Western Railroad Discussion > Q about dogcatch crews

As a non-rail, I have some questions for you rails out there about the assigning of dog-catch crews. When a relief crew has brought in a train whose crew reached their 12-hr limit does the relief crew remain on duty for a certain number of hours to serve as relief crew for any additional trains? Or can a relief crew which has brought in one train be assigned to an outbound train if they have enough hours remaining to reach the away terminal? Finally, are relief crews called from the regular roster of crews or are they called from an extra board? TIA for your answers!

All of this depends on the collective bargaining agreement in place in that terminal.

I was talking to a SP engineer years ago.
He was getting on his train just south of the Orcutt Road crossing, in San Luis Obispo, and taking it up to the station, getting paid a full day for the 2 miles he was taking the train and then another days wage to take the train to Watsonville Junction. But that was 20 yrars ago.......

>As a non-rail, I have some questions for you rails out there about the assigning of dog-catch crews. When a relief crew has brought in a train whose crew reached their 12-hr limit does the relief crew remain on duty for a certain number of hours to serve as relief crew for any additional trains?

Generally speaking, no, but as others have said, it depends on the union agreement: national->system->local->vest pocket agreements (in that order), which can get quite complex. Don't know exactly what the changes since 1985 have done to this, the principle of "home terminal" and how crews are run out of it (and not through it) are still generally applicable.

>Or can a relief crew which has brought in one train be assigned to an outbound train if they have enough hours remaining to reach the away terminal?

Not unless there are no regular pool nor extraboard crews rested.

>Finally, are relief crews called from the regular roster of crews or are they called from an extra board?

{Regular] pool crew, extra crew, then anybody they can get ahold of, in that order.

On my major western RR, they call dog catch crews off the extra board for one or more dog catches and will generally know in advance if they need to hold the crew over to relieve additional train crews.
They have used away-from-home-terminal crews to dog catch. However, that is a claim for first out extra board people who should have been called, if available.
Larger metro areas use K Train crews to shuttle/relieve trains. They are generally high paying jobs that may handle several trains or perhaps just a single train in their tour of duty. Hope this helps!

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The SP had a "Short turnaround freight service' agreement where they could send you out on several trips if it wasn't over 25 miles one way.

xsphogger Wrote:
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> The SP had a "Short turnaround freight service'
> agreement where they could send you out on several
> trips if it wasn't over 25 miles one way.


And once one of the trips was over the 25 miles, every trip after that was total miles.


V

SLOCONDR

Then there is the other side of this. My current CBA allows yard jobs to work up to 50 miles on either side of the terminal. We are often used to dogcatch trains coming into the terminal. There are some shifts when that's all I have done. One after the other. Total PITA and I only get yard rate. 51+ miles out and I get an extra day's pay but those are rare.