who for a single lapse pays the penalty of eternal disgrace.
Rocksby had resigned a year earlier, and Haverly, his successor, an ex-despatcher and as big a knave as there was on the pay roll, let the men out right and left with the sole idea of saving his own scalp.
Each day is divided into three periods of eight hours each, known as "tricks," and a despatcher assigned to each.
At any minute the despatcheron duty can tell you the precise location of any train, what she is doing, how her engine is working, how much work she has to do along the road, and all about her engineer and conductor.
The general manager, the general superintendent, and a number of the division superintendents resigned to save dismissal, and my friend the chief despatcher went with them.
Many other discrepancies were noticeable, but these sufficed to show that Krantzer's abilities as a despatcher were of a very low order.
I landed in St. Louis one bright morning and went up to the office of the chiefdespatcher of the Q.
A Night Office in Texas--A Stuttering Despatcher 33 VI.
He said there was a pocket instrument in the baggage car, and asked me if I would cut in on the wire and tell the despatcher of the wreck.
Should its details not have been completed when the despatcheris relieved, his successor signs his initials thereto showing that he has received it.
One night when I was sitting up a little late I heard the despatcher give Ned an order for a train that ordinarily would not stop there.
He had none to give me but wired the chiefdespatcher at Big Rock, and in answer thereto I was sent the next morning to Healyville.
Jones and Smith," and the despatcher gives the "complete" and the exact time.
Go over to the despatcher's office any night and you will see him, bright and alert, sitting opposite the despatcher doing the copying.
He dropped into a chair beside his chief despatcher and took the entire situation in hand.
After that, while the despatcher himself was busied with details, the assistant arranged to handle all traffic.
When the train has proceeded to the end of its orders there will be more orders from the train-despatcher to be receipted for, and so it will proceed to the end of the route.
The despatcher has, of course, been apprised of the safe ending of the run of Third-118.
Take yourself away from the cool-witted despatcher and look down upon this craft--the queen of a railroad pet marine.
In the despatcher we have a high type of railroad official who works almost unknown to the great travelling public, and yet accepts a very great measure of the responsibility for the safe operation of the lines.
As a matter of fact, a skilled train-master or despatcher will rarely take the time actually to string an extra train.
Now and then your morning paper tells of a railroad wreck, and laconically adds, "The despatcher was at fault.
The train-despatcher enters these details of train and crew at the head of a column of his train register.
The despatcher recognized the young man's ingenuity, but he also realized that he had been fooled, and so he woke Edison none too gently, and told him that his services were no longer in demand on that road.
At last the train despatcher ordered Edison to signal him the letter "A" in the Morse alphabet every half hour.
Night after night the signal was sent without a mistake, and the despatcher began to regain some of the confidence he had lost in the young operator.
Then one night the despatcher chanced to be at the next station to Edison's, and it occurred to him to call the latter up and have a chat with him.
Get orders for me as you go up to your office, Kittredge, and have the despatcher let me out as soon as possible.
Guess you'd better call up the division despatcher and tell him the broken-wire gag didn't work.
Keep your finger on the pulse of things in town to-day, and arrange with your despatcher to give my operators here a clear wire in any direction whenever it's called for.
The despatcher had thought that Mr. Gantry might want to know.
When everything is ready, the train-despatcher takes a sharp axe, and with one blow clips the cable in two behind them, and zip they go to the other end before you can say Jack Robinson.
He was just in time to see the nightdespatcher lifting something down the steps outside.
Mingle caught a flash of the steel spokes as the night despatcher turned the corner under the lamp-post into the road.
When the despatcher had finished, his companion reached the head of the stairs in a jump.
The despatcher in one stride stepped to the instrument on the desk.
The despatcher watched the fireman open the door of the furnace and stand for an instant silhouetted against the red glare that was reflected by the dampness all around.
As the despatcher turned to the door of the staircase, he ran into the man whose face he had seen in the glare from the fire-box.
It was your duty to make sure that the despatcher fully understood the situation at Crosswater, and to refuse to pull out ahead of the passenger without something more definite than a formal permit.
Does the night despatcher happen to know just where 204 is, at this present moment?
Some of the backcappers will be telling you presently that I was a train despatcher over in God's country, and that I put two trains together.
Williams, who had been looking on sourly while the engine-despatcher chalked his name on the board for the night run with the service-car.
He was a chief despatcher back East, and he put two passenger-trains together in a head-on collision the day he resigned and came West to grow up with the Red Desert.
He would start west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him, and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening miles would permit.
That done he transferred the pocket relay to the other end of the cut wire, and called up the night despatcher at Angels.
Oh, as long as he had done it, I had him call up the Angels despatcher to find out where we were at.
There was a small problem impending for the division despatcher at Angels, and the new superintendent held aloof to see how it would be handled.
Run without stop to Little Butte, unless thedespatcher calls you down.
That's about the way the night despatcher has it ciphered out.
All this was in a low whisper; and now the despatcher climbed up on the fireman's side and pressed a bit of crumpled tissue-paper into the driver's hand.
That is the last the despatcher hears of you at E.
Now the chief despatcher came from the station, stole along the shadow side of the car, and spoke to the man who had ordered the train.
He knew why, and knew that the influence of a great railway company, with the best of the argument on its side, would outweigh the influence of a train despatcher and his friends.
It was from the Superintendent, and it stated bluntly that the resignation of the chief despatcher would be accepted, and named his successor.
That is the first the despatcher hears of you at E.
The orders were sent as swiftly as the despatcher could rattle them off on his key; and then followed an interval of waiting more terrible than a battle.
If Hawk asks them to lend him a train despatcher for a few minutes, they'll do it.
Let us wait a while before we do anything like that," he added, coupling himself with the despatcherin the latter's overwhelming anxiety.
Something has happened," he said, waiting for the despatcher to speak.
The despatcher continued his encouraging messages, but did not cease his words of caution, and, as the wreckage burned, Bucks perceived the Indians were riding in great numbers up the creek.
Dancing resumed, and the despatcheragain translated for Scott.
He rejoined Bucks after getting rid of the crowd, and the moment the relief train reported ready the despatcher sent it out, that help might reach the scene of disaster at the earliest possible moment.
Bucks set himself to keep pace with the good work done by the despatcher in the evening trick and for two hours kept his sheet pretty clean.
Before the young substitute took up his train-sheet, he told the chiefdespatcher of how strangely the conductor, Dave Hawk, had talked to him.
As the grave despatcher seemed not greatly excited by this intelligence, Bucks followed up the story at intervals with vivid details.
Before Baggs could rub his eyes the room was cleared, and half a dozen trainmen hastily summoned and led by a despatcher were engaged out upon the platform in a free fight with the Front Street ruffians.
It was only a moment, but it seemed to the frightened operator a lifetime before the despatcher answered.
Bucks, considerably flurried, answered that he did, and the despatcher with renewed emphasis reiterated his sharp inquiry.
For hours the despatcher waited vainly for some word from the bridge timbers.
I'm afraid there is nothing to do with Scuffy, but to make a despatcher of him," returned Bucks, picking him up by the forepaws.
The train despatcher came into the waiting room, and seeing them walked rapidly toward them.
Mr. Weeks," he said, "the despatcherreports something the matter.
In the meantime, the operator had sent this message to the train despatcher at Manchester:-- Want right of way over everything.
To which thedespatcher replied:-- Run to Manchester extra regardless of all trains.
The operators were instructed to answer all messages from the Truesdale despatcher as intelligently as possible, in order to continue the deception.
When the Pennsylvania Railway was carried to Pittsburgh he received an appointment as train despatcherand rose to be superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the system.
The regular man is ill, the despatcher had no one else to send, and asked for you, and of course I told him you'd be delighted.
Alex and the chief despatcher moved to one of the western windows, raised it, and in the first gray light of dawn gazed out across the valley below.
I can give you a message to hand the engineer for the operator at Ledges, the next station--a message asking the despatcher to send the Ledges operator down on the Mail.
As to flagging--look at the mist over the whole valley bottom," said the despatcher pointing.
And the despatcher saying nothing more, he began calling Bixton.
Sharply the despatcher turned to an operator at one of the other wires.
If he could, undoubtedly it would be strong enough to so increase the current in the wire that both Zeisler and the despatcher could hear him.
But better even than this, in Alex's estimation, a few mornings after the chief despatcher called him to the wire and announced his appointment as night operator at Foothills, a small town on the western division.
For a moment the line remained silent, while at his end of the wire the despatcher sat bolt upright in his chair, eyes and mouth wide open.
I haven't had a dot from the despatcher since six o'clock.
But in another moment the despatcher had recovered himself, and, springing back to the key, began madly calling Broken Gap.
It's as strong as the hills," the despatcher affirmed.
If that fellow woke on my call, I'll make a despatcher of him," declared Morris Blood, with a thrill of fine pride.
The superintendent and the despatcher looked at the clock; it read 3.
The despatcher turned shaking from his chair and his superintendent slipped behind him into it.
But Reddy had his part in it--had running orders to make one more of those strange meeting points fixed by the Great Despatcher that we were speaking about a minute ago.
Give a despatcher who drinks a chance--to send a trainload or two of souls into eternity, and about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of rolling stock to the junk heap while he's boozing over the key!
The conductor tells the despatcher that if he stops to do this work the sixteen-hour law will get him before he gets in.
Our despatcher allows five minutes to unload a body and to load on another," says Mr. Schultz.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "despatcher" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
