When did Rochester, NY dispatching office close?

When did the dispatching office in Rochester, NY close? How much territory was covered? I know in later years Rochester controlled the whole Syracuse Division (ironic) plus some lines in Pa.

-otto-

OTTO: The SUPT at thye time of closure was K.J.TOMASEVICH, then located at BFLO. I think the TCS boards were re-located to BFLO in the early days of PENN CENTRAL, and I was then at BROWNSVILLE PA on the MRY. SAM G. would know the details. Territory involved was HOJACK/PA DIV/FALLS ROAD/MAINLINE-BELLE ISLE-DEPEW/WEST SHORE....regds LARRY B

Per Penn Central Central Rgion General Order No. 213...
_______________

Effective 8.01 A.M., Tuesday, April 1, 1969
...
The following Train Dispatcher territories transferred from the jurisdiction of the Buffalo Division, Train Dispatchers at Rochester to Train Dispatchers at Williamsport:

Corning Branch
Snow Shoe Branch
Cherry Tree Branch
WBV Branch
Mill Hall Branch
Rich Branch
_______________

Now the above just covers the dispatchers handling the former Pennsylvania Division portion.

As a side note, I've been told the dispatchers that covered the former Pennsylvania Division moved from Jersey Shore Jct., PA to Rochester at the end of 1960.

Jeff Feldmeier

Thank you for the information... I know the dispatching office in Rochester was the only part of the once grand Rochester station that remained standing. I guess once the office ws vacated, that was the end for Rochester station. And then if I remember right, Conrail closed the office in Buffalo around 1980/1981? I think that's when they vacated Buffalo Central Terminal...

-otto-

When the train dispatcher was moved out of the passenger station in
Buffalo, it was relocated to an office building near the intersection of
Walden Avenue and Dick Road across the tracks from the Depew Amtrak
Station. It was located there at the time I transferred to Conrail in 1987.
Sometime after 1987, this office was transferred/moved to the regional
office building at Selkirk. I have the notice here somewhere as to the
effective date and when I come up with it, I will post here the effective
date.
Some of the train dispatchers and others working in that office elected to
re-locate to Selkirk while some of the others elected to take other jobs
with Conrail.
All of them were fine railroaders to work with.
Noel Weaver

It seems a lot of people I have met on Metro-North spent a portion of their NYC days in Buffalo/Rochester. Was this common?

-otto-

Otto,

Were these really NYC personnel, or PC / Conrail employees?

IIRC, under the NYC labor agreements, prior to the consolidated rosters an employee in effect hired out as a new man if he went outside his seniority district to find work. In the New York City area, it was possible to find engine and train service personnel on 2 or 3 different division / district rosters as they moved around to find work after being cut off.

Under PC, the Seniority District 6 was created which included everything east of Buffalo on the NYC side. This was followed by Conrail Seniority District F. An employee could move whereever his seniority would take him and hold his place on the roster.

Train Dispatchers had the right to follow the work of their offices if the office was closed and the work transferred to a different location. If other dispatching work opened up in the seniority district, they could bid in on it. IIRC, several Buffalo dispatchers came to both Selkirk and the MN territory.

If you are referring to management personnel, it's a different story. Basically, you went where you were assigned, or exercised your seniority rights.

Hope this helps.

Penn-Central District 6 also included all of the former New Haven Railroad.
We (NHRR) went on that roster with rights over the former New York
Central as of November 1, 1968 as this was the agreed up date when the
rosters were merged. Former New York Central people went on the
District 6 roster as of February 1, 1968 as that was the agreed up date
for those people.
By this arrangement, an engineer from say Rochester could bid in and
work assignments out of New York:
A. On the former New York Central Harlem or Hudson Divisions with
seniority as of February 1, 1968
B. On the former New Haven Railroad any division with seniority as of
November 1, 1968.
Likewise a New Haven engineer could work any New York Central line
east of Buffalo for example the Harlem, Hudson or River Line with
seniority as of November 1, 1968.
This rule affect me in a way as in very late 1973, things on my home line
the former New Haven Railroad out of Grand Central Terminal were not
too good and I could not hold anything decent. The extra list was very
slow for that time of the year. I decided to look around and found that
there were several engineers younger in seniority than me working out of
Weehawken, NJ on the former New York Central River Line. I was laying
in three and four days at a time on the New Haven Extra list in New York
so in my spare time, I started riding freight trains for the purpose of
qualifying on the territory between Weehawken and Selkirk, New York.
I bid in a job Christmas week and promptly got displaced from it by
someone senior to me so I elected to displace a freight job on the River
Division with my November 1, 1968 rights, five years after I started with
these rights.
The big reason there were so many engineers younger than 1968 rights
working on that division was due to the passenger service coming off
entirely in the late 1950's or around 1960. I cannot recall the exact date.
A lot of engineers and fireman found themselves cut back and out of work
for a long time. No one was hired in engine service between about 1943
and about 1968 or 1969. After the Penn-Central merger, the River
Division benefitted greatly from many more trains in each direction as
freight was re-routed there from the former PRR/NHRR route via
Greenville, NJ and Bay Ridge via car floats to the all rail route via Selkirk.
I was not exactly welcomed at first but after the people there found out
that they had the same rights to do it that I had, things got interesting and
some of them still work for Metro-North to this day.
After Conrail took over, District 6 became District F and it expanded somewhat to include sections of the former Lehigh Valley and Erie-
Lackawanna in New York State.
After Metro-North took over the commuter service in New York a new type of seniority set up was put in place and it was/is so convuluted that
even today I will not attempt to explain how it works. It is, however,
working its way out and eventually Metro-North will be straight day of hire
seniority.
Noel Weaver

So when I read that the Cherry Tree & Dixonville was dispatched from Rochester... what does that really mean? Was Rochester in radio contact with a crew in Pennsylvania? Did they get all their orders and permissions by telephone? or by train order? I'm very interested in these "remote" operations...

-otto-

Otto -

When I first saw the Cherry Tree and Dixonville Railroad in 1965 there was no such thing as train radio down there. The railroad was dispatched by NYC dispatchers in Rochester (formerly in Jersey Shore) but it was operated under Pennsylvania Railroad operating rules. Trains of both the NYC and PRR operated on the CT&D, and each railrroad handled its own business up there.

There was a day and night train order office at Cherry Tree, and Wandin was a day office. The railroad from Cherry Tree to Wandin was the CT&D Branch where trains operated by train order and PRR manual block rules. Beyond Wandin were several "secondary tracks" on which trains operated solely by block indication, communicated by the operator at Wandin, or Cherry Tree when Wandin was closed, using PRR Clearance Forms K and local telephone circuits. All the train movements were directed by the dispatchers through the operators at Cherry Tree and Wandin via telephone. Trains communicated with the operators by telephone when they needed to "get more railroad" using a K card.

Overall supervision of the CT&D was exchanged every two years between the PRR Superintendent at Altoona (Bill Murphy in 1965) and the NYC Superintendent at Rochester (Burt Strohl, but it wasn't his turn for the CT&D that year). The New York Central Track Supervisor (Nick Somerville at Clearfield in 1965, but a year before it was Danny Miller at Cherry Tree) maintained the track, but the track gang at Wandin had its own seniority district on the CT&D. Their car house was built to PRR standards. On the rest of the NYC they were called "tool houses," but in that part of PA they were "car houses."

A major source of coal for the NYC was the Cambria and Indiana Railroad at Manver.

I stand corrected by one who REALLY knows. The change over between NYC and PRR superintendents on the CT&D occurred every year, not every two years as I said in the last post above. I had it confused with the Zanesville Terminal Railroad in Ohio, which swapped supervision and all operations between NYC and PRR every two years. Second thing to go is the memory.....

Thanks for the info, Chief Troll!

-otto-

ChiefTroll wrote:Second thing to go is the memory.....

Chief, don't sell your memory short--it is darn good--and we all benefit from it.