NS Announces Holiday Schedule

[jeaton]

Here is a Christmas story. Working for a coal company, I once had to makes plans to get to a Florida power plant to meet an arriving train to check on a quality problem.

CSX had announced plans to curtail operations over the holiday weekend and unit trains were going to be stopped at a convenient crew change terminal. As anybody familiar with railroad operations should know, general plans don't necessarily apply to the specific. With this in mind, I make contact with the coal customer service desk. The first report says that the train will stop enroute, but later plans change and the ETA at the plant is set at 10pm Christmas eve!

So, I call my travel agent, put a change of clothes, razor and tooth brush in the bag with the hard hat, steel toes and coveralls and head to the airport. I get to Tampa, pick up the car, and drive two hours to get to the power plant a little before 10. Where is the train? We now have an ETA of Midnight. Midnight becomes 2am and I am taking a nap in the car. The alarm on my wrist watch wakes me up, I make another check with the car dump operator and now the train should arrive in about an hour. The train finally arrives at 4am. I finish my work and head back to Tampa about 10am.

Of course the next flight in the right direction isn't due to leave until about 5 pm, so I make stops to get coffee, and check to be sure the Gulf of Mexico is still where it belongs. I am getting hungry, but if trains don't stop, food service sure does. That is OK, because a meal will be served on the plane.

I'm finally buckled in my seat, we are rolling toward the runway for takeoff, I am so hungry I am actually looking forward to the airline meal, I'll just close my eyes for a minute...

The next thing I hear-"Please close your trays and place your seats in the full upright position." Hmmm, maybe I'll find leftovers in the fridge at home.

Merry Christmas!

Jay

[jeaton]

LC-I have to remind myself that things have changed since my day in the business. Not that I consider it anything but good. Oh, my day was once described by Mort Sahl: "A woman's place is in the stove" [}:)][}:)]

See you on the forums.

Jay

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

You know you have been working way too many hours if the conductors start to look good.

Enjoy the day. I'll send a nasty letter to Mr Goode if his organization messes it up.

Jay

Hold on there Jay!! Don't overgeneralize. There are some very attractive lady conductors out there and probably some of them even find a few of us guys attractive...lol...

Before you say it. I'm married, not dead...

LC

[Anonymous]

The railroads might as well shut down for the day because there is no way people are going to work. If they offered me triple time maybe, but I doubt that once I have children to watch open presents. I don't think I could miss that for anything.

[Junctionfan]

I don't necessarily think that's a good idea if it includes intermodal as the catch-up might be murder. Could create too many "extras" and effect normal priority trains that also might be requiring extra runs.

[Anonymous]

I know CP has similar plans for shutting down on the holiday season, apparently they are also taking the opportunity to impliment a new computer system.

I can't imagine CN is shutting down, nothing short of the end of the world would make Hunter take a day off.

[dwil89]

The New Years Day plan for normal operations seems to be a change from New Years 2004, I was out in the Altoona area on New Years of this year and nothing ran that day at all except Amtrak.....I know Enola Yard had alot of activity in it last weekend when I was there...Are things that busy right now that NS is choosing to run as normal on New Years this year as opposed to shutting down last year? I wonder how many markoffs will happen? Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown

[jeaton]

You know you have been working way too many hours if the conductors start to look good.

Enjoy the day. I'll send a nasty letter to Mr Goode if his organization messes it up.

Jay

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

LC, Nate

So you might get some time off? You could use the time to go watch trains somewhere, but there won't be any running.[:(][:(]

Jay[:-,][(-D]

I generally get an eyeful as it is. I'm planning on just watching my kids enjoy Christmas and letting my wife boss me around...she's a heck of a lot better looking than my conductor(s)...LOL...

LC

[jeaton]

LC, Nate

So you might get some time off? You could use the time to go watch trains somewhere, but there won't be any running.[:(][:(]

Jay[:-,][(-D]

[Anonymous]

I hope CSX follows up with the same plan.

[Anonymous]

Norfolk Southern Service Alert
For those who may want to grab some egg nog and head trackside over the holidays in NS land...

Holiday Operations

December 17, 2004

In observance of Christmas and New Year's Holidays, NS will curtail
operations beginning 3 p.m. on Friday, December 24, and resume normal
operations at 11 p.m. on Saturday, December 25.

For the New Year's Holidays, Norfolk Southern train service will
operate in accordance with normal schedules in the Thoroughbred
Operating Plan subject to crew and availability and traffic levels.
Interline traffic will be delivered and received subject to operations
of connecting carriers.

National Customer Service Center will be available for normal weekend
coverage through the 1-800-635-5768 number for assistance.

------------------
Norfolk Southern Corporation
www.nscorp.com


LC