The Texas Eagle departs from San Antonio at 7:00 am daily. At what time would the engineer and conductor be required to sign-on for duty?
What about the engineer and conductor for a freight train that is scheduled to depart at 7:00 am?
What happens if the engineer(s) and conductor(s) cannot get to their departure point on time because of a massive wreck on the roadway? They are daily occurences on I-35, especially between Austin and San Antonio.
JPS1The Texas Eagle departs from San Antonio at 7:00 am daily. At what time would the engineer and conductor be required to sign-on for duty? What about the engineer and conductor for a freight train that is scheduled to depart at 7:00 am? What happens if the engineer(s) and conductor(s) cannot get to their departure point on time because of a massive wreck on the roadway? They are daily occurences on I-35, especially between Austin and San Antonio.
I have no knowledge about Amtrak's operations at San Antonio.
The On Duty time for passenger operations is nominally set by what work the crew has to perform to be ready for the On Time departure. At a Origin location like Washington DC, the crew will likely go On Duty a hour or potentially more ahead of the scheduled departure as the crew must get the power from the Ivy City engine maintenance facility and move it to Washington Union Station to couple to the train (through trains change from electric to diesel or vice versa depending on direction) Northboud Originating trains take their motors to couple to the train at the station.
At wayside crew change locations, crews will go On Duty nominally 30 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time. For regularly assigned crews they are expected to 'show up' at the scheduled On Duty time, unless notified otherwise. Extra Board crewmen will be called to be notified of their On Duty time and location (which - if they have to travel may be well in advance of the On Duty time - the travel time will count against their Hours of Service time. Amtrak does their own crew calling for their personnel - MOST of their jobs outside of the NEC are show up jobs based on scheduled departures.
Assigned freight crews have designated 'show up' times for the regular crews - with advance notice the 'show up time' can be set back if the specific train is seriously off schedule.
Most freight crews operate in First In, First Out Pool service. On CSX the standard notification time was two hours. ie. a crew would be notified at 7 AM that they were to go On Duty at their on duty location at 9 AM. Failure to be at the on duty location at the proper time makes the crewman that is late subject to discipline.
CSX has a computer system for crew calling. A call figure for a train can be entered into the system AT LEAST 2 hours 15 minutes PRIOR to the call time being requested. ie. for a 0230 call time, the time of 0230 must be entered into the system before 0015. When I retired, crew calling was a mixture of computer initiated and manually initiated actions in notifying the personnel being called. In placing a call for 0230, the Dispatcher is expecting the train to actually be at the location in the 0245-0300 range. This gives the crew the opportunity to get their train messages and train documentation in order and be ready to board the train when it arrives.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD,
Thanks for the insightful information regarding On Duty Time. Having grown up in Altoona, I remember the Altoona Mirror published a daily "standing of the crews" for Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, but I never understood exactly when they went on duty.
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