Passenger Trains > Low Priority On Nat' Train Day

Jus another low priority day at the office

pic 1 Train 712 getting an approach signal comming into Richmond, CA while the ten car Oakland-Ozol/Benicia Local with UP 2915 is getting high greens.

pic 2/3 Train 712 stopped once again at Riverbank, CA waiting for light engines off of a grain train to clear out

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But seven minutes early into Bakersfield according to the Amtrak website...

RV009 Wrote:
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> Jus another low priority day at the office
>
> pic 1 Train 712 getting an approach signal comming
> into Richmond, CA while the ten car
> Oakland-Ozol/Benicia Local with UP 2915 is
> getting high greens.


You see little stuff like that gets me. No, it's not sitting in a siding for 4 hours, but if done often enough it will get a train an hour or two down, then it's out of it's "slot" and snowballs from there. The most common excuse for giving priority to a local, is that the crew is about to die, which just tells me that the way everything run at UP is screwed up on so many levels.

And, BTW: BNSF does things like this too, however they keep it to a minimum. Also the DS's tend to call the head end and tell them something like "We've got someone ahead of you, but will put you in the hole at so and so to get you around it". I know it's stressful to be a dispatcher, but simple communication helps, and keeps animosity to a minimum. With single track it's hard, but it seems that SF can do more with a Single Track CTC line than UP with 2MT, IMO.

Not to mention the difference between the two railroads when it comes to dispatcher turnover time. On the BNSF, the railroad doesn't shutdown. Just try getting in touch with a UP DS during that time when you are sitting at a red signal in the middle of nowhere with no other train in the same area code because they couldn't think beyond the end of their nose before it was time to go home. You usually have better success making contact with the inhabitants on Mars.

You gotta remember local crews are notorious for wanting 12 hour days. And they'll do everything they can to make that happen. I don't think you can blame that one on the railroad, it's the employees. I've had locals come out on my railroad with only one place to work, requiring 2 to place and 2 to pull, and it'll take them 8 hours to do it.