When a scheduled freight is forced to use alternate rails, to avoid a derailment or bridge out condition, does the original crew customarily stay with their train and operate it on a foreign district, or are these rerouted trains operated exclusively by native crews?.
There was a derailment west of South Bend last night tying up both tracks of NS’s former NYC “waterlevel route”, and many trains are being redirected to the NS former Nickle Plate line through town.
And I was just wondering of many of these might be crewed by staff not first hand familiar with the local plant
I think it depends if there are trackage agreements. Here in California, BNSF has trackage rights over Tehachapi on UP rails between Mojave and Bakersfield as does UP has trackage rights over BNSF between Riverside and Dagget. In these cases the original crew stays with the train and operates it.
It maybe a case were the crew stays with the train but the home road has a pilot with the crew to guide them over the line.
I heard this morning on the FtWayne webcast a reroute from NYC came to Ft Wayne. He had a crew which runs from Toledo to Peru. He was put on a return reroute to Toledo and then he was going to be forwarded back to Peru (probably his home terminal).
The train was routed Toledo to Butler(Wabash) to Ft Wayne (NKP) to Chicago.
Thus, this crew was authorized to run from Toledo to Ft Wayne only and then a NKP crew took over. Instead of deadheading to Peru, they sent him back with an I18 to Toledo.
it sure is a mess when this happens, but NS is lucky they have an alternative route.
the NEW wye just connects the north to west tracks doesn’t it? Theconnect between the East And South tracks has been there.
So I guess you are saying that the chicago line crews out of Toledo are certified to take that south turn in Butler onto the old Wabash, all the way to Fort Wayne?
Crew has to be qualified to run that route, if not they can still go but need a pilot to run with them. Or in the case of yours where it is NS lines the trains would be tossed in the pool and the regular pool crews would run them.
Makes sense I guess. I was listening to the dispatcher saying they were “out” of crews, so I kinda suspected that might be the case, but it’s too bad the RR can’t use the idled crews from the suspended route, since they are so short down here…
Question: Does a crew have to have experience of some kind over a “new” line in order to run it without the home road having to provide a pilot crew?
With signalling, posted speed limits, road crossing markers, etc., why can’t a “foreign” crew run over any mainline trackage in the US? Truck drivers are always hauling into new territory all the time, they just watch the road signs and follow the map, so why can’t railroads be operated that way? Just curious.
I don’t know how to say this in a way that you will all understand, those of you who have never run an engine for a living. You can’t just take off and go down some unfamiliar railroad with a freight train, without opening yourself to all sorts of potential disasters. Well, you could do it but you’d best run restricted speed. You need a pilot, one familiar with the characteristics of that particular stretch of railroad. It’s not like driving a truck down the highway.
Every freight train handles a bit differently, for starters. If you start down a railroad with which you have no knowledge or familiarity, you don’t know the grades, you don’t know where the signals are, you don’t know where the switches are, you don’t know that one technique of train handling will work at one location but you’d better not try it at another location because you’ll have your train in three pieces. Also, you need to be familiar with the rules, for example, other than those who operate in the Toledo-Peru freight pool, which operates on both NS rules and the NORAC rules, most who run the Toledo former Conrail side would have no knowledge or familiarity, not to say never been tested on NS rules in a annual Book of Rules class. It’s not one uniform code.
You need a pilot, someone qualified on that territory and who is familiar with the rules, also, if he is to pilot the engineer, he must be a licensed engineer and he is to run the engine.
I think VAlley pretty well covered this one. I am getting into that slippery area where I know a little bit but dont have hands on experience, so what I say may be inaccurate.
I often hear on the scanner (particularly the CN’s GTW) if a crew is “qualified to ____”. The Chicago area is very complex with multiple routes. I do not know what is involved in being “qualified” but as Valley indicated, you must have a knowledge of the rules, signals, and handling charactoristics of the district.
I believe, but may be wrong, that crews must not only have the ETT’s of the district, but also alll current track bulletins covering slow orders and special instructions. Also they would need keys for switches etc.
Regarding the Toledo to Peru segment…my guess is after a merger the company will establish new trains and then qualify crews to operate over “new” districts.
My question to Valley is this…are crews normally qualified over several districts out of a terminal?
Makes good sense, and these instances of “practice” vs “theory” is one if the things that make web based discussion enjoyable.
I guess one could compare it (loosely) to trying to drive down a rain slickened highway at night, with varried terrain and twisting turns.
if you’ve driven the route many times, you know where the caution spots are, and know to slow down ahead of time are.
If you’ve never been on the road before, pressing the speedlimit the whole distance, could end up serving you quite a surprise. Even though the same “rules of traffic” apply equally in both instances
No, not really. Some terminals are divided by seniority districts and the crews don’t have rights on each route out of a terminal. Some terminals have common seniority districts but the senior men have generally settled in to working one side and their qualifications have run out or they’ve never qualified on another route. It’s not uncommon to find someone who would be qualified on two routes but it gets increasingly uncommon to find someone qualified on three or more. I can only speak from personal experience, you understand.
I second ValleyX’s comments. Train handling and safety are not insignificant concerns. You probably could mitigate some of the risk with a good set of maps, track charts, etc., but I think you’d still be way out of everyone’s comfort zone - particularly the Feds…
But imagine driving down the road where you would constantly have to refer to a map and a grade chart and think about EXACTLY each and every traffic light is located. Oh, and the FRA has set standards of qualifications, an engineer can operate either only one mile or two miles, not sure which, over a signalled main line over which he or she is not qualified.