You only get what you pay for.......article in Trains

[Anonymous]

That's exactly what the railroad expects. And as long as the wage is good, they'll find plenty of warm bodies to put in the seat in the cab to put up with it. But if the wage falls relative to other jobs the same people can land, forget it. No warm bodies. Then the railroad will change. Not one day before then. Check out Army and Marine recruiting (severe shortfall!) vs. Navy recruiting (surplus, call back next year!) Gee -- pays the same, one I get shot at, one I don't, no brainer. The only question is which one will change first, the Navy cutting its pay and benefits, or the Army and Marines raising theirs. Economics will prevail.

I guess you could hope for regulation to change the way railroads call crews, but in this political climate? Not very likely, not without a much higher death toll to motivate the public into action. (I'm really aggrieved that the NY Times would spend so much ink on railroad safety, and totally miss the real stories and fall for these dumb sideshows. If I didn't know better, I'd almost suspect a really clever railroad lobbyist steered the NY Times onto this wild goose chase.)

By the way: the way you framed the conflict is brilliant. One I've seen no one strip it to the economic essentials so nicely.

OS

[BaltACD]

QUOTE: Originally posted by arbfbe

In the end it boils down to the fact the railroad expects the employee to do what the railroad claims they can't do. The employee is expected to guess the arrival of their train within + or - 30 minutes in order to be rested for their connection. My calls have varied within the final 12 hourss of my expected call by +36 hours and -12 hours. No body, no way is going to be properly rested to work under these circumstances yet that is what the companies demand from their employees given the absolutely abysmal information the train line ups provided by the companies allow.

Give us a 10 - 12 hour call instead of 90 minutes and look at how fast the railroads will improve their line up figures and their train performance.

Alan

Grow up and smell reality!

[arbfbe]

BaltACD

Smell the reality, I live the reality. Explain to me why I am expected to do what the railroad allegedly cannot. The unions seem unwilling to carry the ball on this even though it has been shown to work in places like Sheridan, WY. The industry needs to come down from their high and mighty and see the reality themselves. There is no reason for them to continue to bury their heads in the 'sand' and continue to play Russian roulette with crew rest and schedules every day. The reality is it is not 1890 any more.

[daveklepper]

When I mentioned previously on this thread the idea that a scheduled railroad would be both more efficient and better for crews, of course I meant UNPUBLISHED schedules. Except for those shippers willing to pay, publishing schedules makes no sense whatsever, unless there are all kinds of footnotes giving all kinds of reasons for modifications of the times shown. Also, I realize a lot depends on the nature of the traffic. Some industrial plants do manufacture at a pretty steady rate and require inbound materials at a pretty steady rate. Obviously the unpublished schedules must be adjusted for seasons. No sense having grain shipment schedules when grain isn't being moved. But then possibly crew assignements according to seniority should be different for these different season. The goal is to assure crews sufficient rest, move the traffic efficiently, and not have crews, power, or freight cars sitting around idle any more than necessary. Possibly some of the best and latest computer technology can help this problem.