Railroaders' Nostalgia > Did you get out on your Rest??

Now thats a loaded statement if I ever heard. one. Six and a half hours off and then a one and a half hour "call"? Happened every day. And it slowly killed you.
Now let's subtract the drive home, the few errands you always have to do and then what is left? Not much. Talk about torture by exhaustion, the RR's were famous for this.
And lets don't forget the many times the Pool was short because everybody was away collecting HAHT and when you arrived at your home terminal you were First Out
and lucky if your got more than Five hours sleep.
Well the union Agreements did help somewhat especially the 8, 10, 12 numbers over your name but that took many, many years to attain.
Some guys were hung-ho on turning on eight, I wasn't. Money ain't everything!
Oh yeah and then there were the people that just loved to tie-up in 15 hours and 59 minutes. After a few days of that it could turn you into a Zombie.
Rails shouldn't have to work more than 10 hours period.
Anyway I've got Boating to do!
Remember those days when the Crew Dispatcher would say, " Sorry I can't let you off" the board is short!

My Dad was a conductor on the C&NW in Iowa,he hired out in train service about 1978. Still by the early 1990's he was barley holding onto the boards in our hometown and would have to commute to another terminal an hours drive away.

He worked quite a few yard jobs getting out on his rest everytime. When me and my sisters would be getting ready for school or coming home from school he would be doing the same for work,either working an AM switch engine or working the Midnight switch engine.

Quite a few times he was beyond exhaustion and fell asleep behind the wheel of his truck as soon as he parked it at home. But thats what he had to do to keep working and what his senority at the time would allow.
JC

Posted from Android

Regular 8 hrs rest and a 2 hr.call helped make me look 15 years older than I am. Used to look forward to a call off the Board covering a road job so I could go to the hotel and sleep. Slept about 15 hours once, and the guys checked on me to make sure I wasn’t dead.

Slept about 18 hrs last spring at home, 4 PM to about 10 AM. Went about 72 hrs with around 8-10 hours sleep.

As the Carrier’s say “ Get the right rest”

A pox upon them.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

Remember those days when the Crew Dispatcher would say, " Sorry I can't let you off" the board is short!

They have tried that here in the past few years. We figured out if you said mark me off sick and hang up before they could say anything. They had to mark you off. 

Mark me off sick is the only way guaranteed to get you marked off...but we had a caller long ago retired, who would ask "what are you sick off"....I always said..."worK"....he said "good enough for me, you are off"

And oh...yes...took many a six hour nap just to go right back to work.....loving the 10 hour scheme we have now!

Working the xtra board and working every other 8 hours for 5 or 6 days, you get to be a zombie. A previous poster said he was glad to catch a road job so he could get rest, I know that feeling too. Get to the other end of the road and sleep 10-12 hours, wake up maybe eat something, go back to bed and sleep till called. Also when you make the blood money doubles on the 3'rd shift yard jobs you would always have the poorest excuse for a crew in the terminal. If you had a good crew somebody could run and you get a nap, but you would always have a crew that seemed like they were making their second day. I don't miss that at all. But get your rest the rr always said.

Sam

Very little (if anything) better than working on your rest going from the road to the yard, or vice versa....and doing so for straight time. No time and a half for short rest on a road job. And no time and a half going from the road back into the yard. Change in the class of service.

I made a fair amount of money on engineer's boards that covered both classes of service. So I guess you take the bitter with the sweet.

Started week on the brakeman/conductor yard extra list...$27.08 per day brakeman rate
Monday 7am yard job straight time
Monday 11PM yard job (time and half)
Tuesday 3pm yard job straight time
Wednesday 7am yard job (time and half)
Wednesday 11pm yard job straight time
Made your 40hr week
Then anything for remainder of week was all time and half...Thursday/11pm-Friday/3pm-Saturday/7am and 11pm-Sunday 3pm

Good thing all the yard jobs got an early quit! Some were only 4 hour jobs!

Got a few calls for road jobs...yard rate plus continuous time back to home terminal...mostly in the summer.

I was young then!
Now retired.

rr caboose



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/24 05:55 by rrcaboose.

In the early through mid-70's, I was firing passenger trains.  The passenger runs were 7 days a week.  Did I get out on my rest?  Some passenger runs were set up to turn back on continuous time,  Some turned back on 4-hour interim rest.  You rested however you could in those short turns - leaned back in a depot office chair, head down on the crew room table, layed out on a depot bench, or maybe in warm weather, layed up on a baggage float outside under the sheds.  Sometimes I'd double right back out of the home terminal on continuous time because we were short on passenger men.  The thing about it was - I loved it because :
1.  I was making more money than I could have imagined.
2.  I was a 19-23 year old railfan living my passenger dream job.
3.  I was still on my old E and F-units where speed limits were still mostly a suggestion.
4.  I was with two old railroads (SCL and SOU) that back then still cared and had some pride.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/24 00:57 by Notch7.

The one I loved/hated was the 4 hour release. You work from Emporia down to Ark City during the night, get there about sun up, more than ready to get off and go to bed for a while. When you tie up, the crew clerk says "sleep fast, were gonna use you right back on a 4 hr release". Well shi**. Since the phone will ring in just 2-1/2 hours, I guess I'll just stay up, but I'll go eat breakfast and drink some coffee first. So you eat and go to the hotel, lay down for an hour, almost no sleep, and you keep looking at your watch to see when to expect your 1'30" call. Pretty soon, the 2-1/2 hours go by, and no call yet. You're full of breakfast and coffee, ready to go, so you call to see if they forgot you. Crew cleark, Says "Well, your train fell down, and the crew ahead of you finally got rested so we're gonna use them. Your first out now, but nothing's coming until tonight, so you'll get your rest and then some". So you go back to bed, toss and turn for hours because you're pissed. Just when you finally settle down and get to sleep, the phone rings, and you get called for an all nighter back to Emporia. The 4Hr release could be a double edged swork. If you had a real good trip down, you could tie up with enough time to make it back home to Emporia. Sometimes you were fiirst out when you got to the away terminal, sometimes you had a crew or two ahead of you in bed, that didn't have enough time to make it back, and had to get a full eight hours off. So a train is figured in and those crews wouldn't be rested in time for it, so they use you back with 4 hours off, running around those crews. 

How many times have you been first out on the extra board or in pool freight. You wake up in the morning and you're first out. The day goes by and you want a daylight trip and not a night skull grinder ? The next day all the freights run in the daytime much to your chagrin.
You take a nap and then its dinner time. The phone rings at 6 pm for 8 pm on duty. Seems like all the freights run at night. The brutal part of the 16 hour law was 7 pm on duty and you were good until 11am the next day.

Posted from Android

SanJoaquinEngr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How many times have you been first out on the
> extra board or in pool freight. You wake up in the
> morning and you're first out. The day goes by and
> you want a daylight trip and not a night skull
> grinder ? The next day all the freights run in the
> daytime much to your chagrin.
> You take a nap and then its dinner time. The
> phone rings at 6 pm for 8 pm on duty. Seems like
> all the freights run at night. The brutal part of
> the 16 hour law was 7 pm on duty and you were good
> until 11am the next day.
>
> Posted from Android

Yeah. "Get your rest" can turn into "get a nap", then be awake for 8-10 hours for midnights. On not enough sleep. Again.  :-)

Or, you've been asleep for about an hour...And train XYZ falls out of the sky, and guess who's first out?

At least I missed (if you want to call it that) the 16 hour law.

One thing that STILL sticks in my craw after all these years was working the switchman's extra board. Double out=time and a half, triple out=straight time 
(couldn't claim it twice), quadruple out=double time...etc. We'd do that for days (afternoons and nights) until your sixth and seventh days because you 
could claim time and a half account rest days. Doubling every eight hours for days and then out there at 0300 getting a basic day, I could never stop 
thinking 'this is Bu!! $hi!!!'.  Ah, good times.  

Skinem, I always called that double back on straight time "Blood Money". After 2 or 3 of them in a row that's what it felt like.

Sam

12 & tow to AFHT. 30+ hrs. at the flop house (16 hrs-8 HAHT-16 hrs-8 HAHT… yeah great agreement) 12 & tow home. Ty-up and book 12 (11-4 agreement takes that away from us, 10 only unless you die) and called on your rest at home. Ad infinitum…

Wonder how many of the a$$holes in the Christal Palace’s ever worked 30+ years like this?

Oh yeah, they are our “bettors” and we are the Mud People so it’s all good. Don’t you lazy, shiftless knuckle draggers dare mark off, your ass is ours.

Can’t wait for my last day. I won’t go quietly.

Regards

Posted from iPhone