Remote Control Clears Path for Metrolink Trains

When Metrolink commuter lines started running Monday between Los Angeles and a new web of suburban stations, some trains were dispatched and monitored by a man sitting in an office 400 miles away.

Jerry Blissenbach, a Southern Pacific railroad dispatcher, spent much of his morning directing Metrolink trains from his post at the railroad company’s Western Region Transportation Center in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento.

“This is probably the least popular job in the office because of all the things that are going on, so that’s why I’m working it,” Blissenbach said.

Blissenbach, one of several dispatchers who monitored Metrolink traffic Monday morning, has been a trainman for 14 years. But he often draws the office’s less enviable assignments because he joined Southern Pacific only six months ago.

Monday’s assignment, Blissenbach said, was easier than it might have been because Southern Pacific agreed to keep all its freight engines off the tracks from 4 a.m. until 9 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.--the main hours that the Metrolink trains run.

Because the Southern California Regional Rail Authority’s computerized control system is not yet in operation, Southern Pacific is using the Roseville center to dispatch the seven daily trains that run on Metrolink’s Santa Clarita and Ventura County lines.

Roseville controllers direct the trains only until they enter the massive train yards around Union Station. Once inside the yards, the trains are taken over by several small control towers.

Switching over to the towers causes a slight delay, Metrolink officials said. The delay apparently caused mild complaints from some passengers.

Richard Stanger, Southern California Regional Rail Authority executive director, said he expects Metrolink’s signal system to be operating by next summer. By assuming control of its operations, he said, Metrolink should be able to shave at least five minutes off each schedule.

For Blissenbach and his fellow dispatchers, Metrolink adds one more worry to what was already a stressful job.

For eight hours a day, with a few short breaks, the 42-year-old dispatcher faces a control console of three video screens that display everything moving on 210 miles of Southern Pacific track between San Luis Obispo and Burbank Junction, a few miles from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

Red lights flash to denote that equipment is at a location; green means a train has been given permission to proceed; blue shows that a section of track has been closed.

Blissenbach uses the screens and several telephone systems to watch over as many as 16 trains at a time in his district: slow-moving freights, speedy Southern Pacific or Amtrak passenger trains and a host of work crews, all wanting their share of time on the same tracks. Now Metrolink has been added to the mix.

From this headquarters, the 147 dispatchers on Southern Pacific’s payroll direct rail traffic running over 3,500 miles of mainline track--north to Portland, Ore.; east to Ogden, Utah; southwest to El Paso, and south to Los Angeles.

Dennis K. Shackleford, Southern Pacific’s chief train dispatcher in Roseville, said he has had to hire three dispatchers to handle the Metrolink load.

On Monday, at least, they were not overtaxed. Except for a minor signal mishap and some communications confusion between Roseville and a tower in the Los Angeles yards, things appeared to run smoothly.

“That wasn’t bad at all,” Blissenbach said after Metrolink’s first morning commute ended. “I hope every day is like this.”