These may be the only samples of dispatchers reports that survive. I have not seen anymore. They are part of a large collection of company paperwork that was reputedly gathered up by a faculty member at what was then Eastern Ore. State College in LaGrande. My understanding was that he asked to be able to gather some representative samples from what was being discarded. I assume this was about 1961 or 62. There are other stories of paper work being gathered by interested parties from the turntable pit where it was being burned. I personally have a substantial collection which may have been gathered in this way as does the SVRR archive.
Regarding train 5 and 6, my take has been that 5 is the scheduled west bound frt. and 6 is the east bound. I believe #7 was a morning freight from Austin to Prairie. It's engine and crew would then hook onto the pass. train consist that had arrived as #1 the previous day and return to Austin with it as #2. At this point either both trains were turned and pass. exchanged or the engines and crews were exchanged. I think the later may be the case.
We have a couple more windows into typical operation with a couple dispatcher sheets surviving from 1924 if I recall correctly, and several months of conductor reports in 1925. There appear to have been some changes. As I recall on the dispatcher sheets, #3 was the morning frt. train to Prairie from Austin, and #4 was the return frt.to Austin by the engine and crew that had arrived there as #2. In 1925, #1,#2, and #3 are as above, but no #4. The return from Prairie is instead an extra, which brings any freight cars back from Prairie and switches the mill at Bates before tying up. No #5 and #6 either with all freights being run as extras.
Good question on the RPO clerk. My assumption has been 2 RPO clerks. One working #1 and #2 between Baker and Austin and another between Prairie and Austin for #1 and #2 like the engine crews, but as you suggest two clerks one on the west bound and laying over and the other on the east bound and laying over in Baker would have worked as well. I don't see how it could have been done with one clerk unless the mail was simply carried bagged between Austin and Prairie. This was likely the case in the later days of operation to Prairie when they were using the Model T powered rail car. As I recall in the 1925 reports, an RPO was in the Prairie consist, so that would appear to indicate a mail clerk.
Back to the question about engine house and hostler in Prairie. I don't believe there is any evidence that they had an engine facility there. However, in the examples we have records of for a stock extra in 1925, Engine 19 took stock cars to Prairie the previous afternoon of the stock move, which allowed an early morning loading of the cars, then the eastbound move of the stock train using #19 and #50 which had brought #3 to Prairie and worked as a helper to get the stock extra to Dixie summit where #19 could handle it down to Austin. Eng.#50 returned to Prairie, coupled to train #2 and headed for Austin apparently keeping to the normal schedule. So somebody had to babysit an engine for the night in Prairie at times, but normally operations were our of Austin. There was no engine house in Whitney as far as I know till about 1936 when one was built on the tail of the wye. This was at a time when the mill at Bates was shut down and the smaller mill at Whitney was put in operation. I assume in the 1916 reports that the Whitney helper originated out of Austin, but have no proof.
