I missed out on the latter part of the Federal Dispatching thread over on the passenger forum before it was locked.
Last week I had my recertification ride for my FRA license. It was the final requirement for renewal and I received my license in the mail yesterday. It's good for another 3 years. I should note that rules classes are now held every 3 years. The railroad used to require one every 2 years, but to cut down on the time people would not be available for their normal assignments (do more with less people) they aligned the classes with the Federal requirement (3 years for rules) to run with time the license is good for. They use periodic computer based training and videos to fulfill other Federal training requirements instead of an actual class.
Check rides where a DSLE (Designated Supervisor of Locomotive Engineers), known by various titles on individual railroads, rides with an engineer to check on their proficiency are done on a yearly basis. Now, on my employer, that can be done by using a review of a download of a trip from a central location by a qualified DSLE. They notify you it was done and to endorse your own license with AME (annual monitored event) and the date.
My recertification ride was done on a locomotive simulator over a somewhat generic territory equal to what my own territory is like. (They have the specific territories we run available in the simulator programming. Why they don't use the correct one is beyond me.) Simulated PTC is used otherwise one would be hard pressed to know where one was on grades or where the next signal would be, or if that next signal was permissive or absolute. I have heard of one engineer being recertified using the AME method, with the added event of the DSLE handling the ride periodically checking the inward facing camera.
I initially qualified on 4 main line segments and short segments of adjoing branch lines. Think of a cross, east/west and north south with my home terminal slightly west of the intersection of the lines. While I am "qualified" on those lines, I'm currently only familiar the line that is the west segment out of my home terminal. This is a question of semantics and technicalities. Once qualified, you are always considered to be qualified. However, if you haven't worked a trip over a specific territory within a certain period of time you are no longer "familiar" with it. The hills and valleys don't change, but the location of signals and other items and practices might have. So for me to change territories, I'd need familiarization trips, either by having another engineer pilot me or assigned to make trips with a regular engineer on the territory. Usually as one accumulates seniority, one tends to stay on the same assignment. It's normally the younger ones who jump around between pools and extra boards who maintain familiarization with more territory.
The period that one retains familiarization may be different from place to place. I think the FRA uses, or at least used at one point, 24 months. Individual railroads can be less. Currently in most areas on my carrier, 12 months is the time period. 5 months is the time period on certain heavy grade lines, with a further requirement of operating in both directions on some segments within that time. For awhile, 6 months was used system wide for retaining familiarization.
Working a pool assignment, I regularly get called by the robot (computerized) call system for jobs off my territory when the extra board is exhausted. There are 3 road pools at my home terminal. I work RE (rotary engineer) 33 pool. The other pools are numbered 34 and 35. Being the lowest numbered pool, the robot goes to that one first for any vacancy that needs to be filled. (There is a calling procedure, but the robot doesn't know that.) Generally, unless I'm first out or first available, I don't answer the phone when the railroad calls.
I don't propose that my experiences happen on other carriers, that this is the way things are done elsewhere. I do know that they do have trouble at times finding the right qualified/familiar crewmembers.
Jeff
Jeff, does it work out that you tend to get the same jobs a lot? Or are you on a constantly changing schedule regarding what time you are called to work? Is there any way to plan anything not work-related? Or is recreation, family time, social life, etc. strictly catch as catch can?
Still in training.
Pools operate FIFO - First In, First Out - commiserate with the crew being rested on both ends of the territory. Rest is 10 hours undisturbed from the final relase time, thus with a nominal 2 hour notification - a crew called on their Rest will be on duty 12 hours after their previous duty. This can happen at both home and away terminals.
Until PSR got implemented it was considered that crews would have more off time at their home terminal than the away terminal. With PSR staffing levels crews are turning relatively on their rest on both ends of their territories.
There are multiple other ways for the carriers to utilize their crews - with my time at CSX there were approximately a dozen or more ways that crews were managed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
jeffhergertI don't propose that my experiences happen on other carriers, that this is the way things are done elsewhere. I do know that they do have trouble at times finding the right qualified/familiar crewmembers.
Pretty much the same here.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Nothing to see here. Keep scrolling.
BaltACDPools operate FIFO - First In, First Out - commiserate with the crew being rested on both ends of the territory. Rest is 10 hours undisturbed from the final relase time, thus with a nominal 2 hour notification - a crew called on their Rest will be on duty 12 hours after their previous duty. This can happen at both home and away terminals.
We used to have preferred and general pools. Preferred got assigned trains (with calling windows) to the AFHT. Some got an assigned train back home, while others got first avaliable. General pools got whatever, whenever, both ends. Now if a preferred pool (1st avaliable unassigned train home) got to the hotel after a general pool, and both became rested, then the preferred pool would run around the general if a train was called and leave first. The general pools would sometimes rot in the hotels (all the while nobody would be at home to take trains out).
PSR made pretty much everything general, so that's that.
And you can be ordered to show up on your 10 hour mark. So you don't always get 12 off. At the AFHT it was pretty much common for crews to show up on their rest.
zugmann Preferred got assigned trains (with calling windows) to the AFHT. Some got an assigned train back home, while others got first avaliable.
Preferred got assigned trains (with calling windows) to the AFHT. Some got an assigned train back home, while others got first avaliable.
We still have that for UPS. Crews in the home terminal can have their calls set back once, up to four hours. If the train is running later then that, they will d/h in for rest. They are show up jobs in their AFHT, again with an ability to have the call set back once. Very high seniority on these runs, many of them have a car in the AFHT.
Ordering crews to show up on their rest used to be a thing, it has been banned at my place of employment for about 6 months now.
An "expensive model collector"
zugmann BaltACD Pools operate FIFO - First In, First Out - commiserate with the crew being rested on both ends of the territory. Rest is 10 hours undisturbed from the final relase time, thus with a nominal 2 hour notification - a crew called on their Rest will be on duty 12 hours after their previous duty. This can happen at both home and away terminals. We used to have preferred and general pools. Preferred got assigned trains (with calling windows) to the AFHT. Some got an assigned train back home, while others got first avaliable. General pools got whatever, whenever, both ends. Now if a preferred pool (1st avaliable unassigned train home) got to the hotel after a general pool, and both became rested, then the preferred pool would run around the general if a train was called and leave first. The general pools would sometimes rot in the hotels (all the while nobody would be at home to take trains out). PSR made pretty much everything general, so that's that. And you can be ordered to show up on your 10 hour mark. So you don't always get 12 off. At the AFHT it was pretty much common for crews to show up on their rest.
BaltACD Pools operate FIFO - First In, First Out - commiserate with the crew being rested on both ends of the territory. Rest is 10 hours undisturbed from the final relase time, thus with a nominal 2 hour notification - a crew called on their Rest will be on duty 12 hours after their previous duty. This can happen at both home and away terminals.
In the early 1990's I was working on CSX's Atlanta Division. The Georgia Sub, the former Georgia Railroad and Banking Co., had both Assigned and Pool turns operating between Augusta (HT) and Atlanta (AFHT). The Assigned crews protected specific trains, the Pool crews protected everything else. The else included, the Stone Mt. dinner train, ballast trains to/from a quarry at Lithonia, Plant Harrlee coal trains to Milledgeville. The only requirement was that after 14 days away from home the crew would be deadheaded home if they weren't in a position to be worked home. All the 'else' would or could be round trips that ended back in Atlanta and required rest after their tour of duty. The Plant Harrlee coal trains 'might' be routed to Augusta with the empties depending upon how the Coal Dept. wanted them routed to the mines.
I, as a individual, cannot understand what the Georgia Sub Union's thought they were accomplishing with such an agreement. New Union leadership came onboard while I was still on the Atlanta Division and negotiated a 4 trip agreement for crews to go home. Augusta to Atlanta was trip 1, Dinner Train or Ballast train would be a trip, coal train to Plant Harrlee would be a trip, empties from Plant Harrlee would be a trip. The 4th trip of a crew was to be home to Augusta or they got deadheaded home after completing the 4th trip. Not great, in my opinion, but much better than 14 days.
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