I OS’d CP Drake at 07:12 this morning while juggling a meet at MP 44 per the lineup, and it reminded me how baked-in that term is to our schedule keeping. For the trivia folks: does ‘OS’ originate as ‘On Sheet’ in the telegraph/dispatcher sheets, or is it ‘Out of Station,’ and what’s the earliest rulebook or telegrapher manual you’ve seen that spells it out?
I’m in the ‘on sheet’ camp for North America — operators OS’d so the dispatcher put it on the train sheet; “out of station” sounds like the UK’s “out of section.” Earliest explicit mention I’ve seen is in ARA/Standard Code material circa 1915 under Train Reports, but , the scans are scattered; this overview isn’t bad: Train order operation - Wikipedia. Got a PDF that spells it out? Your 07:12 at CP Drake made me think to dig my 1920s dispatcher sheets back out.
Pretty sure it’s “on sheet” — my 1909 ARA Standard Code appendix uses “OS report” and tells operators to “enter the time on the train sheet,” with wire examples marked OS; no “out of station.” Your 07:12 at CP Drake is exactly how those sheets were formatted, with an OS column by station. @lopez57 only caveat: I’ve seen “out of station” in casual writeups, but never a US rulebook — anyone got earlier than 1909?
One data point: my old Standard Code reprints use “OS” in wire examples and tell operators to “enter the time on the sheet,” which backs the North American reading. The only caveat I’ve seen is some oral histories using it interchangeably with UK-style “out of section,” but I’ve never seen that in a US rule. If you’re hunting the earliest print, try a HathiTrust search for “O.S. report” in Railway Age/Signaling journals: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor="O.S.%20report"&searchtype=all&ft=ft.