Western Railroad Discussion > What if you time out in the middle of nowhere?

When you hit your 12 hours and you're in an area inaccessible to a vehicle how do you get to your rest?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/13 13:07 by RailDawg.

I would highly doubt there is anywhere completely innaccesible. The regulations are very firm in this regard...if you time out, you stop and wait for relief...period.

Just for comparison, aviation duty and flight time requirements do not allow you to leave a station if you will time out in the middle of a flight...period.

a737flyer is correct. The hours of service law is currently 12 hours. So you need to be to a place where you can be reached with a dog catch crew to swap out and get you back to your home terminal before the 12 hours is up (theoretically). Sometimes the crews run over the hours deadheading back to their home terminal and so they continue on overtime until tied up. Twelve hours on duty requires a minimum of 10 hours rest before the next trip.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

RailDawg Wrote:
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> When you hit your 8 hours and you're in an area
> inaccessible to a vehicle how do you get to your
> rest?


You would keep going, as the hours of service is 12 hours, but I think you knew that. A dispatcher will not normally let this happen. If he sees you are falling down, he will more than likely hold you in a siding prior to you expiring on the HOS, and you'll wait there for a patch crew. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but all in all it won't normally happen that you'd be left in a place that is inaccessible.


V

SLOCONDR

The last time I went DOL I was in a totally inaccessible location by road. The relief crew came in on a single light unit as they needed it for the tonnage of the train we had built with our two units. But since they were taking the train in the opposite direction of where we were headed, we were hi-railed out by a section foreman to the nearest highway access where we met the crew van. It was quite a relaxing trip home!

SLOCONDR Wrote:
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> You would keep going, as the hours of service is
> 12 hours, but I think you knew that.


Fixed my mistake! Thanks. For us in aviation it's 8 hours domestically and 12 for our friends at the railroads. Lots of similarities between the two jobs...

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> The last time I went DOL I was in a totally
> inaccessible location by road. The relief crew
> came in on a single light unit as they needed it
> for the tonnage of the train we had built with our
> two units. But since they were taking the train in
> the opposite direction of where we were headed, we
> were hi-railed out by a section foreman to the
> nearest highway access where we met the crew van.
> It was quite a relaxing trip home!


Gad, that sounds like what would happen on the former BC Rail. Is that so??? Doug

It can happen when the Dispatchers plans backfire. I've gone 16 hours on duty even after telling the DS we couldn't make it.

Fortunately, I worked in a part of the contry where they could usually get you off the train before you went dead. The crews could tell how the trip was going, and most would constantly update the Dispatcher with hours of service remindes. A lot of the time, they would have a better train which was overtaking us pull along side, and we would swap crews if they thought the short time crew could make it in on the other train. Sometimes they would have have a relief crew on duty and taxied out to a point were they could get on and finish the trip, and we could finish the trip on the highway. Cassoday, KS was a good place, because it's just an hour east of Newton, where they maintain an extra board just for that.

In the early 1970's when the Espee still had their Redlands Branch, I remember one occasion when the train was parked between two crossings when the crew timed out. They tied her down and were picked up, but returned the next day to finish the run back into Colton.

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

RailDawg Wrote:
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> When you hit your 12 hours and you're in an area
> inaccessible to a vehicle how do you get to your
> rest?

Long ago, I relieved a guy who wasn't the most popular among the T&E crews and the Gandys. I guess that's a good way to put it. Before I came to work, he put a helper into a East man at Essex MT. They didn't have time to make Summit. Actually, it would have been tight, but they made it a point of not having time to make Summit, and he didn't notice.

They were starting through Java (crossing Highway 2 in the link below) when I took the transfer. What was about to happen was obvious to me. I made it obvious to the guy I relieved. He left the room, expounding his opinion of conductors and engineers. A van from Whitefish was already on the way with a fresh helper crew. There wasn't anything to do except sit back and watch the story unfold.

At 1130p, right on cue, a whiny voice on the radio announced that they helper was dead, followed by that famous whiny phrase, "Whatcha gonna do NOW dispatcher?"
I'm sure at least some of them were celebrating the gotcha they engineered.


They were in about the same place as the train shown here:
http://goo.gl/maps/kSrQ1
but a little further up the hill. The caboose was just west of Highway 2. The helper was around the east end of the curve east of Highway 2.

Time to answer - there's a helper crew out of Whitefish, will be up to Java in about 20 minutes.

"Yeah, right. And how are they going to get to the helper?"

Same way your helper crew is getting to the van to go back to Whitefish: walk.

Now a voice from the middle of the train: "You can't make us do that!"

I reply - next west is just out of Havre (around 5 hours away). You don't have a lot of options...and after the crew from Whitefish walks up to the helper, you can discuss with them the wisdom of what you guys managed to do. I'm sure that they will be as thrilled with you as I was.

TAW

You guys are SO funny!! The Sparks/Elko guys used to routinely get stuck in
places totally inaccessible by anything but a snowmobile. They'd pass a paved
crossing to keep going down to the last minutes of the 12 and get stuck in a
snowed in siding 46.3 miles East of Central BF and for the next 4 hours the
van driver would be calling asking where the train was! More than once they
got patched by light power out of Sparks run by the MOP and the local chairman
(or whoever was around).

TAW Wrote:
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> I reply - next west is just out of Havre (around 5
> hours away). You don't have a lot of options...and
> after the crew from Whitefish walks up to the
> helper, you can discuss with them the wisdom of
> what you guys managed to do. I'm sure that they
> will be as thrilled with you as I was.
>
> TAW

Haha. It would have been even funnier if they pulled that stunt when they were on the single track at Java and the helpers were on the other side of the bridge from Highway 2.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

About a month ago we got stuck behind a broken rail at Little Valley. The carrier would only allow the van with the dog catch crew to go to Bieber since the back roads are in poor condition this time of year. The dog catch crew had to hop on a power drag that happened to show up and ride up to Little Valley to relieve us. On our way into Bieber coming off the Pitt river bridge the new crew got an air hose. While I sat in the second unit I pondered if I would ever get off that train! Anyway the new conductor fixed the problem and we finally made into Bieber long after we died. We ended up being on duty 17 hours that day. The only thing you can do is sit back and open your pockets.

I was called one morning to dogcatch a grain train about 120 miles West of the home terminal. We vanned out to the spot, waited a few hours for it to show up, boarded and departed. Got stuck behind a broken rail, then crawled up the hill at 6MPH. We had work at one of the stations on-line, 27 car pick up, and the trainmaster had said "It's good to go, there's two handbrakes on the East end" We show up to find 39 cars on the track with the loads spread out all over with empties! A few phone calls and a hour later we were instructed to pull the largest cut of loads we could find and let the yard sort it all out later. We ended up taking 17 loads, and went back onto the train. It was -35*F outside, and I had a brand new brakeman, so it was going to be rough. We air tested them, and departed, now with 77 loads of grain behind a CSX GE, Ferromex GE and a CSX GE. The two CSX's had no heaters and the Ferromex was a do not occupy. Man, was it cold. With two hours left to work, DS decided to stick us in for Amtrak and told us to expect to tie it down in a siding about 55 miles from home, and to "ride a Z into town". We met Amtrak and started rolling East, when DS called and issued us a verbal form A speed restriction, while I was copying it, my engineer yells "OH $HIT!" and plugs it, I look up to see a pickup nose diving it into the ditch - we narrowly escaped without hitting him. We came to a stop, told DS we were in emergency, and we're trying to get our air back. Being -35 outside, air wasn't coming up quick, so the brakeman went walking. She found a triple valve 9 deep, but it didn't solve the issue and now we were short on time. We called her back to the headend to warm up, and ended up dying on the single track mainline.

It had started to snow earlier in the day, and with a stiff breeze, it's now a full out blizzard. The van company yanked the crew haulers off the roads. Three hours later, roadswitch crew drove their personal vehicle out to get on the train, finish walking it, and found out we were in two pieces. They put the train together, and took us into the siding where they tied it down. Uh oh, now they don't have a ride either! We were 18 hours on duty by now, and traffic was moving. A lowly grain empty came up behind, picked us up, and took us to town. We tied up 22.5 hours on duty!

Unfortunately, since it was a 242 mile round trip, we had to work off those miles before we got overtime - but still managed a mere 6 hours of OT... Longest day I've ever been out here, and it really makes you go to work prepared now, always having a can or two of soup in your grip with snacks and a loaf of bread to be safe!

<<<<<<Unfortunately, since it was a 242 mile round trip, we had to work off those miles before we got overtime - but still managed a mere 6 hours of OT... Longest day I've ever been out here, and it really makes you go to work prepared now, always having a can or two of soup in your grip with snacks and a loaf of bread to be safe!>>>>>>>>>

Holy crap!!!

Great story. I could almost feel that wind. Thanks for sharing your experience.

kodachrome9319 Wrote:
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> Unfortunately, since it was a 242 mile round trip,
> we had to work off those miles before we got
> overtime

Yikes! You need a new CBA there. The carrier must LOVE this!

RailDawg Wrote:
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> Fixed my mistake! Thanks. For us in aviation it's
> 8 hours domestically and 12 for our friends at the
> railroads.

8 hours!!! You civilian flyers have it easy.

In the Air Force it's 16 hours (crew report time to engine shutdown) for a "regular" crew and 24 hours if you have an "augmented" crew (extra pilot).
(Ref: AFI 11-2C-5, Vol 3)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/13 08:29 by PHall.

I was traveling on the westbound California Zephyr a little over a decade ago. Due to a mechanical problem it was delayed a few hours in SLC. Somewhere near Fernley the CZ stopped near a rural crossing for about an hour. I later was informed by the conductor that the crew had timed out and had been awaiting pick up and a new crew to replace them.

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Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

I thought that long ago there was a provision in the rules that if you died on the law at an inaccessable location, you could be authorized to go another, I forget, 30 minutes or hour or so to reach an accessable location, if one existed in that time range.

Am I mis-remembering that provision? Or did it vanish ages ago? Or is it just never used because nobody other than Obama would have the authority to issue the extension?