Western Railroad Discussion > Oakland: Occupy Wall Street and the railroad?

The news last night showed hundreds of people at the Port of Oakland. Swarming over trucks, and on a bridge above a wide and empty railroad yard.

Setting aside the politics, I'm guessing this has stopped rail service in an out of the port. What does that do for crews assigned to bring trains in or out? Are the crews paid if the train isn't started? Do switch crews in the port report for work?

Thanks for any non-political comments.

Will container ships switch to LA LB?
Can bnsf handle addtl containers?

The local news is reporting that Union drivers are siding with the protesters while the Contract drivers (that get paid on delivery for example) are very upset and verbally assaulting the protesters, to the point of making hand gestures. One or two trucks have gently pushed through the portable fencing but are generally staying away. Messy stuff.

The Port activity had slowed somewhat due to the reports of the contaminated refrigerant problem, posted on an earlier thread.

One of the stories is focusing on a Mercedes that was surrounded at a stop light, people banging on the hood and shouting at the driver. The driver hit the gas and one of the protesters, then backed up and hit another protester. Then was surrounded but remained in the car until police showed up. There seems to be two elements to the protesters, a smaller rowdy crowd and others who are putting out fires, putting up yellow tape, cleaning up graffiti, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/11 09:37 by TCnR.

And then there's this...

http://www.altamontpress.com/discussion/read.php?1,65271,65271#msg-65271

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> The news last night showed hundreds of people at
> the Port of Oakland. Swarming over trucks, and on
> a bridge above a wide and empty railroad yard.
>
> Setting aside the politics, I'm guessing this has
> stopped rail service in an out of the port. What
> does that do for crews assigned to bring trains in
> or out? Are the crews paid if the train isn't
> started? Do switch crews in the port report for
> work?
>
> Thanks for any non-political comments.

This is quite an unusual situation. Usually when there is a labor strike (such as the Longshoremen walking out) the railroad union crews will run the train to the entrance to the property and then a management crew will get on and spot the train but this is a "general strike" by no one entity. I'm not familiar with the crew bases out of Oakland but if it's their away from home terminal they may keep the crews there until this situation dissipates or if the crews have been there too long they may deadhead them home and deadhead in fresh crews when things get back to normal.
I would think that local switching crews would just stop what they're doing to avoid a confrontation or injury to the protesters by moving equipment.
As to the pay issue that would come under their local agreements wheather they get paid if they work or not.-BMT

Its hard for the police to do much about it when the mayor can't make up her mind, so the Oakland Police were virtually invisible all day long. Much of the early protest downtown was very peaceful, just mainly disruptive to the downtown banks that chose to stay open. The Block Bloc protesters did not show up until later in the day (the ones usually wearing black with something covering their faces).

It was certainly no secret that the protest was going to extend to the port and the Bay Bridge later in the evening. A couple of Alameda County Sheriff's deputies that were on-duty at the port reportedly took some rocks and bottles early on, so they backed off. From the news helicopters, I could pick out at least one BNSF Police vehicle parked at the west end of the BNSF ramp, fairly close to the epicenter of the protest. Probably the only law enforcement in close proximity. Undoubtedly, UP and Amtrak Police were also nearby, but even with all of them together, would not have been remotely effective on such a large crowd. Probably one of the only times the public had free run of part of the UP yard.

A group did continue on past the port up to the freeway on-ramps near the Bay Bridge, where a large contingency of CHP officers were waiting. The rest of the city was pretty much wide open for most of the day. Even, when the protesters were hit by a car in the evening downtown, BART Police handled the greatest portion of the incident, so that OPD did not have to show an obvious presence at the scene. I guess by midnight, the mayor changed her mind and let OPD and other agencies move in to handle the worst of the trouble makers.

The last of the die-hard protesters did not give up at the port gate until about 0900 this morning. Port related train traffic has obviously been delayed. I am not sure if Amtrak stopped running trains through the area last night, to/from Jack London. Hopefully, most things will return to normal in the city today.

A lot of the protesters, who were just out for the day, did start heading home, peacefully, once it got dark, leaving mostly just the die-hard Occupy group and the Black Bloc'ers.

I guess I won't be seing an eastbound BNSF bare-table train this morning. One usually heads east about now. From the TV news, you could see one loaded stack train and two strings of baretable cars in the Oakland BNSF Port facility last night. I suspect that train traffic will be delayed off of a normal schedule, as well as any westbound stack loads, until the port clears up.

Gary



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/11 11:53 by SN711.

SN711 Wrote:
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(snip)
> I guess I won't be seing an eastbound BNSF
> bare-table train this morning. One usually heads
> east about now. From the TV news, you could see
> one loaded stack train and two strings of
> baretable cars in the Oakland BNSF Port facility
> last night. I suspect that train traffic will be
> delayed off of a normal schedule, as well as any
> westbound stack loads, until the port clears up.
>
> Gary

Thanks for the detailed update. It looked like the protesters had pretty much shut the place down from the brief TV pictures.

The 'Banks' did respond to the early topic of the monthly fee for using a debit card. This seemed to encourage the 'movement' which morphed into symbolizing 99% of the population. Which seemed to be somehow related to the Presidential Candidates plan of '9-9-9'. But yes that would be getting way to political.

TV Ch2 reported the Port of Oakland was operating at 11:00 this morning. Video showed the protestors stacking their portable fence sections and moving on.