Western Railroad Discussion > UP Donner snow-fighting crews: are all now from the extra board?

"1ST_OUT" posted this about a month ago, and 
I just wanted to  double-check to see if it was 
really true,   And, if true, when did this happen?   

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Date: 01/27/17 04:57 
Re: Flanger coming down off Donner- a roll by 
Author: 1ST_OUT Snow service is unassigned extra board work. Crews are called off the Roseville extra boards. The old volunteer agreement was done away with. 

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"1ST_OUT" -- 
I believe you.  But calling crews off the unassigned 
Roseville extra boards and not using men who are 
specially trained and who have a lof of experience 
fighting snow on Donner seems, well.... not exactly the 
most practical or sensible idea, and seems to have been 
made by someone who had no idea at all how much skill 
and good judgment it takes to operate that snow-fighting  
equipment -- flangers, spreaders, and rotaries -- on Donner.  

Given that reality, how on earth have those very inexperienced  
crews managed to keep Donner open as well as they have?   
Huge kudos to all the snow-fighting crews for all their hard work, 
and for putting themselves in danger, so the rest of us can get 
our goods and ride Amtrak when it can get through! 

Was the flanger that got stuck on Donner yesterday being run 
by inexperienced guys off that unassigned Roseville extra board 
who had not run it before?  Or was it just bad luck that happened 
to an experienced crew?  They did get  her unstuck pretty fast!   
Great job, whoever it was! 

The guys who fight snow on Donner aer real heroes -- risking 
their lives so the Hill san stay open, and all with no appreciation 
from the general public. 

TIA for any insight and info about this very important subject.

 

Who said UP does anything practical. Equipment failures in snow are part of the game, be snow slides derailments, power failures, whatever. MOW is calling the shots in the snow

In UP's world they have managers ride just about everything, often including snow equipment. Since on UP managers are pretty much considered fully qualified on everything they manage the crews they're with don't need to know anything because UP managers know it all - just ask one - and they'll show everybody how to do it.

It USED to be.........

It wasn't so much the train & engine crews, it was the MofW guys that knew their stuff.  They ran the rotary's, so to speak and after a person had enough time in, they would let the engineer take over for a while.  Pretty soon they knew who "could" and who "couldn't " cut it.  

Same thing with a spreader or flanger.  I have no idea what the UP does now. All the old heads are gone.  I rode with a RFE back in 82 for an afternoon west of Norden. A huge education.  I still have a bunch of photos that were taken on that trip. I have tried to put them up here in the past but they never showed up.  One of these days.  There are pics of throwing dynamite charges onto the edges of the sheds and turntable roof to get the snow to drop off.  One is a series of about 10 pics of a crew member walking into a snow bound tunnel and taking pictures as the rotary started in and up to where the guy was standing. Pretty impressive.  Help Tony????????

Also worked a flanger a time or two out of Dunsmuir.  As an engineer, you just drove. The Mofw or trainmen ran the blade and selected which side, etc. 

Nudge



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/17 18:45 by spnudge.

I don't believe the agreement changed. At least not recently. The UP and MOW would choose those best suited and everyone went along with it. A few years ago, some employees had a problem with it, because they were passed up for the assignment.

So as far as I've been told by the area's local chairmen, this wasn't the company's fault, but the train crews. That is if you consider adhering to the agreement a "fault." 

spnudge ---
Thank you very, veyr much for that fascinating info.  So in 
better days when the SP was still around, it wa the MoW 
guys who actually ran the flangers and spreaders and 
rotaries.  I didn't know that.  Thank you!

Hey, folks --
Would one of you please help "spnudge" get his priceless photos
posted here?  Some of these new-fangled coomputer gizmos are
very hard for some of us old geezers (and geezerettes!) to manage
to know how to use well.  TIA!!

Railbaron ---
LOL!  Sarcasm, much!  I do understand your frustration -- really, I do.

To all --
I was trying to be polite in what I wrote about the UP.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/17 16:26 by Margaret_SP_fan.

portlander Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't believe the agreement changed. At least
> not recently. The UP and MOW would choose those
> best suited and everyone went along with it. A few
> years ago, some employees had a problem with it,
> because they were passed up for the assignment.
>
> So as far as I've been told by the area's local
> chairmen, this wasn't the company's fault, but the
> train crews. That is if you consider adhering to
> the agreement a "fault." 

portlander --
Thank you very much for the explabnation.  And, no,
honoring an agreement is not a "fault".

Wanting to do something does not mean the person
can do the job well.  Sad, but true.

It has always been off the extra board, we had a list of people who wanted to do it but you had to be on the proper board to work snow. MOW does not operate flangers on donner, they do run the wings on the spreaders. Engineers run the engines from the cab of the spreader. The conductor on the stuck flanger is one of the best in the business. I spent all night in that blizzard running a flanger and just got off of 12 hours on one of the spreader sets as the engineer. The snow wall is now 13ft deep. Hitting a snow drift at 35 mph and coming out at 8mph or stalling are the risk we take.

Posted from Android

I always liked working snow service up here in Oregon (Cascade Subdivision) as it was "fun" but I much preferred the flanger over the spreader - the spreader was much more stressful with everything going on.

1ST_OUT --
THANK you VERY, VERY much!!  FIRST, for your service 
as one of the heroic snow-fighters. Second, for the kind 
reply and the great info.  PLEASE extend my apologies
to the coductor on that flanger that got stuck.  It is a huge
relief to know that there are still really, really GOOD people
who DO know what they are dong who are fighting snow on
Donner.  You guys are real heroes in my book!!

(And I remember reading what one guy wrote on here recently
about how he felt when running the flanger at 35 mph: he said
it was terriofying -- untuil he had had some years of experience.
White-knucke time.  35 mph may not seem fast to us who have
only driven cars, and, of course, have never been in a flanger or 
spreader going that speed on Donnwer, moving tons of snow --
but it IS fast when you are not used to it,  And it take a while for
some folks to get used to that.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/17 16:28 by Margaret_SP_fan.

The photograph files may have been too large. They are limited to 500KB. Try saving copies and resizing them so they fit within the file size limit.

1ST_OUT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It has always been off the extra board, we had a
> list of people who wanted to do it but you had to
> be on the proper board to work snow. MOW does not
> operate flangers on donner, they do run the wings
> on the spreaders. Engineers run the engines from
> the cab of the spreader. The conductor on the
> stuck flanger is one of the best in the business.
> I spent all night in that blizzard running a
> flanger and just got off of 12 hours on one of the
> spreader sets as the engineer. The snow wall is
> now 13ft deep. Hitting a snow drift at 35 mph and
> coming out at 8mph or stalling are the risk we
> take.
>

This response is a reminder that we can jump to conclusions and be critical yet in reality know virtually nothing about how it is out there. Glad to have some facts rather than unnecessary negativity. Thanks for the work those have done in the past and those who work presently to keep commerce flowing.

No matter what board, 1st out is 1st out of town.  If the carrier choose to use someone off the board that is not first out, the 1st out person would get a "run-around".  

In some regions, they may have a separate "snow" board but I had never heard of one on the SP.  As mentioned, MofW could  request a certain engineer but any claims would come out of their budget, not operating.

In the Engineers agreement there was Article 9, Snow Plow Service, but it just discussed rates of pay. ...........Engineer will be paid the weight of the rotary and any engines coupled to it. Engineer will be paid the same rate when operating the rotary or  when pushing the rotary........  Also, engineers will be paid continuous time, even when tied up out of town, while being held in Snow Service................  Engineers will be paid $3.00 extra for snow service.

There are others, like Article 6, Logging Service,  Article 7, Helper Service,  Article 8, Work Train Service,  Article 8 1/2   Wrecking Service,  Article 9 1/2   Fire Train Service, Sacramento Division, Article 10, Yard Service, the list goes on.  All these were listed under the agreements  Dated  January 1, 1969 and  July 26, 1978

There were other situations that came up. Back in 69, you had to have at least 610 days road (not yard) timeslips in as an engineer in order to be qualified as a passenger engineer. (Also needed 90 days as a Fireman to be used in passenger service).  After working out of SLO it didn't take long and I had my time in and worked Atk  to SBA, LA & passenger specials. When I came to the Shasta Division and worked out of Dunsmuir, I brought those rights with me, along with my years of service for vacation time. I started at the bottom of the engineers seniority list.  Many a time I would be called around other engineers for passenger and there were no claims.



Nudge