Eastern Railroad Discussion > EHH restoring short crew districts on CSX

I have learned that the Richmond (Acca) - Philadelphia (East Side) long pool has been abolished as have the Selkirk-Buffalo pool. Trains are now working at more intermediate points. Is this the case further west?
On an intermodal or auto rack train authorized for 60 MPH that does not work enroute what would this change accomplish other then lengthening the schedule? Wouldn't going back to short crews require more T & E to run the trains (unless some of the crews are able to make a quick turn and return to their home terminal within their hours of service)? Wouldn't adding more crew changes at places like Syracuse (DeWitt) require more clerks to transport crews to/from their trains and get them their paperwork in a timely manner?
Andy

twropr Wrote:
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> I have learned that the Richmond (Acca) -
> Philadelphia (East Side) long pool has been
> abolished as have the Selkirk-Buffalo pool.
> Trains are now working at more intermediate
> points. Is this the case further west?
> On an intermodal or auto rack train authorized for
> 60 MPH that does not work enroute what would this
> change accomplish other then lengthening the
> schedule? Wouldn't going back to short crews
> require more T & E to run the trains (unless some
> of the crews are able to make a quick turn and
> return to their home terminal within their hours
> of service)? Wouldn't adding more crew changes at
> places like Syracuse (DeWitt) require more clerks
> to transport crews to/from their trains and get
> them their paperwork in a timely manner?


In the case of many of the consolidated pools with which I'm familiar, there are so many hours of service relief, dead trains tied up on line somewhere (or many somewheres), and vans wandering around the countryside looking for trains to relieve that, without working out a detailed proof for myself, I would believe a statement that in the big picture the short pools can be more economical. In my experience, the railroad industry often solves simultaneous equations for one of them without checking that value in the others and declares the answer to be correct.

TAW

and from the trainman's point of view: i sure would miss the $$$$$$$$$ of the long pools.......

66

TAW wrote: In my experience, the railroad industry often solves simultaneous equations for one of them without checking that value in the others and declares the answer to be correct.

So totally true !!

.... and the correct answer IS ALWAYS correct too !

I suspect they also may be trying to turn crews back to their home terminals from intermediate points. This reduces hotel expenses.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 10:48 by PittsburghMike.

In another thread one rail suggested the end of long pools could be a prelude to a new guaranteed hours offer.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> In another thread one rail suggested the end of
> long pools could be a prelude to a new guaranteed
> hours offer.
>

This is right in EHH's wheelhouse...at IC he adjusted crew districts and the operating plan to maximize the ability to swap crews enroute.

Two crews, whether it's two crew districts or a long pool and a recrew, is still two crews, so theoretically no effect on staffing levels, BUT you keep one of those crews from making overtime. It's not so much about how much is spent on labor costs, it's trying to gain the ability to predict and budget their labor costs. Even letting the costs creep up a tick is better in the long run if you can average things out and avoid big spikes.

ON PAPER turnaround jobs save $$ on overtime, held-away pay, hotel and van costs while still using just two crews. Of course, when the plan goes in the shitter, not so much saved...

The next step for Elmo is to go for an hourly rate, probably based on a minimum 10-hour basic day, which is what he did at CN's IC and WC properties. Not sure if they ever got that implemented on the GTW.

Not an EHH fan, just trying to provide a wee bit of insight into what he's up to.

NZ

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/17 16:14 by darkcloud.

NebraskaZephyr Wrote:
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>
> This is right in EHH's wheelhouse...at IC he
> adjusted crew districts and the operating plan to
> maximize the ability to swap crews enroute.

When EHH did that successfully at IC, it was done on a railroad much simpler than CSX. IC ran between here and there and had a relativity small number of relatively easily made kind of predictable trains.

Back before EHH, when I was still in Chicago, IC did holiday shutdowns by stopping time. At a set time before, let's say, Christmas, everything stopped exactly where it was at that moment. Crews were transported home. All functions of the railroad were shut down. At the same specified time on the day after the shutdown holiday, the same crews were transported to the same trains and everything continued in a time warp, as if the intervening time didn't happen. Again, that's easy to do on a relatively simple between here and there railroad.

TAW

I'm not sure what is happening to the Acca - Philly long pool. They talked about changing in Balto, then last weekend the Disp. told some crews to go thru. Q31 & Q32 usually make it with their regular crews even when they work Balto. but Sunday's Q32 tries to get to Philly in time for the last AMTK to Richmond because there is no Q31 on Mondays. combined Q140/141 juice and container trains usually can make it too. They are only 5 days per week. For a while Q409/410 freights were in the long pool too but often did not make it when trains were huge. I was listening to the Balto feed but it went offline last weekend so went back to the Wilmington feed on Wednesday and found the host had done something and restored CSX channel eight with the detectors and signal calls.

The division I worked on had both long and short pools during my tenure. I liked both. The issue I had with short pools were where an inbound crew would offer to take a ready to go train back to their home terminal. To me, that screwed the first out crew at the hotel. Granted, that first out crew wasn't rested, sometimes by less than an hour. That crew was planning their rest to get that train the inbound crew flipped on. I get sometimes they were ordered to but to volunteer never seemed right to me.

RS11 Wrote:
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> The division I worked on had both long and short
> pools during my tenure. I liked both. The issue
> I had with short pools were where an inbound crew
> would offer to take a ready to go train back to
> their home terminal. To me, that screwed the
> first out crew at the hotel. Granted, that first
> out crew wasn't rested, sometimes by less than an
> hour. That crew was planning their rest to get
> that train the inbound crew flipped on. I get
> sometimes they were ordered to but to volunteer
> never seemed right to me.

I managed several such pools back when the Chief Dispatcher ran the railroad. Turning a crew depended upon when the train, the power, the cars, or even the crew (I have had instances in which I needed another crew at home because we were so short). If the train wasn't needed for those reasons, there was a place for it at the crew change point, and there was a crew due rested in a, for the situation, reasonable amount of time, the train would hold.

Crews volunteering made no difference. The plan was the plan for a reason. We also generally ignored personalities unless someone had been super egregiously obnoxious
(Yeah, guys gripe, sometimes needlessly...or often needlessly, and sometimes for what appears to be good cause but it's just the way it has to be. We understood that. However, there is a breaking point of going way too far with obnoxious behavior),
in which case the railroad ran as the railroad needed until an opportunity to deliver a message presented itself. Some time, I'll need to tell about a horribly obnoxious jerk of a hoghead who finally went way over the line. Without screwing up the railroad, the 3d trick chief and I managed to run around him with the entire pool 1 1/2 times in one trip (23 if I remember correctly). The conductor should have shut him up.

TAW

So you screwed the conductor just to get even with someone else? Collateral damage? I hope that conductor didn't miss his sons first home run or his daughters dance recital. If I was that conductor and had that happen,you'd have another "obnoxious" employee on your hands. Then I guess you'd screw over an innocent engineer to get even,and the dominos continue to fall. Now we see why railroaders complain about management so much. But I guess it's just human nature.

Tom

towazy Wrote:
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> So you screwed the conductor just to get even with
> someone else? Collateral damage? I hope that
> conductor didn't miss his sons first home run or
> his daughters dance recital. If I was that
> conductor and had that happen,you'd have another
> "obnoxious" employee on your hands. Then I guess
> you'd screw over an innocent engineer to get
> even,and the dominos continue to fall. Now we see
> why railroaders complain about management so
> much. But I guess it's just human nature.
>

The conductor is in charge of the train. The engineer works for the conductor. He had ample time to fix the situation before it went nuclear (I needed an engine from one place moved to another immediately because of a derailment. Not only did the engineer get really nasty on the radio, they blew by the pickup). The conductor could have fixed that. He didn't. Had either of both of them merely griped a bit, it would have been acceptable and nothing would come of it. Blowing on by the engine I needed, after a verbal tirade, was Totally Unacceptable. On the other hand, you aren't looking at the guys I fixed things for, which was a vastly larger number.

TAW

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/17 16:16 by darkcloud.

towazy Wrote:
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> I hope that
> conductor didn't miss his sons first home run or
> his daughters dance recital.

...on the other hand, when Garrett (IN) made it to the state high school basketball championships, I arranged for the operator at Garrett to have the radio on in the telegraph office (against the rules, in case you haven't looked) and send me the scores as the game progressed. The B&O (Garrett) crews would have the latest handed on to them at Wellsboro, Pine, 79th, and Brighton Park and get it from me at Robey (Chicago) when they went on duty or the trick man when they called to leave Barr.

Yup, first class jerk.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> towazy Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > So you screwed the conductor just to get even
> with
> > someone else? Collateral damage? I hope that
> > conductor didn't miss his sons first home run
> or
> > his daughters dance recital. If I was that
> > conductor and had that happen,you'd have
> another
> > "obnoxious" employee on your hands. Then I
> guess


> > you'd screw over an innocent engineer to get
> > even,and the dominos continue to fall. Now we
> see
> > why railroaders complain about management so
> > much. But I guess it's just human nature.
> >
>
> The conductor is in charge of the train. The
> engineer works for the conductor. He had ample
> time to fix the situation before it went nuclear
> (I needed an engine from one place moved to
> another immediately because of a derailment. Not
> only did the engineer get really nasty on the
> radio, they blew by the pickup). The conductor
> could have fixed that. He didn't. Had either of
> both of them merely griped a bit, it would have
> been acceptable and nothing would come of it.
> Blowing on by the engine I needed, after a verbal
> tirade, was Totally Unacceptable. On the other
> hand, you aren't looking at the guys I fixed
> things for, which was a vastly larger number.
>
> TAW

If BOTH employees were "obnoxious", or even worse,insubordinate,then by all means I have no quibble with you taking the bull by the horns. If you had stated that in your original post,I would not have said a word. If they acted in unison,fine,but you can't expect one man,in this case the conductor,to force another employee,to act or behave in a way you like,even if the "rules" say he is in charge. What can he do to force the engineer to comply other than dumping the air,and that could open up a whole new set of circumstances! "The engineer didn't want to make the pick-up,so I dumped the train causing 27 cars to derail" ...how far would that statement take him in the ensuing investigation? Maybe the engineer was twice his size and as you already stated,not an even tempered individual to begin with. To screw over the crew as a whole if your beef was with just one is what I found irresponsible... other ways to handle it. Maybe deadhead the conductor home with pay,THEN do what you did.

towazy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


>
> If BOTH employees were "obnoxious", or even
> worse,insubordinate,then by all means I have no
> quibble with you taking the bull by the horns. If
> you had stated that in your original post,I would
> not have said a word. If they acted in
> unison,fine,but you can't expect one man,in this
> case the conductor,to force another employee,to
> act or behave in a way you like,even if the
> "rules" say he is in charge. What can he do to
> force the engineer to comply other than dumping
> the air,and that could open up a whole new set of
> circumstances! "The engineer didn't want to make
> the pick-up,so I dumped the train causing 27 cars
> to derail" ...how far would that statement take
> him in the ensuing investigation? Maybe the
> engineer was twice his size and as you already
> stated,not an even tempered individual to begin
> with. To screw over the crew as a whole if your
> beef was with just one is what I found
> irresponsible... other ways to handle it. Maybe
> deadhead the conductor home with pay,THEN do what
> you did.

There's no need to dump the air. Many times, I have had a conductor tell an obnoxious head man or engineer you don't want to be doing/saying that. I had a conductor call me from a phone at a gas station near the caboose to tell me that the culprit would not be allowed on the radio for the rest of the trip. That's all that is needed. If the engineer is insubordinate to both of us, there are other ways. Twice his size? That's irrelevant. There will be no settling with a fist fight, even off the property off duty unless it results in no injury involved so nobody knows and therefore didn't happen.

Just the engineer? Yeah, I one time fixed up a mountain grade local with back to back long nose forward 6 schedule brake and no dynamic brake GP7s for a week. He got the message. Nobody has the right to harass others, even if they are the train dispatcher or the chief. That guy on the local didn't break any rules...and I didn't either.

On the other hand: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1295858,1295858#msg-1295858

TAW

towazy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So you screwed the conductor just to get even with
> someone else? Collateral damage? I hope that
> conductor didn't miss his sons first home run or
> his daughters dance recital. If I was that
> conductor and had that happen,you'd have another
> "obnoxious" employee on your hands. Then I guess
> you'd screw over an innocent engineer to get
> even,and the dominos continue to fall. Now we see
> why railroaders complain about management so
> much. But I guess it's just human nature.
>
> Tom


Back in the day the logic behind this was to create peer
pressure against the miscreant. No need to get the suits
involved. If you got the suits involved people would get
time off. Much better to get run around than to lose some
paychecks.