Union Pacific's Harriman Dispatch Center, as with all railroad dispatching offices, is a busy place 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year - the trains never stop running! Here we see Dispatchers and, in the dark shirt, a Corridor Manager, handling traffic on the Marysville (KS) Subdivision. Each dispatcher has track diagrams on their monitors, from which they manage train movements. On the big screens on the wall they can monitor weather, system-wide train volume, UPS traffic (a very high priority customer!), locomotive availability, memos and other important information. The red lights atop each Dispatcher Station are activated when there are emergencies. (And the note on the monitors in the foreground? A program is running that cannot be disturbed.) For more images from the HDC, click here, here and here. Photograph taken on railroad property with permission, and no flash was used.
