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| Re: What does a Railroad block operator do (324600) | |||
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Re: What does a Railroad block operator do |
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Posted by Atomsk on Mon Oct 16 06:47:31 2006, in response to Re: What does a Railroad block operator do, posted by Future Motorman on Mon Oct 16 03:59:17 2006. Here's an article about Conrail block operators on Trainweb....and here's a nice tutorial on the PRR history site. For the most part, a railroad Block Operator is the same as a subway Tower Operator, in the days before Master Towers. Each is responsible for a section of the road, an uses various means to control the movement of trains on that section. The Trainweb artcle illustrates a method called "manual block" operation, where each crew gets writen orders, authorizing them to move a train over a certain part of the line. The PRR article shows how a block operator in a tower works with the signals and switches, to line trains for various routes. More heavily traveled parts of the line use Centralized Traffic Control (CTC), instead of block operation. This allows a single operator to control a territory that would otherwize require dozens of individual blocks. Therefore, the CTC operator can line up trains far in advance of trouble spots or bottlenecks. To extend your "rail traffic controller" metaphor, the block operator is like departure control, to the CTC operator's regional center controller. |
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