Passenger Trains > Waiting For A Freight Train

With its conductor on the ground to do a roll by inspection and the crew in the cab illuminated by an approaching freight train's headlight, Amtrak 11 holds the main at Seacliff last night.

---

Two-man engine crew? I thought AMTK ran with just one. Or is that only on their tracks (i.e., NEC)?

Great catch. I think the one man crew is up to so many miles or hours????

Usually they will dim their lights but guess that the freight is close enough and
lighting is from the dimmed lights?

Bob Jordan

CPR_4000 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Two-man engine crew? I thought AMTK ran with just
> one. Or is that only on their tracks (i.e., NEC)?

Could be a student engineer or engineer re-qualifying, qualifying, Road Foreman doing a check ride on the territory. SLO to LAX falls under the less than 6 hour rule and should be engineer only.

How did you catch a moving train in such low light without a biur?

Marty Bernard

Thanks for another great photo essay from the Central Coast.

MartyBernard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How did you catch a moving train in such low light
> without a biur?
>
> Marty Bernard

Train was stopped.

Looks like you got a friendly wave from the guy in the cab.

That's too bad. The freight train is supposed to wait for the passenger train.

John Webb
Trinidad, CA

Unless the agreement has changed, Engine crew can be one person on runs less than 4 hours. Can another ATK Engineer confirm?

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, OR

The decision to put Amtrak in the siding may have been the Dispatcher's, or maybe, like one very good Engineer I worked with, this hoghead called the Dispatcher and offered to be put in the hole. Maybe they both, correctly, felt the meet went faster--many times--if the freight kept moving.

On Mondays and Thursdays the Guadalupe hauler often meets the Starlight here at Seacliff. Usually, the hauler is tucked in the siding by the time 11 gets there.

The fly in the ointment yesterday was an approximately 75-minute late Surfliner, so the hauler met the Surfliner at Ventura, then advanced to Seacliff for the meet with 11.

I suppose the DS could have made the hauler wait at Ventura for 11, but he didn't.

The Starlight was stopped on the main for maybe a minute before the hauler arrived and took the siding. So it wasn't much of a delay.

As for the number of people in the cab, on many days it's just the engineer. The second person is for a specific reason -- deadheading, qualifying, student/teacher or whatever reason.

The DS told the hauler when they left Oxnard he would be meeting the Surfliner at Ventura and 11 at Seacliff, so I had a clue what was going to happen and where to set up.

Posted from iPhone

Winnemucca Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's too bad. The freight train is supposed to
> wait for the passenger train.

Yeah, but situations can dictate otherwise, and besides if it was a quick wait, no harm no foul in my opinion!