Re: 80 years ago on the Sumpter Valley...

Hey Casey, that is real interesting. Do you have dispatchers records for a period of time, or is it just hit and miss? As I told you by backchannel, between conductors reports that I have (260+-) and what 2 freinds have, there were about 300 for the month of July 1925. The busiest day I have seen had 18 conductors reports with 6 engines on the road, not counting the Baker swither. I have not seen a conductor report that reflect switching in Baker. I wonder if the switch engine and crew which was probably engine 14 in the mid 20s filed any kind of report of their activity? I believe the conductors reports with their talley of loaded miles and empty miles for ea car would have been used in the process of billing. How was switching in Baker accounted for? What would have been typical on other railrods for switch crews as far as revenue off of swithcing the various mills? It occurs to me this might have been just overhead expense for the railroad and revenue comming from transport of the the loads on the mainline only. Any thoughts on this out there?
I have noticed that many of the train orders I have change the location of a meet say from Larch to Alder Springs, or the other way around. This has got me to wondering how crews got these changes of orders. I believe there was a phone booth at S. wye, Alder Springs, and also at Larch, so I suppose it could have been routine for crews to check in at these locations with the S.Baker dispatcher, or the revised orders could have been received at the Whitney depot and passed on to eastbounds, but I'd assume a westbound freight would often not have went into Sumpter, so McEwen would have been the nearest manned depot where the crew could get a trainorder revising the meet. On the day that there were 18 conductor reports that dispatcher in S.Baker was a busy man indeed because nearly all, if not all of the trains were involved with multiple meets, set out of consists for other engines to pick up, then turn around as act as helper for another engine. It was a phenominal rr show.
Next winter if not sooner when I get some time, I think it might be interesting to make up a sheet showing where each of the trains were on a particularly busy day at say 1/2 hour intervals. Perhaps I'll post it here if there is interest.