[wacampbell]

Another North American practice question. On a railroad that operates on Timetable/Train Order Control, where a meet is planned, how does the engineer know who is to take the siding and who takes the main? I know on the L&PS route, there was a standard practice that at a meet, the northbound train always took the siding and this was stipulated in the rule book so it wasn't included in the train orders. Is this how it was done in other railroads?

[charland]

Hi Wayne,

One direction will be listed in the Employee Timetable as Superior, so if two trains of the same class having a meet the one traveling in the Inferior direction will take the siding and wait. Obviously, two trains of differing classes, the lower class train will take the siding.

Paul :-)

[atsf37l]

Or, in the case of two trains of the same class the dispatcher may word an order "Extra 461 West take siding and meet Extra 41 East at Bear Creek." :thumbup3:

[Genma Saotome]

I can't seem to find my copy of The Rights of Trains which I'm sure would answer the question. I do know the word "Clear" meant take the siding. It's possible that direction and class determined who took the siding in the absence of being told.

[dajones]

This would normally be specified by rules S-88 and S-89. The version of S-88 in Rights of Trains says: "At meeting points between extra trains, the train in the inferior time-table direction must take the siding unless otherwise provided." The version of S-89 in Rights of Trains says: "At meeting points the inferior train must take the siding and clear the time of the superior train not less then five minutes, except at schedule meeting points between trains of the same class, where the inferior train must clear the main track before the leaving time of the superior train." Superior train is defined in rule S-71. The Rights of Trains version says: "A train is superior to another train by right, class or direction. Right is conferred by train orders; class and direction by time-table. Right is superior to class or direction. Direction is superior as between trains of the same class."

Some railroads have different versions of these rules. For example I know the New Haven did not have superiority by direction, but I don't know what the New Haven's versions of rules S-88 and S-89 said. I have seen some cases where the New Haven employee time-table specified which train was to take the siding at a meet, but others were it does not.

Doug

[CGW121]

In all of my CGW timetables, I have quite a few, it says Eastbound trains are superior to Westbound trains of the same class. They had meat trains that were superior to all others. The meat trains ran loaded from Omaha to Chicago. I would guess that this was typical of most railroad operations.

[steved]

West is best.
Meaning that eastbounds will take the siding and wait for westbounds.
That's what I remember. Of course everything was covered by train order by the time I worked for the railroad. There were no scheduled trains around except #6 and #5 (Amtrak) and they were governed by CTC.

Steve

[charland]

On the Boston and Maine the superior routes are classed as Inward... anything heading towards Boston from any direction was superior... Outward was inferior.

Paul :-)

[eric from trainsim]

On the CNW Wisconsin Div... East (inbound to Chicago) was superior to West (outbound from Chicago), with the one exception that westward commuter trains had superiority from noon to midnight (eastward defaulted to superior from midnight to noon).

[wacampbell]

Interesting discussion. It seems there is a variety of rules and practices governing 'who takes the siding', but all them should be easily accomodated in OR activities so long as the activity developer is familiar with the operating rules.