Re: 99 Years Ago April 29th on the SVRy

My hat is off to you Dan in being able to piece together the orders that had to flow from the dispatcher. One aspect of SVRy operations at this time that added a lot of extra steps for a dispatcher was the need for doubling or tripling the grades with the east bound loads. Even when a helper was available, it still took multiple trips sometimes to get a scheduled freight or extra to the top of one of the 3 major grades. This surely took some intense planning to keep these freight moves from interfering with trains 1 and 2. At least 3 months of near complete conductor reports have survived from 1925. They are the months of Jan, March and July. One can similarly pieces together a days operation from these. Each separate movement seemed to get a distinct conductor report listing engine(s), crew, cars handled, and delays. Essentially they are the days operations from the conductors point of view vs. the dispatchers. Dan asked about where orders could be received. One can look at the 1916 valuation report to see where telephones were located. There appear to have been "booths" at all or nearly all sidings, at water tanks and at the big trestle below Alder Springs siding, in addition to the unmanned depots, plus the depots that had agents. I have attached a couple of train orders that were made at Alder Springs siding. These would clearly have been received on the telephone by the conductor and copied to the engineer. I assume these are copies that would have been slipped into a lock box at the phone booth, which would serve as proof of the order as copied by the conductor in event of a mishap.