Flagmen

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Tampa Tribune - Florida / March 11, 2007

Raising A Red Flag

The road workers spread concrete, shape curbs and sweep debris on the new bridge next to the CSX railroad tracks. As the four men work, one man watches.

Day after day he sits in his black pickup or strolls around the site in Polk County, each day of his service costing the county nearly $500.

The total after 14 months: about $160,000.

CSX Transportation charges taxpayers across the country millions for the people who do this type of work. They’re called flagmen, but they don’t stand on the tracks waving flags.

They sit in their vehicles for hours, waiting for word of a train so they can warn road crews to stand clear - even when the road work is far from the tracks for days at a time, even when the tracks see only one train a day or none at all.

In Hillsborough and Polk counties, government agencies paid the railroad company at least $3 million from 2003 to 2006, according to records reviewed by The Tampa Tribune.

State and local agencies don’t track what they spend on flagging, so there are no statewide or national figures on how much CSX collects.

The agencies sign contracts for the service, but the railroad sets the terms. Many don’t even know what they are paying for because they don’t verify the flagmen’s hours or examine discrepancies between charges and time sheets.

Although he doesn’t know how much the state Department of Transportation is paying for flagmen, Gary Fitzpatrick, state rail office administrator, said he’s sure it’s a lot.

“It’s scary” to imagine how high, he said.

CSX stands by its flagging costs, saying in a written statement that the work is needed “to protect public safety and railroad employees and property.”

Flagging is one of the best positions on the railroad, flagmen say, sought by the workers with the most seniority.

"It’s a good job. It’s an important

2

Let something happen because that flagman wasn’t there to protect the work force, and then see what they say.

The flagman is there to protect both the train crews, and the work group. I’ve been in numerous situations where the civilian work group is completely clueless as to what’s going on. Fouling tracks, leaving debris in the gauge, etc.

When approaching a flagged location, the train can’t pass a designated point, until the flagman verifies the work group is in the clear, and then gives the train permission to pass.

If the agencies paying for the flag protection aren’t verifying the charges, well that’s their own dumb fault.

Nick

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I bet the Maglev train in Europe wish they would have had a flagman.

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Amen, Nick.

Let us add the following:

(1) Could it just possibly be that, like in many other states, FL DOT (Florida Department of Trucks) is not trustworthy enough to work around on the tracks on their own? The same goes for their contractors. Colorado DOT has found itself forcibly evicted from railroad R/W’s here several times in recent history and it’s contractors even more often than that for violating basic safety rules. The railroads are trying to correct defficient behavior here (not trying to be mean).

(2) The contractor cannot schedule the work to minimize the presence of the flagman. Can they adhere to that or any other schedule?

(3) Was there a qualified railroader at FL DOT looking over the job planning at this project? Probably NOT. (Most Transportation Engineers are NOT qualified railroaders, just recylcled highway engineers with a new title & totally stupid anywhere near a railroad)

(4) Anybody there understand what a foul zone is? (especially the reporter - clueless like most yellow press journalists)

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I like the last sentence in the story. The tracks were there first. End of story, (literally).

What the reporter fails to understand or convey in the story, is that flagging jobs for the most part are bid by senority. There has to be time for the bid to be published, interested parties to respond, and someone has to determine (by the union’s rules) who gets awarded the job. This takes time and nobody in their right mind will do this for a few days here, a week there, and oh, if it rains we’ll need them for half a day next week.

6

So my thought is - would the reporter let the gas (or power or telephone or cable…) company dig a trench across their front yard - between their award winning tuilips and their Corvette without supervision. I would be standing there - watching like a hawk. And the costs of an interruption to the railroad are much greater than the cost of the Corvette.

dd