The Union Pacific Harriman Dispatch Center (HDC) is

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...

's rail traffic control headquarters. Also known as "The Bunker", it monitors trains, track and switches across the United States. The dispatch center is located at 850 Jones Street in

Downtown Omaha Downtown Omaha is the central business, government and social core of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, U.S. state of Nebraska. The boundaries are Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east ...

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, and is built inside an old Union Pacific freight depot that was built in 1891 and sold in 1897. The building was redeveloped in the 1990s with a bunker made of 18-24 inch steel

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that is designed to withstand a direct tornado strike. The headquarters for

, called the Union Pacific Center, is located nearby in downtown

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

, Nebraska. In 1997 the

Federal Railroad Administration The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce railroa ...

(FRA) became concerned with the safety of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

. A report found that at the HDC some supervisors were unfamiliar with the areas they were responsible for due to poor training. New dispatchers would become overwhelmed with busy shifts they had not trained on prior to qualification. The Harriman Dispatch Center problems section of the report concluded the dispatching problems represented "a serious safety concern" and recommended Union Pacific reduce workloads, provide better training, hire more dispatchers and improve dispatching software. Union Pacific responded by reducing workloads at 11 dispatcher positions, creating new training courses for staff, hiring more dispatchers and contracting Union Switch and Signal to improve computer systems. After a review in 2006, the HDC underwent a refurbishment. The center was reorganised into teams who would be responsible for different areas of Union Pacifics network. 10

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s were installed by Activu Services on the operations floor for each "pod" or team. Activu also upgraded systems in the conference room and visitor gallery. In 2016 members of the 557th Weather Wing of the U.S Air Force visited the Dispatch Center including its commander, Colonel Steven Dickerson. In 2020, 60 train dispatchers at the Harriman Dispatch Center were made redundant. Union Pacific said this was due to

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and the installation of new computer-aided dispatching software.

References

{{reflist Properties of the Union Pacific Railroad Buildings and structures in Omaha, Nebraska Downtown Omaha, Nebraska