oltmannd There are a lot of win-win things the railroads could do - and some might become more attractive with PSR. You can "card" jobs. A crew owns a job. Same start time (plus or minus) every day. PSR tries to make operations occur reliably 7 days a week and eliminates few day a week unit trains, folding traffic into the merchadise trains. So, this is a fit. You can turn crews back mid-district. Operate half way up, swap crews, head back home. RR saves lodging, meal and taxi costs. Crews get home. PSR tends to concentrate traffic, so mid-district swapping becomes more viable. One problem is the HOS law says six days on, two off. Or 7 days on, three off. How do you work that requirement into 7 day operations? Particularly, how would you card it? One crew 4 days a week, the other 3? Or just chain two crews, 6 days on, 6 days off?
There are a lot of win-win things the railroads could do - and some might become more attractive with PSR.
You can "card" jobs. A crew owns a job. Same start time (plus or minus) every day. PSR tries to make operations occur reliably 7 days a week and eliminates few day a week unit trains, folding traffic into the merchadise trains. So, this is a fit.
You can turn crews back mid-district. Operate half way up, swap crews, head back home. RR saves lodging, meal and taxi costs. Crews get home. PSR tends to concentrate traffic, so mid-district swapping becomes more viable.
One problem is the HOS law says six days on, two off. Or 7 days on, three off. How do you work that requirement into 7 day operations? Particularly, how would you card it? One crew 4 days a week, the other 3? Or just chain two crews, 6 days on, 6 days off?
I've not really seen where PSR has anything to do with running trains on a schedule. It's about moving cars, getting them out of yards. If anything, it ruins schedules once a train leaves it's originating terminal because of work events and the unpredictablility of how long those events take. Even before PSR, all our manifests had a regular call time window out of their originating terminals.
Working half way and turning only works where you already have double ended pools. Most of ours have a home terminal and an away from home terminal. While a few live at the away end, not enough to effectively meet and turn.
Jeff
oltmanndYou can turn crews back mid-district. Operate half way up, swap crews, head back home. RR saves lodging, meal and taxi costs. Crews get home. PSR tends to concentrate traffic, so mid-district swapping becomes more viable.
We had a RRer here that was stuck in a hotel for a long time. Typical situation, like 6 deep in a terminal that sends out like 3 trains a day. The AFHT is about an hour and change away from the home terminal via highway as well.
After a while, he calls up the chief and asks: "why are you keeping us here? I could have brought a train here, deadheaded home, been rested, brought another train here, and been rested to take one back again!"
Chief plainly answered: "if you go home, you'll mark off. Being in the hotel you are avaliable for us".
I think he appreciated the honesty, if not the reasoning.
We have a couple terminals where the guys are notorious for marking off on the weekends. So they use the AFHT crews as their extended extra list to cover their own loads.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
zugmann oltmannd You can turn crews back mid-district. Operate half way up, swap crews, head back home. RR saves lodging, meal and taxi costs. Crews get home. PSR tends to concentrate traffic, so mid-district swapping becomes more viable. We had a RRer here that was stuck in a hotel for a long time. Typical situation, like 6 deep in a terminal that sends out like 3 trains a day. The AFHT is about an hour and change away from the home terminal via highway as well. After a while, he calls up the chief and asks: "why are you keeping us here? I could have brought a train here, deadheaded home, been rested, brought another train here, and been rested to take one back again!" Chief plainly answered: "if you go home, you'll mark off. Being in the hotel you are avaliable for us". I think he appreciated the honesty, if not the reasoning. We have a couple terminals where the guys are notorious for marking off on the weekends. So they use the AFHT crews as their extended extra list to cover their own loads.
oltmannd You can turn crews back mid-district. Operate half way up, swap crews, head back home. RR saves lodging, meal and taxi costs. Crews get home. PSR tends to concentrate traffic, so mid-district swapping becomes more viable.
Jasper, Alberta has been notorious on CN for that for many years. Something to do with being a resort town full of bars...
Our contract has heldaway restrictions, if you don't take personal rest (MR doesn't affect this) they can only hold us at the AFHT for 14, 18 or 19 hours, depending on the subdivision. Heldaway pay starts after 9 hours in that situation. We can also only be called for one turn out of the AFHT, after that the next call has to take us home.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
When I first started working CSX's Atlanta Division in the early 90's the Georgia Road crews working between Augusta and Atlanta with home terminal Augusta.
There were 2 Assigned crews working scheduled Intermodal trains with a 'schedule call period' of a 4 hour span. There were 4 Freight Pool crews that worked through freights between Augusta and Atlanta in both directions. All other work was performed by Extra Pool crews. At that time that work included the nightly Georgia Building Authority dinner trains to Stone Mountain and return, Ballast Trains that would take empties to a quarry at Lithonia, GA and return loads to Atlanta and Plant Harrlee coal trains to Milledgeville, GA.
The Agreement for this territory only required that Extra Pool crews be returned to their Home Terminal after having been away for 14 days. Which was a frequent happening. Work a through run Augusta to Atlanta - get rest - work the dinner train to Stone Mountain and back to Atlanta - get rest - work a Harrlee coal train to Milledgeville - get rest - bring the Harrlee empties back to Atlanta - get rest - work a Ballast train to Lithonia and back to Atlanta - get rest - and so on and so forth unless the crew was lucky enough to catch a through train going back to Augusta.
I have no idea what the Union's local officials were thinking when this particular agreement was agreed to. Obviously they were individuals that DID NOT want time at home.
After several years the agreement was changed to requiring the crew to go back to Augusta after the 4th trip. Augusta to Atlanta was trip 1. Either of the turn around jobs counted as 1 trip. A trip to Harllee counted as 1 trip. A trip back from Harllee counted as 1 trip. Any combination of trips adding up to 4 and then the crew had to be deadheaded back to Home.
There are as many forms of local crew agreements as there are people can come up with different ideas of the way to do things - and get all parties to agree on them.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
It's like approaching a holiday or even weekend and sometimes they start deadheading out of the home terminal for no real reason. It's almost like they think by getting people out before they lay off they are ahead of the game. Really, they aren't. They just seem to short the home terminal. (I've seen during times of really tight boards, they deadhead out the last two available engineers on the pool. All that's left is vacancies due to lay offs or unrested turns, with no extra board. Then they try to run trains.) If they put too many in the hotel, some will undoubtly get held-away pay. Or to avoid the held-away, they'll deadhead home. Once you arrive at the home terminal, you're done. It's not that they can't order you to take a train out, but it's another day's pay. (One of them claims that may take a long time to get paid.)
For us the last couple of years, they've been watching the held-away. At least some of the corridor managers seem to. They either wait too long to deadhead crews out to the away terminal, resulting in trains waiting for crews to be rested. Or they deadhead crews out of the away terminal resulting in the same. In the latter case, they usually end up spending more money (van and driver, full trip rate for crews deadheading) than they would by letting a crew or two get an hour or two of held-away. Once in a while they'll deadhead crews both ways at the same time. Or deadhead one way and 6 or 8 hours later deadhead the other.
I suppose, like many things, it depends on who's budget things fall under. Held-away comes out of this budget, deadheading and the required vans out of another. Everyone does what's best for their budget, not necessarily what's good for the railroad in the big picture.
Around here I routinely see crew in the second or third unit of a consist, often reclined and asleep as the train goes by. I'm guessing they're being returned to their base terminal.. That might be better and more cost effective for all.. instead of being held up in a motel they're back home in hours and ready to go out again.
jeffhergertThey either wait too long to deadhead crews out to the away terminal, resulting in trains waiting for crews to be rested. Or they deadhead crews out of the away terminal resulting in the same. In the latter case, they usually end up spending more money (van and driver, full trip rate for crews deadheading) than they would by letting a crew or two get an hour or two of held-away. Once in a while they'll deadhead crews both ways at the same time. Or deadhead one way and 6 or 8 hours later deadhead the other.
Deadheading on freights does still happen, out west things are so congested that they prefer to deadhead by taxi on most routes, no point in having the deadhead take 8, 10 or 12 hours.
VIA No. 5 and No. 6 are also still used to deadhead crews on the BC North line sometimes.
Most homeward deadheads only happen after the crew has already sat at the AFHT for close to their maximum heldaway time. And deadheads to the AFHT usually happen 8 or 12 hours in advance of when that crew will probably be required there.
Deadheading after heldaway time has expired sounds to me (albeit I'm no expert) like a waste of time due to lack of planning. Surely they could forcast their upcoming crew needs so that an incoming crew could be sent back immediately (via taxi if that's better) instead of waiting in a hotel and THEN deadheading home. Maybe there's no better way to plan it.. I don't know.
UlrichDeadheading after heldaway time has expired sounds to me (albeit I'm no expert) like a waste of time due to lack of planning. Surely they could forcast their upcoming crew needs so that an incoming crew could be sent back immediately (via taxi if that's better) instead of waiting in a hotel and THEN deadheading home. Maybe there's no better way to plan it.. I don't know.
Was listening to a interview of a new General Manager in the NFL about the player draft when he was previously a media 'draft expert'.
to the effect - It is easy to comment about the pros and cons of a player, it is exponentially more difficult to make the decision and have to live with results of it.
BaltACD Ulrich Deadheading after heldaway time has expired sounds to me (albeit I'm no expert) like a waste of time due to lack of planning. Surely they could forcast their upcoming crew needs so that an incoming crew could be sent back immediately (via taxi if that's better) instead of waiting in a hotel and THEN deadheading home. Maybe there's no better way to plan it.. I don't know. Was listening to a interview of a new General Manager in the NFL about the player draft when he was previously a media 'draft expert'. to the effect - It is easy to comment about the pros and cons of a player, it is exponentially more difficult to make the decision and have to live with results of it.
Ulrich Deadheading after heldaway time has expired sounds to me (albeit I'm no expert) like a waste of time due to lack of planning. Surely they could forcast their upcoming crew needs so that an incoming crew could be sent back immediately (via taxi if that's better) instead of waiting in a hotel and THEN deadheading home. Maybe there's no better way to plan it.. I don't know.
Very true.. and probably more complex than what I'm seeing.
RO claim is Running Off your assign miles per instructions to perform some type of work event. Even those claims now have go into the claim conference chain and can take months to get paid. On the pay half before last, 2 such claims were paid that took place in Nov. No one likes coming to work and having to constantly fight to get paid correctly
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