![]() ![]() ![]() Simpler versions of the timetables, showing times and other information regarding passenger trains, were made available to the public so riders could know when the trains ran. Meeting points between scheduled trains were indicated in the timetable, usually in boldface type together with the number of the train or trains to be met. It was only an “advisory” where such trains should meet if they were both on time. The superior train did not have to wait on an inferior train at a timetable meet. The onus was on the latter to clear the former. ![]() Train orders were issued by the dispatcher and superseded the timetable. There was an old saying: “What the timetable giveth, the dispatcher taketh.” They were used to advance an inferior train against a superior one, establish positive meeting points, create extra trains and sections, annul schedules, authorize work trains, and warn of track conditions and the like. Train orders were of two types: “31’s,” which had to be signed for by a member of the train crew, and “19’s,” which did not. The former were employed when the dispatcher needed to know that the affected train actually had the order, while the latter were used when he did not. Train-order forms themselves came in pads printed on a thin onionskin paper, or “flimsy,” which enabled crews to read them over the light of a firebox or against a kerosene lantern. The Pennsylvania used yellow, while the Erie preferred a grayish white for its 19’s and a buff color for 31’s. New York Central and Nickel Plate used green. In the era before typewriters and ballpoint pens, operators copied orders using a stylus against double-sided carbons backed by a steel plate. ![]()
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