On 11/11/2010, my wife and I arrived at the Galesburg, Il Amtrak station to catch train #5 to Omaha for a three night stay. Since the trip was entirely railroad focused, yes the 844 excursion, I wanted to use as much rail transportation as I could. The train was due in at 4:38 PM. About 4 PM the agent made an announcement that the train would be at least an hour late. About 45 minutes later I checked the Amtrak website and found the train was now showing 2:36 late. Quick arithmetic told me I could drive to Omaha and likely arrive at about the same time as the original schedule and we decided to do so. We received a full refund on our tickets from the agent and left. I later found out that the train actually arrived in Omaha 4 and half hours late, long after we were asleep in our Omaha hotel.
According to posts on another rail fan website, the cause of the delay was a Form B violation by the Amtrak crew. For those who don't know, this is the equivalent of a train crew running a red light and/or going too fast; especially in construction zones. It is treated, as it should be, as a very serious matter and the train cannot be moved until the crew has been replaced and the on-scene investigation conducted. Assuming those are the circumstances, it seems to me that Amtrak owes those inconvenienced by this excessive delay more than just an apology. I made my decision to drive and was actually better off financially, because I spent less money on gas and parking than the train fare, so I'm not looking for money. But, for those for whom driving was not an option...
Thus my question, what would you do?
For those with no other options they still took the train and ticket was paid for transportation from point A to B.
technically Amtrak fullfilled their obligation, despite later than advertized.
Was it an Amtrak crew or the crew from the operating railroad? What were all the circumstances concerning this incident? More information is needed before judgment and action. People got the point A to point B transportation they purchased as Dutchrailnut said; that is the contract. But in these times of reserved seating, sold out trains, etc, Amtrak has to be responsible for more than providing just the transportation: since more people are forced into the railroad's schedule for contacts and connections and are thus at the mercy of Amtrak or the violating railroad it might be that they should be more responsible when there is a mishap of some kind. It there were another train within a reasonable time (i.e. real service) that's one thing, but if there is no other train for hours or the next day, that's another. Lots of things for a lawyer to crunch on for sure.
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henry6 Was it an Amtrak crew or the crew from the operating railroad? What were all the circumstances concerning this incident?
Was it an Amtrak crew or the crew from the operating railroad? What were all the circumstances concerning this incident?
Not sure why they just didn't get a road foreman to the train, have him download the event recorder and then operate the train to the next crew change point. - and pay the extra board crew a day's pay to stay home.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I f you want to start a major labor confrontation, go ahead and have a Road Forman (company official) perform the duties of the engineer (contract covered employee). In today's economic climate the crafts are very protective of their Job Scope rules and having a company official performing craft duties would cause a major confrontation.
oltmannd Not sure why they just didn't get a road foreman to the train, have him download the event recorder and then operate the train to the next crew change point. - and pay the extra board crew a day's pay to stay home.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
atsfkid According to posts on another rail fan website, the cause of the delay was a Form B violation by the Amtrak crew. For those who don't know, this is the equivalent of a train crew running a red light and/or going too fast; especially in construction zones. It is treated, as it should be, as a very serious matter and the train cannot be moved until the crew has been replaced and the on-scene investigation conducted. Assuming those are the circumstances, it seems to me that Amtrak owes those inconvenienced by this excessive delay more than just an apology. I made my decision to drive and was actually better off financially, because I spent less money on gas and parking than the train fare, so I'm not looking for money. But, for those for whom driving was not an option... Thus my question, what would you do?
I don't know what Amtrak's policies are re: late trains. I know with VIA Rail up here in Canada, if you arrive at your destination more than 1, 2, or 4 hours late (depending on the route...1 hour on shorter routes, 2 hours on The Ocean, 4 hours on The Canadian, etc), you are entitled to claim a credit of 50% of the original fare (before taxes) in Economy class (sleeper passengers unfortunately only get 50% of an economy fare as credit). I once used the credit from one late trip to pay off a subsequent shorter trip. Not a bad deal, considering I was in no rush that day. Had I been, it would have been less of a consolation.
Does Amtrak have some similar form of compensation for excessively late trains?
-Tim
BaltACD I f you want to start a major labor confrontation, go ahead and have a Road Forman (company official) perform the duties of the engineer (contract covered employee). In today's economic climate the crafts are very protective of their Job Scope rules and having a company official performing craft duties would cause a major confrontation. oltmannd: Not sure why they just didn't get a road foreman to the train, have him download the event recorder and then operate the train to the next crew change point. - and pay the extra board crew a day's pay to stay home.
oltmannd: Not sure why they just didn't get a road foreman to the train, have him download the event recorder and then operate the train to the next crew change point. - and pay the extra board crew a day's pay to stay home.
Perhaps a confrontation worth having at some point? Are they running the train to avoid labor confrontation or to move paying customers from A to B on time? Particularly in this case when the guy was taken out of service for a rules violation.
And, invoking Godwin's Law, appeasing Hitler didn't work, did it?
Remember labor agreement are just that ....AGREEMENTS. Labor agrees to do certain things and the carriers agree to do certain things. No Shotguns were used in either the negotiation or signing of the various labor AGREEMENTS. If you as a local RFE or TM want to invalidate the agreement process in regard to one train and one crew amongst the hundreds if not thousands of trains and crews the carrier is operating and open a labor action....by all means.
Let's have PFC 'oltmannd' start WW 3, in his official capacity, because he doesn't agree to the treaties that his country has negotiated with it's neighbors/rivals.
Agreements, once negotiated and signed, are in place for the benefit of ALL the parties...there are procedures in place for future negotiation of changes to the agreements, but capricious unilateral actions by a minor company official is not one of those procedures.
Let's look at this from a practicality standpoint. Yes, the agreements are there to protect the employees and the company and to stipulate who does what. But you may choose to include a "however" with that:
Carriers do in fact reserve the right to do what they choose, and if it violates the agreement, the union members adversely affected may use the punitive terms of the collective bargaining agreement and the Railway Labor Act to obtain relief. That is how it works and has worked in the real world. Add another "however":
Carriers frown upon officials running trains for various reasons too numerous to lay out here, one of the least of which on some carriers, is labor peace. The intermittent operation of a train by an official so certified raises a wave in the calm waters of labor relations, but it is generally smoothed over by both parties. Repeated behavior of this type would indeed rate a labor tsunami, however there are much larger concerns that may exist from carrier to carrier as preventative measures.
In an emergency, and no one on this board can accurately identify that for this purpose, since each individual event carries its own parameters, I have seen RFE's operate trains, and I have in fact witnessed RFE's decline to run a train, opting to delay the train for the requisite time needed to get a relief crew on site. As I said earlier, practicality demands that each individual situation should be handled in accordance with needs of passengers, public and crew first.
If a RFE operates a train in an emergency, does that mean I personally like it? No. Am I cut in enough to understand that a RFE may at some point run a train in an emergency? Yes. Does the RFE like being ordered to advance a train in an emergency? Probably not. And I doubt seriously, having been on both sides of the fence, that a local RFE would undertake such an action without approval from some elevation higher than he or she can fly. If he or she does, they deserve what they get from above and below.
But the bottom line is this: no matter how grand and protective our agreements are, the Carrier will always do what the Carrier wants, expecting a reaction from the Union, which its members will be pleased to provide. In the case of the safety of passengers, hazardous freight or the public, I would hope everyone would accede to any decision that was in the best interest of the innocents adversely affected by the situation, i.e., the public.
rmeroad4man's reply is one of the most thoughful that I have seen in the Train's forums since I became a participating member.
Sam1 rmeroad4man's reply is one of the most thoughful that I have seen in the Train's forums since I became a participating member.
That's because it was written based on experience. I agree with your comments as well as his.
I am sure that if there were a factor of safety for the train ,its passeners or the railroad involved, it would be propicious for the RFE to move the train until a qualified engineer could board. Also questions arise as to the need or demands of the hosting railroad and the availability of an RFE or other qualified memeber of management. Then, too, there is the distance between the train and the source of qualified crews and the number of available qualified crews (on rest, on the "board", on call, advanced call time, etc.) If your run district is over 100 miles and you get stuck in the middle it will take a while to call a new crew as no railroad (with probable exceptions) has one or two crews on duty awaiting the call nor available at 10, 25 or 50 mile intervals. Even if there were a crew living next to the incident they would probably have to go to terminal to sign in and then be transported back to the train. Therefore you have say an hour to decision, two hour call, up to 3 hours to arrive at the site or up to 6 hours from time of incident. to arrival. TImes ain't what they used to be when it comes to the number of and availabilty of employees. At one time the local switching crew might be moved over to take a train in or to next terminal or a freight crew would be taken off their train an put on the passenger train. Rules, employee numbers, and the railroad work environment has changed greatly over the years. And, in this case, I agaiin question the role of the host rairoad: what is their need and obligation to get this train out of their way? What is Amtrak's obligation to the host road to get their train out of the way? Lots of questions we railfans can only guess at answering..
BaltACD Remember labor agreement are just that ....AGREEMENTS. Labor agrees to do certain things and the carriers agree to do certain things. No Shotguns were used in either the negotiation or signing of the various labor AGREEMENTS. If you as a local RFE or TM want to invalidate the agreement process in regard to one train and one crew amongst the hundreds if not thousands of trains and crews the carrier is operating and open a labor action....by all means. Let's have PFC 'oltmannd' start WW 3, in his official capacity, because he doesn't agree to the treaties that his country has negotiated with it's neighbors/rivals. Agreements, once negotiated and signed, are in place for the benefit of ALL the parties...there are procedures in place for future negotiation of changes to the agreements, but capricious unilateral actions by a minor company official is not one of those procedures.
Once upon a time, both parties would wink and nod at some of the rules a bit BECAUSE of the customer, such as exceeding civil or track speed limits in spots to get trains back on time. (I do understand that those times are gone forever...for a variety of reasons)
This really isn't much more than a craft violation, like a machinist having to do a little boilermaker work one day. He and the boilermaker put in their time claim, and are generally happy about it. In this case the extra board men put in their claim and get paid for staying home. WW3? Not likely. This is a rare event - and not of management's making.
Making the best of a bad situation is more important than dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.
I feel your 19th Century pain....however this is the 21st Century and a highly litigious society and litigation hinges on crossed T's and doted i's. When each party is looking to get 'a leg up' on it's adversary no amount of common sense will be permitted to intrude. The railroad world of 2010 is not the world of 1979...as I previously said, Red Signal violations, Block occupancy violations and MofW Work zone occupancy violations are the MOST SERIOUS of all operating violations as all of them can lead to collision with other trains or equipment and lead to massive property damage as well as severe physical injury and loss of life. Wink, wink, nod , nod is not a part of 21st Century operations.
In our daily lives, as a society, we are a group of scofflaws ... 5 to 10 MPH over the speed limit, Crowding the 'orange' of a changing stop light, blowing through School Zones and Work areas like they aren't there ... and we very rarely if ever have to pay 'the man' as the mechanisms are not in place to 'ticket' each and every violation...those mechanisms exist in today's railroads and they are enforced.
So long as the passengers of a passenger train are subjected no danger more serious than a time delay to their journey, procedures will be followed. If alternative transportation can be arranged while the investigation & recrew process is played out those avenues will be taken, if alternatives cannot be arranged the process will work to it's normal conclusion. Arranging alternate passenger transportation is the responsibility of the passenger operator (Amtrak or one of the commuter agencies). If there is some danger more than a time delay to the journey appropriate actions will be taken to secure the train from that peril.
I might add, the while all these procedures are taking place the Carrier is not getting off without damage, as their operations are just as hamstrung by the delays as are the passengers with one big difference...every carrier crew that is being delayed has the Hours of Service clock ticking toward 12 hours and the end of those crews being a movable resource.
oltmannd This really isn't much more than a craft violation, like a machinist having to do a little boilermaker work one day. He and the boilermaker put in their time claim, and are generally happy about it. In this case the extra board men put in their claim and get paid for staying home. WW3? Not likely. This is a rare event - and not of management's making. Making the best of a bad situation is more important than dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.
Use to be the customer was right, number one, reason for being. Today, yes, the legal professon has caused so many litigations over so minor things we have become scared to be in almost any business; certainly has drivin up the cost of doing business and, as seen here, the lessening of the quality of service. Absolute is a brand of vodka, being in business, providing a product or service, has to be humanized in an intellegent way. Wink and Nod? Call it what you want...but if you want your customers to come back and bring a friend you've got to treat them right on the spot. Rules violations? Yeah they did it. But crews used to know they'd be on the carpet when the finally got in; the point being they were still responsible and allowed to fulfill thier obligation. Thank goodness the train wasn't on the ground or on its side or that no one was injured or killed. And since all was still upright and there were no obsticals, the train should have been allowed to proceed until whoever was available to relieve them. Should the first relief person available be an RFE or TM or other qualfied manager, so be it...there are rules and one is that certain rules relieve one of duty as soon as possible. It could be argued, and I'm sure is, that the "union" did not uphold its part of the agreement by providing a person capable of operating via tie operating rules and thus a manager taking control of the train would should not be questioned or challanged. By getting the customer to his destination as quick and best possible serves the customer, the host rairoad (not blocking the tracks), and your own operation by hanging equipment cycle out to dry. Practicality should not be thrown away because some legal fear. Once the violation is committed the violator knows he's in deep doo doo even if he is found not at fault.
^tell it to the FRA
BaltACD ^tell it to the FRA
What does the FRA now have anything to do with anything? Didn't you just tell us it is the union agreement that prevents a qualified supervisory person from operating the train after the regular crew has been disqualified by a rules violation?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Since the rule and agreement violation aspect has taken on a life of its own, I would like to return to the original post with an answer as to what I would do.
After reading the Terms of Transportation (which is posted on the website, in stations, timetables and elsewhere) carefully, especially the pertinent parts of Force Majeure Event, Applicable Law and Disclaimer of Liability, I would do nothing.
Paul Milenkovic BaltACD: ^tell it to the FRA What does the FRA now have anything to do with anything? Didn't you just tell us it is the union agreement that prevents a qualified supervisory person from operating the train after the regular crew has been disqualified by a rules violation?
BaltACD: ^tell it to the FRA
And I guess Paul's retort is exactly the point here.
One, 49CFR Part 240 (Engineer Certification) has nothing to do with an agreement argument, and does not specify anything other than who is qualified and the what, who, where, when and such of the process. The FRA will simply kick back an unwarranted complaint and refer the matter to the governing union. Simply put, the FRA is not some elixir to cure all ills.
Two, The BLE agreement regarding Engineers being the only folks allowed to operate locomotives does not prevent any carrier from doing what it wants. Witness the UTU "Joystick Jockeys" running remote control locomotives at yards across the country (let's not get that pan hot, at least for now). And it certainly hasn't, and won't prevent officers who are certified as an engineers to rarely operate a locomotive or train. For as much as anyone may dislike it, the Railway Labor Act is the agreement's teeth, allowing as was said before, for punitive action by the affected members (time claim, scope violation, mediation and up to walkout) in an orderly and lawful progression. The offending officer likely will have to deal with not only their supervisors, but the rank and file at their location as well, tempering any decision to play engineer.
It is a very difficult thing for some of our new brothers and sisters in the unions to understand these facts, and even more difficult for those on the outside looking in, for railroad society is definitely not common society. Things work a little differently; and what seems logical on the outside simply cannot and does not function on the inside, and influences such as exhausted extra boards, weather, track conditions, available transportation for crews, safety of public and/or passengers and yes, labor strife, the failure of the rank and file to protect their jobs along with a host of other items will factor into a decision as to whether an official of the railroad operates a stranded train.
For me, this horse has been beat to death and sent to the Alpo factory.........see you on the next post.
At the risk of asking for my horse back, I have been reflecting on the safety vs the social issues of this recent Amtrak CZ incident, thinking about strict adherence to the rules and agreements vs being flexible in some manner to make things easier on passengers. In defense of strict adherence to the rules, I was wondering, do the "Airline boys" operate the same way? Then the Tenerife Disaster came to mind.
There was a recent Nova PBS show on that disaster, and I tuned in late. But what I think happened is that the Pan Am and the KLM jets were diverted to Tenerife out in the middle-of-nowhere on account of foggy weather at their European destinations, and then they were stuck there for gosh-knows-how-long, stuck on account of fog so thick you couldn't see to the end of your nose. And there were two jumbo plane loads of passengers camped out refugee-style in the airport terminal.
There was a forecast clearing in the fog, and both airline crews made tracks, to excuse the bad pun, to get their passengers boarded, their planes fueled, and underway before the fog rolled in again.
The accident, the collision of two jumbo jets on a fog-shrouded runway, was the worst aviation disaster, but in a way, it was a railway-type accident, that is, a collision resulting from two vehicles sharing the same "track", in this case, a takeoff runway. As many of you may know, the two jets were sent taxiing down a runway with KLM in the lead, the KLM was to turn around at the start of the runway and wait there, the Pan Am was supposed to clear the runway by taking a left turn on to a taxiway. The two planes were doing this under air traffic control -- pretty much train order and track warrant instead of any kind of block signal, as it were.
There is some question as to whether the Pan AM failed to clear the runway as instructed or instead dawdled, whether the KLM jet had been "Cleared for takeoff" or whether the KLM captain had received confusing radio instructions. The Nova show seems "slanted" towards the Pan Am crew, that their failure to clear the runway was that the fog was closing in again and they couldn't see their exit ramp, and against the KLM captain, who in their reenactment was over eager to get going.
But the whole incident seemed to be driven by getting-home-itis as it is called in the pilot world, an over-eager desire to beat the weather (the fog rolling back in), driven by the desire to not further inconvenience passengers.
So maybe the strict following of both FRA and union rules is in order, even if the passengers are seriously inconvenienced by being made hours late. Yes, the supervisor has an FRA qualification to operate the locomotive, but the union relief crew has the actual experience operating the train in service, so maybe having the supervisor operate the train would be a safety shortcut driven by getting-home-itis rather than waiting for a more highly-qualified union crew? But union people could also ask themselves if safety is the driving concern or whether it is about protecting union jobs, regardless of what passengers are subject to.
But this needs to be explained to people. Especially the passengers.
BaltACD I feel your 19th Century pain....however this is the 21st Century and a highly litigious society and litigation hinges on crossed T's and doted i's. When each party is looking to get 'a leg up' on it's adversary no amount of common sense will be permitted to intrude. The railroad world of 2010 is not the world of 1979...as I previously said, Red Signal violations, Block occupancy violations and MofW Work zone occupancy violations are the MOST SERIOUS of all operating violations as all of them can lead to collision with other trains or equipment and lead to massive property damage as well as severe physical injury and loss of life. Wink, wink, nod , nod is not a part of 21st Century operations. In our daily lives, as a society, we are a group of scofflaws ... 5 to 10 MPH over the speed limit, Crowding the 'orange' of a changing stop light, blowing through School Zones and Work areas like they aren't there ... and we very rarely if ever have to pay 'the man' as the mechanisms are not in place to 'ticket' each and every violation...those mechanisms exist in today's railroads and they are enforced. So long as the passengers of a passenger train are subjected no danger more serious than a time delay to their journey, procedures will be followed. If alternative transportation can be arranged while the investigation & recrew process is played out those avenues will be taken, if alternatives cannot be arranged the process will work to it's normal conclusion. Arranging alternate passenger transportation is the responsibility of the passenger operator (Amtrak or one of the commuter agencies). If there is some danger more than a time delay to the journey appropriate actions will be taken to secure the train from that peril. I might add, the while all these procedures are taking place the Carrier is not getting off without damage, as their operations are just as hamstrung by the delays as are the passengers with one big difference...every carrier crew that is being delayed has the Hours of Service clock ticking toward 12 hours and the end of those crews being a movable resource. oltmannd: This really isn't much more than a craft violation, like a machinist having to do a little boilermaker work one day. He and the boilermaker put in their time claim, and are generally happy about it. In this case the extra board men put in their claim and get paid for staying home. WW3? Not likely. This is a rare event - and not of management's making. Making the best of a bad situation is more important than dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.
oltmannd: This really isn't much more than a craft violation, like a machinist having to do a little boilermaker work one day. He and the boilermaker put in their time claim, and are generally happy about it. In this case the extra board men put in their claim and get paid for staying home. WW3? Not likely. This is a rare event - and not of management's making. Making the best of a bad situation is more important than dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.
Yes. Safety rules are all about dotting i's and crossing t's. But craft ownership of job content is not. For example, it would not be unsafe for a machinist to undo the pipe couplings on a locomotive fuel pump, or remove the two electrical leads.
An RFE darn well better be able to run a train safely across the territory he supervises!
There are those who would say rules are written to hang someone when something goes wrong; the crossing of the T's and dotting of the I's just helps tighten the noose.
I submit that if Graham Claytor or David Gunn had been head of Amtrak when this incident occured, he would have been contacted. He would have told the supervisor to go ahead and run the train and he would clear it with the heads of the unions to insure the proper extra board or whatever crew members would be paid as if they had actually run the train. Is Boardman up to snuff on something like this?
I've not been told who's track this occured on and whether or not it was an Amtrak crew or host railroad crew. Also to be taken into consideration is the agreement between Amtrak and the host railroad; also that an Amtrak manager might not be qualified to run on the host railroad. We don't know all the circumstances so are just stabbing in the dark.
The first post and a couple of subsequent ones clarified these questions. It was an Amtrak crew on BNSF tracks.
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