Deadtime?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

My little 10 year old nephew is serious about wanting to be a railroader. We got to talking about some things he was curious about.

One of these was what deadtime was and how that affects the individual railroader in their own terms—so.

What is it on a general basis and what I’d like to know is just how this affects you in terms of getting home and maybe how this may effect your health. Just what does that all entail? Is there a difference in how this all operates between a yard engineer/other and a road engineer?

Does anyone also know of a good reference site for a child who may be interested in becoming a RR?

2

I don’t know of any reading material that would describe a line of road train & engine crew’s working experience.

Federal Hours of Service laws permit crews to work a maximum of 12 hours in a tour of duty. Upon registering off for rest, crews are guaranteed a minimum of 10 hours of undisturbed rest before being called back on duty.

In line of road service, Crew is called on duty at home terminal, works 12 hours or less getting train to away from home terminal, will get 10 or more hours rest at the away from home terminal and will be called back on duty to work back to their home terminal. The same rest provisions apply at the home terminal as apply at the away from home terminal.

In Local or Road Switcher service, crews bid in the assignments and come to work at a assigned daily time. The perform their assigned duties and go off duty at the same terminal they started from

In Yard service, the regular crews have assigned starting times, normally work 8 hours and go home and come back to work the next day at the assigned starting time without being called to duty. Extra personnel will be called to fill vacancies on regular jobs. Extra personnel may be ‘held over’ for 4 hours to fill a vacancy on the next trick’s yard job, thus working a maximum of 12 hours. The 10 hour undisturbed rest provisions apply to all train and engine personnel, no matter the service - line of road, Local/Road Switcher or Yard.

There are also Respite and Limbo time provisions in the Hours of Service law, but they are much too difficult to explain to a 10 year old.

3

If you are referring to Deadhead time…

Following the above excellent explanation of times we are allowed to work, lets say my crew end up leaving the yard and working an industry.

We reach the 12 hour limit with no time to return the locomotive to the yard.(this applies to road crews also)

Of course, we can all tell time and have watches so we have made plans to have the locomotive or train in a siding before we reach the maximum work time allowed, and we have called a cab or yard limo to come pick us up.

Because we are still “on duty” we are still being paid, but due to the hours of service law, we can perform no service whatsoever to or for the carrier after the 12 hour limit.

We must note for the FRA the time we reached the 12 hour limit, when the cab arrived to pick us up, when we reached our point of tie up, either the away terminal or home terminal, and when we exited the cab or yard limo.

At that point, we are no longer on duty and pay ceases, and our “rest time” begins.

We are not even allowed to tie up in the computer, we must do this function the next time we begin a duty cycle.

If you are on a crew that always reaches the hours of service, then this becomes the norm for you, in that you adapt to the constant change in when you get up and when you go to sleep.

If you are on a yard crew or an assigned job with regular work hours, and “the hogs getcha” infrequently, then it can cause minor problems for a day or two.

4

Suggestion: have him join a union immediately. Then he will have lots of seniority when he hires on and can “cherry pick” the jobs.

Hays

5

Your seniority is determined by the date you have finished your training and first mark up on with the railroad. And in almost all cases your seniority is only good on that particular railroad.

6

On the NS after your 12 hrs of rest and for enginees starting at 14 hrs is held away pay. meaning we start getting paid for being away from home at 14 hrs of the time we tied up at work. all roads get at least a 1 1/2 hour call time. so if i was off for 13 hours when i got the call to go back to work they will owe me 30 min held away. and yes this can get exspensive for them.