Re: Question about who called the train crews

Probably varied from place to place depending on the size of the operation. Many places had a crew clerk or a crew dispatcher, in bigger places there might be seperate clerks for trainmen and enginemen, in small locations this might be all done by the agent. If a job was regular and bulletined for bid by a regular crew, the crew would just show up at the time and place specified in the the bulletin. The crew clerk was more involved with extra or pool trains, or if regular men laid off. At home terminals the clerk would typically telephone the the crew member at home and tell him when and where he was needed. At away from home terminals where folks might be staying in some kind of dormatory or hotel arrangement, the the crew clerk or perhaps a seperate "call boy" would go bang on a hotel door. It was always incumbent on the crew member to let the crew clerk know where he could be reached while subject to call. Who was called for what job was a combination of qualification, seniority, and various first in first out rules. There were a lot of rules based on labor agreements and ICC/FRA rules, and also less formal local agreements. Looking at generalizations, it could be pretty complicated with endless variations. But most locations had a repetitive routine that simplified the day to day work. That's my first cut at trying to remember and explain something I was very involved in many years ago. Others may want to correct and expand this.

Another interesting question is who decided when and where to run trains, especially unscheduled freight trains.

Attached is a narrow gauge example: the engineman's call board in Durango. This was located in the roundhouse office. The fact it was in the roundhouse office makes me wonder if the Roundhouse foreman might have called the enginemen, and the agent called the trainmen. Where I worked on the SP the crew clerks had large plexiglass contraptions with slots and our names were on wooden blocks that could be easily moved around.



In looking the above call board, it looks like the top part shows the jobs enginemen are called for, the bottom part shows the order in which additional folks would be called if additional jobs were called. I just noticed that the other board to the left is for trainmen.

I am really hoping some more folks chime in here.

JBWX



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2021 10:59PM by John West.