I deal with MSDS sheets on a daily basis. I have Chemtrec on speed dial on both my work phone and my cell. On a off week I'm dealing with 50 separate hazmat shipments from the tank fleet. That doesn't include the van side which can throw in another 100 or so. Next week for me is learning the 2021 regulation changes for hazmat shipment. To say anymore I dread dealing with regulatory officials is putting it mildly.
We're dealing with a pandemic waivers on the HOS regulation and all of this while trying to haul some of the nastiest things man produces on a regular basis on a daily basis. Some of my tank division drivers are averaging 35k miles a month solo right now. They are running 16 to 18 hours a day trying to keep the plants supplied with whatever they need. In my van division my top team cracked 48k miles last month on the waiver. Normally my drivers do half those numbers. To say I'm getting worried about them is an understatement. As for the people that did what they are accused of doing. My choice is bury them under the freaking jail.
Overmod CMStPnP Um the how-to details were included in the NTSB safety report on the signal maintainer that forgot to remove the shunt in Illiniois leading to a Amtrak collision with a passenger car. The details were rather specific as well. You can google the word "electrical shunt" and figure it out with the diagrams provided. And you post this specific way to find out how do do mischief and then rag on Euclid only a moment later about speculating about shunts on a public forum? There are probably words, but I can't think of any right now... (Seriously -- would copycats be reading technical articles to get ideas, or stuff served to their social media by eyeball-hungry algorithms?)
CMStPnP Um the how-to details were included in the NTSB safety report on the signal maintainer that forgot to remove the shunt in Illiniois leading to a Amtrak collision with a passenger car. The details were rather specific as well. You can google the word "electrical shunt" and figure it out with the diagrams provided.
And you post this specific way to find out how do do mischief and then rag on Euclid only a moment later about speculating about shunts on a public forum?
There are probably words, but I can't think of any right now...
(Seriously -- would copycats be reading technical articles to get ideas, or stuff served to their social media by eyeball-hungry algorithms?)
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Shadow the Cats owner ...Some of my tank division drivers are averaging 35k miles a month solo right now. They are running 16 to 18 hours a day trying to keep the plants supplied with whatever they need. In my van division my top team cracked 48k miles last month on the waiver...
Murphy Siding Shadow the Cats owner ...Some of my tank division drivers are averaging 35k miles a month solo right now. They are running 16 to 18 hours a day trying to keep the plants supplied with whatever they need. In my van division my top team cracked 48k miles last month on the waiver... I know that trucking is your deal and that you don't like being challenged about anything having to do with trucking, but 35,000 miles a month "average" seems pretty high.
I know that trucking is your deal and that you don't like being challenged about anything having to do with trucking, but 35,000 miles a month "average" seems pretty high.
When she says drivers, is she meaning 'team' drivers'? As 35K miles per month equals 1129 miles per day of a 31 day month - and at 50 MPH average that is the truck being on the move for 22.25 hours, or thereabouts, each of the 31 days. Pretty good for a 24 hour day especially with HOS regulations. That 48K team would have been on the road 31 hours a day at 50 MPH average, or driving 64.5 MPH for each and every 24 hours of a 31 day month.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
York1To satisfy some here who complain the stories are from right-wing sources and therefore unreliable, here's a link to a completely unbiased (!) source with the basics of the story.
Thats not going to change the behavior.
According to the complaint they did it to disrupt construction of an oil pipeline being built in Canada.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/press-release/file/1341141/download
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
n012944 Euclid Why would shunting the rails cause the train to go into emergency braking? It is not that hard to figure out.
Euclid Why would shunting the rails cause the train to go into emergency braking?
Why would shunting the rails cause the train to go into emergency braking?
It is not that hard to figure out.
It is not hard to come up with plausible explanations. My only point is that the article leaves out any explanation. So I ask the question so someone may chime in with a plausible explanation. When I read the first article, I had the impression that the two women were using shunts to affect road traffic by manipulating the crossing signals.
Now, after reading several more articles, I conclude that they were attempting to affect train traffic by tampering with train signal indications. It is reported that 41 shunts have been discovered by BNSF since last January. I think it is likely that they only inadvertently activated some grade crossing signals when attempting to change aspects of train signals.
I also speculate that 41 instances of placed shunts was carried out by more than just the two women cited in the news, and that the perpetrators were working on a plan larger than just placing shunts that would stop trains.
BaltACD Murphy Siding Shadow the Cats owner ...Some of my tank division drivers are averaging 35k miles a month solo right now. They are running 16 to 18 hours a day trying to keep the plants supplied with whatever they need. In my van division my top team cracked 48k miles last month on the waiver... I know that trucking is your deal and that you don't like being challenged about anything having to do with trucking, but 35,000 miles a month "average" seems pretty high. When she says drivers, is she meaning 'team' drivers'? As 35K miles per month equals 1129 miles per day of a 31 day month - and at 50 MPH average that is the truck being on the move for 22.25 hours, or thereabouts, each of the 31 days. Pretty good for a 24 hour day especially with HOS regulations. That 48K team would have been on the road 31 hours a day at 50 MPH average, or driving 64.5 MPH for each and every 24 hours of a 31 day month.
Euclid ...Now, after reading several more articles, I conclude that they were attempting to affect train traffic by tampering with train signal indications. It is reported that 41 shunts have been discovered by BNSF since last January. I think it is likely that they only inadvertently activated some grade crossing signals when attempting to change aspects of train signals. I also speculate that 41 instances of placed shunts was carried out by more than just the two women cited in the news, and that the perpetrators were working on a plan larger than just placing shunts that would stop trains.
...Now, after reading several more articles, I conclude that they were attempting to affect train traffic by tampering with train signal indications. It is reported that 41 shunts have been discovered by BNSF since last January. I think it is likely that they only inadvertently activated some grade crossing signals when attempting to change aspects of train signals.
I can chime in here with a bit of twisted humor. When I was a kid we lived across the street from the Long Island Rail Road in Garden City, NY. It was an electric, third rail commuter line. There were two grade crossings, one on either side of the Garden City commuter rail station, protected with automatic, half barrier gates and flashing signals.
Well, just a few feet shy of the road, each rail had an insulated rail joint in it. Both sides of the road had these.
I can no longer recall how in the world I discovered this, but I found out that if I placed a quarter (or some other small conductor of electricity) over the insulated rail joint it somehow "shunted" the crossing signals. The gates would come down, and stay down for about a minute then just go back up again leaving drivers totally bewildered!
I demonstrated this to a couple of my friends and they, too, were amazed and started doing it themselves! It was a GREAT prank! It was REALLY fun until one day I got stopped by a cop. Suddenly it wasn't so fun anymore. I tried to give him a bunch of B.S. and he let me go after he took down my name and address and all my personal info. "We'll be gettin in touch with your parents", he told me.
Guess what? I never heard anymore about this and a few months later we moved to Arizona and that was that. I tried this on a few other railroads and it didn't work. Only on the Long Island. I don't know if it had something to do with it being an electric line or what.
Would I try this again today? Of course not. I was only 12 years old, for cryin' out loud.
Regards,
Fred M. Cain
A crossing with a "hard" circuit would have the gates stay down as long as the circuit was shunted.
A crossing with a "predictive" circuit would have the gates go down when first shunted, but they would go back up when no motion was detected after a certain period of time. Block occupancy circuits don't work that way, however, so theoretically, the block would still show occupied.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68A crossing with a "hard" circuit would have the gates stay down as long as the circuit was shunted. A crossing with a "predictive" circuit would have the gates go down when first shunted, but they would go back up when no motion was detected after a certain period of time. Block occupancy circuits don't work that way, however, so theoretically, the block would still show occupied.
Some 'hard' circuits are equipped with timers - after a set amount of time, without other circuits having been activated, the gates will time out and go to the up position. Circuits for crossing protection in many cases are 'tuned' to the local conditions that exist where the protection is installed.
As a practical matter from the Dispatcher's Office perspective - there are generally two ways that broken rails get detected - a train CTC territory operates through a track segment between control points and the track circuit stays on after the train has exited the segment. The second way is to get a report of crossing protection operating in a 'dark' track segment. In both cases Signal Maintainers will be dispatched to investigate the cause.
Murphy Siding Those drivers running that hard are on the HOS WAIVER from the Federal government. That means they are hauling vital supplies needed for the Pandemic to keep vital industries open. They are hauling chemicals to paper plants water treatment plants medical equipment PPE for hospitals food things of that nature. The drivers in my fleet that ARE NOT waivered are doing the fleet average of around 13K a month solo which is up almost 2K a month over last year. Why less drivers overall in the fleet to haul for our normal customers. So the drivers that have to comply with the HOS are having to run harder to keep the customers happy. The boss is trying to grow as fast as possible but we can not get new drivers right now. Why travel restrictions are severe. If we hire a new driver from out of state he has to stay in quarrentine for 2 weeks then can be brought onboard. Most drivers right now are not willing to change carriers due to that issue. Yes we have some drivers that are pushing out the miles. However right now the FMCSA is allowing them to do so. When they say no more waiver they will drop back to normal miles in a month. However who KNOWS when that will be right now. It sure would have been nice if the UP, NS and CSX along with those 2 Canadian players hadn't basically destroyed their customer service departments in a race to see how low they could force their OR in the name of PSR. Since right now I have 20 drivers or 10% of my fleet in the van side and 25 drivers or 50% of my tanker yankers that could use a break from the 18-20 hour days they are putting in on nonstop basis. BaltACD Murphy Siding Shadow the Cats owner ...Some of my tank division drivers are averaging 35k miles a month solo right now. They are running 16 to 18 hours a day trying to keep the plants supplied with whatever they need. In my van division my top team cracked 48k miles last month on the waiver... I know that trucking is your deal and that you don't like being challenged about anything having to do with trucking, but 35,000 miles a month "average" seems pretty high. When she says drivers, is she meaning 'team' drivers'? As 35K miles per month equals 1129 miles per day of a 31 day month - and at 50 MPH average that is the truck being on the move for 22.25 hours, or thereabouts, each of the 31 days. Pretty good for a 24 hour day especially with HOS regulations. That 48K team would have been on the road 31 hours a day at 50 MPH average, or driving 64.5 MPH for each and every 24 hours of a 31 day month. Well, now it mentions drivers averaging 35,000 miles per month then seperately mentions teams doing only 24,000 per month. I say, if the best drivers can drive from Chicago to Austin every day, fire some of those slacker teams and hire more of the superman drivers. The single drivers are averaging 35,000 miles per month (1129 miles per day). I wonder what the superstar drivers are doing per month.
Well, now it mentions drivers averaging 35,000 miles per month then seperately mentions teams doing only 24,000 per month. I say, if the best drivers can drive from Chicago to Austin every day, fire some of those slacker teams and hire more of the superman drivers. The single drivers are averaging 35,000 miles per month (1129 miles per day). I wonder what the superstar drivers are doing per month.
Shadow the Cats ownermy tanker yankers that could use a break from the 18-20 hour days they are putting in on nonstop basis.
Us other people on the road really wish they could take a break, too.
That's scary stuff. And you're worried about people shunting tracks?
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
It sounds like there's an awful lot of extremely tired drivers out there with no days off and never out of a moving truck. What's the old navy saying "flogging will continue until the morale improves"?
zugmann Shadow the Cats owner my tanker yankers that could use a break from the 18-20 hour days they are putting in on nonstop basis. Us other people on the road really wish they could take a break, too. That's scary stuff. And you're worried about people shunting tracks?
Shadow the Cats owner my tanker yankers that could use a break from the 18-20 hour days they are putting in on nonstop basis.
SOS from the gypsy trucking cat. Or else her company is violating a lot of laws. Hopefully, they forgot the monthly bribes.
charlie hebdo zugmann Shadow the Cats owner my tanker yankers that could use a break from the 18-20 hour days they are putting in on nonstop basis. Us other people on the road really wish they could take a break, too. That's scary stuff. And you're worried about people shunting tracks? SOS from the gypsy trucking cat. Or else her company is violating a lot of laws. Hopefully, they forgot the monthly bribes.
charlie hebdoSOS from the gypsy trucking cat. Or else her company is violating a lot of laws. Hopefully, they forgot the monthly bribes.
She clearly wrote, "Those drivers running that hard are on the HOS WAIVER from the Federal government. That means they are hauling vital supplies needed for the Pandemic to keep vital industries open. They are hauling chemicals to paper plants water treatment plants medical equipment PPE for hospitals "
The drivers cannot be forced to drive those hours, but they are allowed under the emergency regulations.
https://cdllife.com/2020/fmcsa-extend-historic-50-state-covid-19-hos-waiver-into-2021-expands-to-include-vaccines/
Monthly bribes?
York1 John
In regards to Bakken crude, I believe North Dakota now requires the volitile elements to be removed before loading. There have been a couple of derailments since that mandate without the resulting big boom.
I first read this elsewhere, a link to the NY Times. In it it says one instance triggered the PTC, when it sensed the next block signal going to red, to give an emergency application. If PTC calculates the new "target" is to close for a penalty service application to stop the train, it goes to emergency.
As for shunts. I'd bet almost everyone on here has, or had at one time, a set.
Jeff
jeffhergert If PTC calculates the new "target" is to close for a penalty service application to stop the train, it goes to emergency.
Guess it depends if the red fence falls behind the yellow or the red line.
York1 charlie hebdo SOS from the gypsy trucking cat. Or else her company is violating a lot of laws. Hopefully, they forgot the monthly bribes. She clearly wrote, "Those drivers running that hard are on the HOS WAIVER from the Federal government. That means they are hauling vital supplies needed for the Pandemic to keep vital industries open. They are hauling chemicals to paper plants water treatment plants medical equipment PPE for hospitals " The drivers cannot be forced to drive those hours, but they are allowed under the emergency regulations. https://cdllife.com/2020/fmcsa-extend-historic-50-state-covid-19-hos-waiver-into-2021-expands-to-include-vaccines/ Monthly bribes?
charlie hebdo SOS from the gypsy trucking cat. Or else her company is violating a lot of laws. Hopefully, they forgot the monthly bribes.
I have a bridge you might consider buying.
I'm hardly the only member on here who has expressed doubts about the truck lady's claims.
Deleted in the interest of the thread.
Wave money in front of someone and they'll do all kinds of stupid things, especially when they are tired. I'm sure there's pressure from above, too.
charlie hebdoI'm hardly the only member on here who has expressed doubts about the truck lady's claims.
I did not say you were the only one.
My post was meant to point out that the mileage and hours she wrote about are not against the law.
I checked some sites that say team drivers can expect over 1,000 miles per day, and if the loading-unloading is planned correctly, they can get more than that.
charlie hebdo One of those web blogs is ultra right wing. The other features info on spouses ofBiden appointees. I would suggest both are biased and likely unreliable sources of information, as opposed to rightist disinformation. If progressive citations are condemned as too political, then ditto for the rightist posts.
One of those web blogs is ultra right wing. The other features info on spouses ofBiden appointees. I would suggest both are biased and likely unreliable sources of information, as opposed to rightist disinformation. If progressive citations are condemned as too political, then ditto for the rightist posts.
The moderation around here has never been that effective. A person could try establishing some kind of trains network on Facebook to not be exposed to disinformation? I hear they work hard at screening what gets posted over there?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
The problem is 3 fold. 1st off the Global supply chain was disrupted by COVID totally. Some of the plants that my waiver drivers are serving would not be running without the materials my work kids would be delivering. These drivers for months now have been driving like supermen and women all across this nation and they are starting to wear out. 2 some plants especially in the chemical side of things require strict training to deliver to them. That is why several of my drivers on the tanker side can not get relived they are the ONLY drivers in our fleet qualified by the customer to deliver to them. The last one is the government itself. By constantly ramping up and then down on what level of closure they are throwing states into they are constantly disrupting how the logistics system can respond to the pandemic. The industry no sooner gets one state's situation under control so to speak in terms of PPE and other crap and then the next wave is hitting us. The chain can only be pulled in so many directions before it snaps. I can tell you this much from what I have seen my drivers know when to shut it down for the night they also know how hard they need to push to keep the supplies needed by the healthcare industry flowing and the groceries at the stores. My kids at work are doing everything they can to save lives without taking them from being tired. It isn't easy walking that line. They have personally seen what happens to members of their own families and friends that have caught and several have lost loved ones from this crap. They want it to end just as much as the rest of us in this nation so they can go back to being safe and legal drivers.
They would rather be doing their 70 hour weeks instead of 120 on average they have been for the last 8 months. That has been the average for my solo drivers and we have upped their trucks to 75 MPH to make sure they can get to where they need to be as fast as possible.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe problem is 3 fold. 1st off the Global supply chain was disrupted by COVID totally. Some of the plants that my waiver drivers are serving would not be running without the materials my work kids would be delivering. These drivers for months now have been driving like supermen and women all across this nation and they are starting to wear out. 2 some plants especially in the chemical side of things require strict training to deliver to them. That is why several of my drivers on the tanker side can not get relived they are the ONLY drivers in our fleet qualified by the customer to deliver to them. The last one is the government itself. By constantly ramping up and then down on what level of closure they are throwing states into they are constantly disrupting how the logistics system can respond to the pandemic. The industry no sooner gets one state's situation under control so to speak in terms of PPE and other crap and then the next wave is hitting us. The chain can only be pulled in so many directions before it snaps. I can tell you this much from what I have seen my drivers know when to shut it down for the night they also know how hard they need to push to keep the supplies needed by the healthcare industry flowing and the groceries at the stores. My kids at work are doing everything they can to save lives without taking them from being tired. It isn't easy walking that line. They have personally seen what happens to members of their own families and friends that have caught and several have lost loved ones from this crap. They want it to end just as much as the rest of us in this nation so they can go back to being safe and legal drivers. They would rather be doing their 70 hour weeks instead of 120 on average they have been for the last 8 months. That has been the average for my solo drivers and we have upped their trucks to 75 MPH to make sure they can get to where they need to be as fast as possible.
I would venture you are complicit in your 'qualfied' drivers being the only ones - my God start training other drivers. Yes there will be ones the don't measure up, but without starting a training scenario you will drive the already qualified drivers to early graves and maybe some innocent bystanders.
17+ hour days for nine months driving trucks at 75 (way over speed limit)? That poses a horrible safety hazard for everyone. It's criminal or certainly should be.
wow.
It sounds like the "work kids" who are qualified for certain facilities are pressured to keep driving and not to take time off, probably by office staff and dispatchers who have never driven OTR. I'm sure the drivers will get big profit sharing bonuses in appreciation for helping the owners get filthy rich. (sarcasm)
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