The RDC's ran up until about 1960 as Trains 1 and 2 (The Zephyrettes), three days a week in each direction between Oakland and Salt Lake City. As a teen in the late 50's I knew several WP crewmen and still have some employee timetables from that era. Both eastward and westward schedules for No. 1 and No. 2 put them through the canyon at night. The meet was scheduled for the siding at Merlin, MP 247.6, at 11:01 PM.

By that time the canyon (Third Subdivision) was all CTC (which the WP called Traffic Control System) and the dispatcher in Sacramento controlled the switches at the sidings. Merlin siding's capacity was 73 cars. Sidings were "dark" in that once a train cleared the main line they were not detected by the CTC equipment. The routine follwed when I was there was that the head brakeman on freights, and a crewmember on passenger trains, walked to the telephone box at the far end of the siding (which was controlled by a dwarf signal, to stop movement exiting onto the main) and called the dispatcher. This confirmed for the dispatcher that the train was waiting there, and gave the train crew an update on what they were meeting and how long they would likely be there.

In theory, with respect to single-car "trains" like the Budd cars, a non-stop meet would be possible if the timing worked out just right and the siding was long enough. Since I worked in freight service (only deadheading to Oroville on No. 18 occasionally) and long after the RDC's were gone, I don't know if they were allowed out of a siding just on signal indication or whether they too had to first contact the dispatcher by phone. I think that probably they called in before being allowed back out onto the main.

In any case, getting the timing just right for timetable-scheduled meets, between two RDC's traveling over 900 miles or so of railroad, was probably not something that happened every day.