© Stanley Short, Broad Street Station, circa 1970s
If you’ve never visited the Science Museum of Virginia in person before, you may be surprised to learn that our building, Broad Street Station, was formerly a train station that operated for over 50 years. On any given day, thousands of passengers would travel through the station. Ensuring the station ran smoothly was the ultimate responsibility of the multitasking train dispatcher.
Train dispatchers managed the control board, telegraph, station loudspeaker, and perhaps most importantly, the train sheet. It was necessary to know exactly when trains were entering and exiting the station; all that information was stored on a large paper train sheet (approximately 16.5” x 46.15”). A new train sheet would start each day at 12:01 a.m., meaning a dispatcher working at this time would use the previous day’s sheet to complete the record of trains that arrived before midnight but hadn’t left yet. These sheets were handwritten, logging passenger trains in the middle and working outward, while freight trains were recorded closer to the edge of the sheet. By examining a train sheet, a trained individual could determine precisely where a train was located on any given day at a specific time. This detailed tracking was essential to keeping passenger travel on track and on time.
Donated by Richard L. Beadles…