MAN WHO PLAYS WITH REAL TRAINS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 121, 15 February 1935, Page 10

MAN WHO PLAYS WITH REAL TRAINS

■ Control Officer’s Work GLIMPSE BEHIND SCENES AT MIDNIGHT In an aged and rambling wooden building under the shadow of the rising frame of Wellington’s new railway station there is a man who plays with real trains. He is the train control officer and is one of four men who, during the round of the clock, direct the movement of all railway traffic using the section between \\ cllington and Marton. The officers perform the same work in shifts and Mr. A. C. Thomson, who happened to be on duty in the craihped and dingy control room when a representative of “The Dominion” called shortly before 12 o’clock on a recent night, shall speak for them all. Mr. Thomson is the presiding genius (and so, in turn, is each of his colleagues) who more than anyone else connected with the operation of the trains on the 115 miles between Wellington and Marton is responsible for their running to time-table. All manner of imps conspire against him in the task of bringing, say, the Limited express, or just .the 8.15 a.m. suburban train, into the city on time. A wet day, a goods special which is finding the hills troublesome, engine breakdown on some freighter away up the line—these, and other impediments jointly or severally could get the whole system in a tangle if the train control officer failed to keep his head in the dingy little office in Featherston Street. This is how it is all done. Three Nerve Centres. The control room is the nerve-centre of the section to Marton. At Ohakune is another nerve-centre looking after the trains on the route from Marton to Frankton Junction. A third works the line from Frankton to Auckland. Thus three men keep watch and ward over the traffic of the Main Trunk service. Laid out in front of the control officer is a graph carrying on one side the names of all stations from Wellington to Marton, and on the lower edge the 24 hours of the day from midnight to midnight are ruled in five-minute divisions. This is the chart on which Mr. Thomson will trace, before he knocks off at 7 a.m., spidery lines patterning the graph with the running story of 15 or 20 trains to-night. • The majority of the trains recorded there- arg time-table trains, that is, they run regularly every night. Their schedule is indicated for each one by a line printed on the graph, showing where it is due at a given time. Special trains have to be sandwiched in with the regulars. And this is where the control officer has to use ingenuity. Expresses and other passenger trains take precedence over mixed mid goods schedules and it is the job of the control man to see, as far as lies in his power, that these run to time-table unhindered by secondary trains. This is only half the tale. How does the control officer keep his finger on the movement of his trains? By direct telephone linking at one and the same time the 35 stations between Wellington and Marton. It is like a party telephone line in which all points by lifting the receiver may listen in to what any one speaker is saying. In front of Mr. Thomson is a panel bearing thumb switches lettered with the name of each station. To call up, say, Levin, he gives a half turn to the appropriate switch, and in a trice he is talking through a microphone to the man in charge of that station. The voice from Levin comes down the wire through an amplifier to the officer-. Thus two-way communication is established with less effort than tlia-t v required for an ordinary automatic telephone call. Talk Only of Trains. ' So busy is the control officer in his job that scarcely a minute elapses between conversations from some station or other to Wellington. The Whole conversation is about trains, where they are, what they comprise, how they are progressing, whether they will be in on time, whether they have to be bled to permit the crossing of others. No time is wasted in exchanging information about the trains. A typical conversation goes like this:— Through the amplifier in front of Mr. Thomson comes the announcement. “Palmerston here.’’ He commands, “Palmerston, speak I” And Palmerston tells Mr. Thomson that 668 (to railwaymen all trains are identified by numbers) left there at such-and-such a time. What is to be done with Cl 4? Any trucks to come, off? Where will 663 cross 610? And when Palmerston has said his say Mr. Thomson will indicate that the interview is at. an end by calling into the microphone, “Finish, Palmerston.” Then Paekakariki and Longburn might break in together with particulars of trains with which they are dealing, Mr. Thomson gives one preference on the wire by the words, “Paekak. speak!” “Paekak.” says what he lias to say. and Long-burn has his turn. ' Unceasing Task. It goes on unceasingly, this business of fathering the movements of the trains. Arrival and departure times, delays, reasons for baitings and all sorts of information are pouring into Mr. Thomson’s ears. He follows his trains through the night by pencilling their history on tlie grapli before him. As the hours march on the story of the trains he cannot see takes shape on tlie chart. Where they should be and where they in fact are at any moment through tlie hours is recorded indelibly. If for any reason a train is delayed, there Is the narrative on paper for official scrutiny and report.

Although the time-table Is sufficiently elastic for all reasonable contingencies. a delay to one train might throw the running of others out of gear through many succeeding hours. Plotting and planning, revising of crossingpoints. calling out extfii engine power when’heavy trains are likely to make hard going of tlie notorious Wellington gradients, the dispatch of break-down trains in event of serious casualty—all these duties fall within the control of this one man. And that is by no means all. ‘The supply of goods wagons, the limiting of trains to tonnages that can safely be handled, supervision of the movement of freight, are all included in his duties. The train control officer dare not get flustered or let up on his job. He is the autocrat oi the railway, and he is something of a magician to boot. If he allows that night perishable goods special from Palmerston to lag anywhere or to be held by a lesser train he knows lie will throw the morning suburban traffic from Johnsonville. Ngalo and Khandallah into confusion, and won’t there be letters to the papers,..!