Steam Locomotive Assignments - 1929 and Late 1930s

Frisco Steam Afficianados -
FMIG Newsletter #35 (December, 1982) has a superb summary by the late Lee Buffington that summarizes the various steam locomotive classes of the SL-SF and their assignments.

It is a wonderful, concise description of what types of locomotives ran on what divisions and/or trains.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/showpost.php?p=14617&postcount=75

Best Regards,

 

What is hanging over my workbench is a copy of the Dispatcher's train sheet from Newburg in 1944. Busy place.

 

Don,

Any chance of getting a copy of the dispatcher's train sheet scanned and posted on Frisco.org?

For those of us interested in operations this should be quite a conversation starter. Traffic must have been something and near an all time high with the war effort on the home front. Our nation was supporting our troops, and those of many allied nations, in two theaters of operation.

In addition to locomotive assignments, there is typically information on train size, tonnage, cabooses, train delays, etc. Pretty cool stuff.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Mark

 

Wouldn't be easy, it's about 3x5 feet.

 

Sure Doug, I'll jump right on that.

 

Had to go to the dentist today which is right next door to a Kinko/Fedex place so took the 4-28-44 trainsheet with me and had it scanned/PDF'd. Here it is. All I have is Adobe Reader and can't save the rotated version, but I"m sure you can do it if you have Reader.
Needless to say, Newburg was busy this day.
I have some other sheets and may do this with them later on. Cost isn't bad, about $12 to scan and save to my thumb drive.





Here's the rotated copy as well - I have Acrobat Standard. (klrwhizkid)

 

Don - Thanks! Tons of great information on these.

4/24/44 was a good day in old Newburg - the "Valhalla of all Friscodom" as I often say.

I found I could get a readable copy (mostly) using my laser printer at 600dpi, with the document set at 22% size, and using legal paper. It all fits.

Ken

 

Don,

Thank you for posting the dispatcher's train sheet!

This is really great stuff! It would have been nice at the time to have the franchise on green flags.

Just a few observations:

Westward
> 9 passenger trains (8 scheduled, 1 extra)
#3 ran in 2 sections
#9 ran in 2 sections
> 16 Freights
#33 ran in 2 sections
#39 ran in 8 sections!
#31 ran in 2 sections
and 17 light engines returned from helper service
1st #31 and 41 worked industries in route.

Eastward
> 8 passenger trains
#10 ran in 3 sections
#4 ran in 2 sections
> 16 Freights
#36 from 4/27 ran in 2 sections (plus 1 on the prior day)
#36 from 4/28 (today) ran in 2 sections
#30 ran in 3 sections
#38 ran in 5 sections
#34 ran in 4 sections
#32 ran in 2 sections
3rd #34 worked industries in route.
19 trains required helpers, 8 did not need assistance.

Salem Branch
The return trip took a side trip up and back on the Cherry Valley Spur.
Traffic was light going out, but 3 times as much on the return trip.

One east and one west train were called and set up but had not departed. These were therefore moved to the next day's train sheet.

Helper engine 4000 must have gone to the shop during the shift of enginemen Davidson / Gulley. They changed engines from 4000 to 4002.

The dispatchers seem to have lost track of one helper for a short time. Note the westward addition out of the normal placement on the sheet.

Lots of information in one day. The dispatchers had to keep track of all this to prevent lap orders.

About the only way to top this document would be to have the corresponding dispatchers train order book. This document would have all the corresponding train orders and clearances that initiated all these train and engine movements.

Hopefully we will see more of these documents. Train sheets form other periods would also be helpful as styles, usage and notations tended to change over time.

Thank you again for posting to document!

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Mark

 

If you'll notice, my Dad was engineer on one of the sections of No. 34.