Would there be a lot of trains or would there be no trains because of the Holiday, also counting the Saturday after Good Friday? Also, How was train traffic last year of 2009, in the U.S. during the week of Good Friday and Easter?
Good Friday is not officially a holiday. In fact, my employer used to give us that day off up until a couple of years ago, but has since stopped doing that.
EDIT: I would be willing to bet that there is no difference in rail traffic during Easter Week from any other week. In fact, I would venture that Easter Sunday is no different from any other Sunday.
I classify Good Friday and Easter together as a holiday.
The important thing is how the railroads classify Good Friday. For us operating-craft people, it is in fact a paid holiday. However, many industries (including Brian’s) consider it a normal day, so we don’t get much occasion to do anything except collect the worked-holiday pay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I think Brian’s right about Easter being no different from any other Sunday in terms of traffic. The same would probably apply to the Saturday before Easter.
Holiday? PAID Holiday? What are those? Is it something like a weekend or regular days off? I’ve heard rumors about them and dimly remember having them once upon a time.[(-D]
Actually, instead of pay or time off for the holiday, unassigned road crews get compensated personal leave days to use at any time instead. Of course they can be denied because of “manpower issues” so you can’t always use them when you want to. We also don’t get as many leave days as there is holidays right away. You build them up according to length of service, like weeks of vacation (Of which I’m currently on.)
Not that it matters, but one other difference between road and yard is the number of days in a week of vacation. The unassigned road guys get 7 days, the yard guys 5. Why the difference? The yard guys vacation time runs between their rest days, something the road guys don’t have.
Jeff
Up here those holidays are statutory—such as THAT is[:-^]—and many things are closed those days
BUT
I don’t notice a large drop in traffic so I tend to think that like us in healthcare—that you guys just go on—
It will most likely be slow Easter weekend, I bet more than a few crews will be “sick” and there is still some shippers that might be shut down for the weekend. With my job we used to be closed on Easter, until two years ago then they didn’t “make” anyone work but if you did you made 2.5 (!) times your normal rate, last year you made 2x this year 1.5… that’s what we call progress, oh and if it’s your normal turn to work your stuck working… unless your sick, cough [:-^]
Just like a earlier post stated, Good Fr is not a federal holiday but it is a union holiday on the rr. It is the holiday for the observance of Easter. The actuall day of Easter Su is not a holiday period anywhere. As for business levels, a yd job, local or rd swtchr here or there could be annualled but most places, it will be business as usuall. Any work trains though would most likely be given the day off. Any jobs effected would be listed in a general notice which as of Th, nothing has been posted.
So that probably means it would be good train traffic the Saturday after Good Friday, because my family is getting together during the end of the week during Good Friday and the weekend during Easter and the week of Easter and we’ll go to see some trains in and around Northeastern Ohio primarly around the Berea Ohio area. Also, the weather has to play out. You never know, it might rain or it might be cold. You just don’t know. So it’s on hold for my family at the moment.