Dispatcher’s delight
Dispatching, says Norfolk Southern Manager-Dispatch Planning Systems Charlie Turnipseed, “is like a game of chess.” Like chess players, train dispatchers are constantly thinking ahead, planning movements, moving “pieces”—trains—across the “board”—the railroad’s 22-state, 11-operating-division, 20,000-mile system—and dealing with “opponents”—the numerous types of events that can impact a train’s movement between origin and destination.