A century ago, with much of the labor force off to war, American industry turned to women to fill many jobs traditionally held by their male counterparts. Shown here is one of the hundreds of young women being trained to be train dispatchers. The article, in the April 1918 issue of Electrical Experimenter, pointed out that the job was exacting, and in the real world, mistakes could easily mean death or dismemberment. Therefore, the women were trained on the model railroad shown here, before being unleashed on the real rails. The dispatcher would set signals and switches, with the model trains responding.