RRHX Photo Album

    

Photo 055C

  

H. E. Smith dispatches NYC's Middle Division in Jackson

 

H. E. Smith works as the Middle Division Dispatcher on the New York Central at Jackson around 1952.  Jackson served as a division point for the NYC's former Michigan Central lines and their dispatchers covered much of the NYC's trackage in the state. 

 
 

(Other dispatch points on the old MC lines in the first half of the 1900's were Detroit and Bay City).  Note the large train sheets that a dispatcher used during this era, which noted every train, its number, its locomotive, loads and empties, crews, and times passing each station.  The term "O.S." refers to a train's passing of a station and being "on sheet".  Also in the photo, just below the metal speaker, is an encoder which the dispatcher used to "punch up" a block station or interlocking tower if the operator did not answer.  The encoder was also used to turn on and off various "take siding" signals and morse code annunciators which played on the dispatcher's telephone line when a train passed a closed station.   [Al Smith collection]
   
   

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