“Take over,” the Caliente operator asked me. “I need to get lunch.” I’d been hanging over the operator’s shoulder for the last hour, watching how he worked the board, wrote train orders, dictated them back. Essentially, he’s the contact between the remote dispatcher and the train crews, setting his station signals, passing orders up, OSing train times. And he needed lunch. So I took the seat, slipped on the head phones, eased closer to the mike. There should be a foot pedal to activate the mike- CLICK Over the earpiece: “This is dispatcher.” Shit. Ummmm…. “Caliente. Radio check.” “Got it Caliente.” Okay, […]