Western Railroad Discussion > What's up Stevens Pass, WA (BNSF)?

BNSF is parking trains, V train Gold Bar, oil mtys Skykomish, stack train at Scenic.

On the east side we have a Q train and a stack westbound working with each other to cut crossings.

The DS is filling Wenatchee yard with trains now.

So does anyone know what the deal is?

Thanks.

Well, No. 8 is out and running. Must not be any mud slides?
Dave

The oil empty was parked at West Monroe at 12:15 PM this afternoon.

I overnighted in Ephrata, WA and was awakened by 3 trains so BNSF was running something though I could not tell direction.

Given #8 ran perhaps it was not a blocked row issue but congestion in the terminals in Seattle, Wenatchee and Hauser. MRL is still holding WB trains for BNSF, some of the grainers have been parked 5 days and will likely get held again for a day or two west of Paradise.

From what I've heard, everything is still in a massive meltdown on the BNSF in the Pacific Northwest.  Trains are still parked all over the place and crews are rarely succeeding making it to the opposite end of their runs before dying.

Friend told me that BNSF ousted the upper division management in Montana last week.  Northwest managers are now running scared.

Still more detours onto the CN between Seattle and Noyes MN are planned for tonight, 2 each way.

Posted from Android

Darren Boes
Lethbridge, AB
Southern Alberta Railfan

Why get rid of MT management when most of the problem is at Hauser out of Montana management's reach?

I followed an mty oil train out of Wenatchee and was holding east of Marlin for a rail detector which might result in a dog catch even with 2 hours left to work.

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why get rid of MT management when most of the
> problem is at Hauser out of Montana management's
> reach?
>
"The beatings will continue until morale improves!"

mapboy

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why get rid of MT management when most of the
> problem is at Hauser out of Montana management's
> reach?

Maybe something to do with the handling of the avalanches on Marias Pass?

TAW

More like escape goats.  Railroad philosophy is to just blame someone instead of finding answers and fixing things.  Even though weather has impacted operations a lot, I've been told that the extremely low moral because of what the BNSF has done recently to their employees (like the grand/super pools), operating employees are just doing what they are told - and that's it, then sit back and watch the "barn burn".

Speaking of dog catching trains, someone told me today that it took six, count them, six dog catch crews to get one loaded oil train from Hauser Yard to Pasco yesterday!!!  The first two crews called for the train didn't even leave the fuel dock at Hauser, the third made it to Yardley, the fourth to Babb...

As I remember the time of the avalanches this year, the railroad was closed, the highways to move equipment was closed for days, 50" of fresh snow got dumped upon the snow which was already in avalanche mode and there were 40-50 mph winds from Browning to Bad Rock Canyon. Perhaps any management team would have been overwhelmed this time.

Another big dump is coming to western Montana tonight so we will see how the new team deals with 12"-18" of fresh snow along the Hi Line in the mountains.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/17 23:13 by fbe.

spwolfmtn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> More like escape goats.  Railroad philosophy is
> to just blame someone instead of finding answers
> and fixing things.  Even though weather has
> impacted operations a lot, I've been told that the
> extremely low moral because of what the BNSF has
> done recently to their employees (like the
> grand/super pools), operating employees are just
> doing what they are told - and that's it, then sit
> back and watch the "barn burn".
>
> Speaking of dog catching trains, someone told me
> today that it took six, count them, six dog catch
> crews to get one loaded oil train from Hauser Yard
> to Pasco yesterday!!!  The first two crews called
> for the train didn't even leave the fuel dock at
> Hauser, the third made it to Yardley, the fourth
> to Babb...

I've heard that the Hauser Xtrabd is working every 12 hrs to cover all the dgogcatching going on. 

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> fbe Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Why get rid of MT management when most of the
> > problem is at Hauser out of Montana
> management's
> > reach?
>
> Maybe something to do with the handling of the
> avalanches on Marias Pass?
>
> TAW

I heard last early Fall at the first "meltdown period" that one of the problems was that Montana Div was not helping with the requested train spacing: they were just feeding trains through their territory as fast as possible. This could have been a contributing factor for senior management to wamt a change...

70ACE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I heard last early Fall at the first "meltdown
> period" that one of the problems was that Montana
> Div was not helping with the requested train
> spacing: they were just feeding trains through
> their territory as fast as possible. This could
> have been a contributing factor for senior
> management to wamt a change...

That sounds familiar: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,4169031,4169031#msg-4169031

TAW

This forced spacing of trains is such a silly idea in execution upper management ought to just give up on it and run trains. For the MRL they want 2 hour spacing between all trains and 4 hour spacing between all heavy trains. First off there are not enough hours in a 24 hour day to run all the trains on the line up with such spacings. Trains are held in Missoula for their spacing time so eastbound and westbound trains are forced to be held outside Missoula waiting for an open track. This requires a second crew and a second van which are resources the railroad is short of. It also means Missoula yard is out of tracks for inspections of trains which will need them.

By the time the following train(s) get to Kootenai there are trains parked account BNSF refused to take them. So now there are 3 or more trains parked which left Missoula with 6 hours between the first and last and are now bumper to bumper. BNSF is pissed at MRL account BNSF stupidity. Kootenai siding holds two trains, if BNSF moves the first train they must also move the second or MRL will lose the siding and there are more westbound trains coming out of Missoula that BNSF is going to refuse at Kootenai.

Flat out, BNSF management doesn't have a clue about what is really going on out in the field and how their directives are ineffective in the real world.

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Flat out, BNSF management doesn't have a clue
> about what is really going on out in the field and
> how their directives are ineffective in the real
> world.

The only thing that has changed is that it has become worse:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,3771414,3771414#msg-3771414
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,3772054,3772054#msg-3772054


Excerpt from a response I wrote in a thread last year:
It isn't just Amtrak and the handling of Amtrak. Like I said, that is only a symptom. It shows in freight operation, but there is no experience with what could be or should be, so it is accepted as normal. Some time ago, I did a job for Port of Tacoma. That involved spending a day at the BNSF yard office to see what happens outside of the Port's railroad and how it affects the Port's railroad. There was a train of Tacoma traffic out of Seattle. I was looking at lists and asked the trainmaster what they were going to take back. Back? They're going by van. They won't have time to go back. At least they got here. A lot of times they don't have time to get here and we go get them at Auburn. I'll call another crew to use that power to take a train to Seattle.

12 hours Seattle to Tacoma and another crew to go back. It's 44 miles! "Back in the day" the Seattle East dispatcher would have stuck out a two hour call to Interbay as the train went by Baring. The relief crew would be at the White House (north end yard office) at Interbay when the train showed up. They would make a main line change and show up in Tacoma in about 1h20m. They would get a train in Tacoma and be back at Interbay and tied up in 8 hours or less. That's right, what takes two crews now was a quit job ("back in the day")!

Several years ago, I tried to arrange for a bus bridge between Tacoma and Centralia for the Cascades trains. BNSF had a big piece of the work that resulted in the current Tacoma configuration that had to be done with the line out of service for something like 16 hours. The engineering department was going along with the idea until I told them that I would need to set it up at least five days in advance in order to get the buses, set up the logistics, and handle the public information. The response was No, we can't tell you five days in advance when we will do this. We never know if or when we are going to work until 0600. We put in our request, get everything ready, then hope we get the track. There's always some hot move we have to wait for or something got screwed up during the night. I was only kind of amazed and asked if this involved 60 or so guys and millions of dollars in equipment standing around every day. He said, it's not a problem. We add time to the work schedules for this kind of thing. The project is still on time.

TAW