Ross stated, "He gave an example of some good train order dispatching, and it worked, however if something should have gone wrong with that lengthy move he designed for the detour he could have had a mess, especially if the railroad in question required train orders to only be copied by operators. My great uncle worked for a railroad that had such a mess come up and train orders had to be driven by auto to each train because "train orders may only be copied by qualified operators in direct contact with the dispatcher."

As a matter of fact, the railroad in question allowed orders to be copied by train crews. And really, I don't know of any railroad where this wasn't the case. Of course, it didn't start out that way because operators were often in place where they needed to be way back when. But that's besides the point. While a mess could have occurred "if something should have gone wrong", the fact is that nothing could happened at all had track warrants been used because track warrants require constant communications with the dispatcher. The point was that train orders allowed the various meets to occur without this elaborate communications being in place. In this case even without radio communication, the meets were consummated. Had the line been operated with track warrants (even though the scenario I described was before the days of track warrants) and the radios failed, the trains would simply have sat. You're dead in the water with track warrants without their accompanying technology. I'm not saying that improved technology shouldn't be taken advantage of, just that we used improved technology with an inferior product - track warrants - whereas it would have been better to use that technology to improve train order operations. That's why the remainder of your post about how train order flimsies were hard to read, etc. again misses the point. You're assuming that those prefer train orders also want line operators handing up hand written orders. Not so. Why not allow train orders to evolve with technology and reap the benefits of each? Had train orders evolved and incorporated technology, clearly operators (as such) would not be necessary. But we lost another thing when we lost operators: the best training ground for future train dispatchers. Today, amazingly, the train dispatcher is considered an "entry level position" on some railroads whereas it was a promoted position on most in train order days. I think that says a lot about the perception of the train dispatcher then versus now. And I have to agree to a certain extent, especially when considering the skill and knowledge necessary to dispatch with train orders versus track warrants...unfortunately.