If I do something wrong, I can be disciplined. But to brag about yelling at employees? Immature and unprofessional. Unless you were speaking metaphorically.
In the time I’ve been here I can remember 1 driver that had to be talked to in this manner. The rest of the fleet knows to find a safe parking spot. The one driver we had to ream out refused to pay to park in Atlanta at the Petro truck stop. He instead decided to go over his 14 and went to a strip club and got robbed while parked there on top of it. So not only was he robbed of his money fuel cards and other things he got us in trouble. Hence he got his butt chewed off when he made it back to the yard. Zugman we take pride in having one of the lowest out of service rates in the industry. This driver was one of our biggest screw ups in the fleet. He has moved on why violations of other company policies that required immediately termination of his employment. We found a 5th of Jack Daniels opened in his bunk. This was 1 year ago .
So now the story changed completely. Ok then.
I know what’s our corporate policy is regarding the 14 hour rule of the hos for our drivers. In my time here there’s been 1 driver we have done this to he’s no longer employed by this company in anyway. I personally was the one the ordered him off the property and then DACCED his employment chances with other carrier’s. It’s very hard to get a job when other carrier’s find out you were fired for open container of alcohol then refused a drug test.
We do pay for reserved parking at any truck stop they need us to pay it for them. This driver repeatedly refused to utilize what we offered him to prevent HOS problems that could happen. His refusal to obey company policies is why he ended up getting chewed out.
According to that Canadian “Highway to Hell” series a tow of a big rig out of the ditch runs on average about $4 to 5,000.00. I think that is because of the specialized equipment they use as well as the 4-5 men in crew and because it is on a congested highway.
Hello xboxtravis7922, I am an active railroader with lots of years of experience. I have seen lots of changes and to be very honest with you I feel like they were for the worst and not the better. The whole thing of moving trains is being able to get them out of the originating terminal thru the intermediate terminals and into the final destination terminal. One certain carrier has implemented what they call a STAGING PLAN. we make our way across our route at a whopping 14 mph average speed. When we get to our crew change point we are staged for at least an 1hr sometimes up to 2hrs before our crew ever goes on duty. With the New Breed of workers being hired they are Not going to get to work early it will either be right on the minute or they will be LATE. The management at the terminals are new themsevles and DO NOT HAVE A CLUE ABOUT RAILROADING. They allow these new workers to dictate when they are ready to get on their train instead of telling them to GO GET ON IT NOW !!! . So with all this being said until the carrier learns how to get trains thru terminals the PSR is a bunch of bull. The 14mph average that they are so proud of will remain or probrably get worse.
Have truck stops always charged for overnight parking and what do they charge? If you buy fuel, do they discount parking? What about Interstate Highway rest areas, do they allow it? I don’t drive a rig but I have stopped at truck stops and have seen a large number of trucks parked and drivers obtaining showers and meals. Always thought the parking was a perk for buying fuel.
This may be a dumb question by why not get a qualified driver to move the truck or do they not exist? Why tow?
I don’t know the specific answer to your question.
I suspect in the videoed example, it may be a Owner/Operator - not a ‘company’ driver. O/O’s lease themselves and THEIR equipment to the company needing the cargo hauled. Under the circumstance I doubt that there is another driver for the O/O to send for.
Some truckstops in major metro areas have charged for decades. My husband knows he paid to park in the LA basin in Ontario several times Atlanta a couple Memphis around Chicago Philly New York City Boston Dallas Houston. Those places will give free parking with a certain quantiy of fuel bought or so much spent in the stores. However what is new in these areas is what is called Reserved parking where for a fee a truckstop will hold a space open for a driver coming in. They literally will have a place held with his truck number and carrier listed on it and will tow anyone else that parks in it after telling the other truck to remove themselves from it. Those are the spots we pay for near the major cities for our drivers that need it for their clocks no questions asked we actually call the truckstops and reserve the spot for the driver.
Yesterday there was some consolidations and a few shake ups. They consolidated some service units, eliminating a few. They eliminated the Western Region, so now we have two, Northern and Southern. Word going around is that a VP was walked off the property. As were some other service unit officers as their positions were eliminated by the consolidation. A few kept jobs, but have been demoted. Talk is Mr. Fritz is on short time.
Sometime back they consolidated yardmasters. Yardmasters would take care of yards at other locations as well as their own. The talk is yardmasters at Clinton, who had also been taking care of the Cedar Rapids yard, are going to be eliminated. Proviso will take care of Clinton and Des Moines will take care of Cedar Rapids.
You know Carl, if you were still working, you might’ve eventually been in charge of controlling cars going over the hump at North Platte as well as Proviso.
Jeff
The VP walked out wasn’t from CSX formerly???
Yardmaster consolidations had been the flavor at CSX long before PSR.
Nope, Jeff–not a chance.
I just heard rumors today (scoot conductor): Fritz is gone and Ms. Sanborn will be in charge. I heard that the excort-off-the-property thing happened at Omaha.
And, accordng to this guy, Proviso will be closed and completely converted to an intermodal facility. My old hump will be gone. Flat switching will be done at, of all, places, Rochelle.
I heard that Twin Cities, St. Louis, and North Platte are three of the service units that were consolidated out of existence.
Couldn’t tell from the markets…UP is continuing its tumble to below where it was before the spike, and my 401K is going to take a hit. I would have expected a jmp if the shockhlders had gotten wind of a Hunter-type move.
So…Boone to Rochelle on your east end, Jeff?
One person also said Lance was gone, another that he had 90 days. There was a town hall meeting scheduled later this week. We’ll see if he’s there for it.
North Platte service unit survives. Twin Cities was merged into the Chicago SU. The other service units gone are Denver, St Louis, Livonia, and the Sunset. The Chicago SU is almost what was the CNW. Only one or two segments are in other SUs.
I wouldn’t think they could do much more than block swapping at Rochelle. In the early 2000s they had section 6 notices to rearrange runs. Rochelle was to have become the home terminal for pools running from there to Boone, Missouri Valley, Mason City, and Des Moines. The unions were able to get the railroad to keep the Rochelle-Boone pool home terminal at Boone. After awhile the railroad lost interest and nothing ever came of the proposals. At the time crews were lucky to make Clinton on hours of service. I don’t know how they thought they could go another 70 some miles to Rochelle.
I expect if they ever build the Mississippi River bridge and/or the yard at Nevada IA, they may change runs. With them not wanting to spend money on such projects at this time, I don’t think I’ll see it happening.
Jeff
In the past few weeks here in Glen Ellyn, IL on the former C&NW Chicago-Omaha mainline, I’ve been thwarted in travel by an enormous mid-day manifest. One day it stopped and blocked all crossings in town for two or three hours. Another day it crawled through at 10 mph, creating angry gridlock in all directions for the better part of a half-hour. It looked like a combination of a grain train, an autorack train, and a manifest train, with mid-train remotes. Whatever it was, it was a disaster for locals trying to live their lives.
I’ve read about similar blockages by freights down in Normal, Illinois on the ex-Alton line to St. Louis. Apparently, UP has recently begun to do some kind of block swapping in the Bloomington Yard there, causing freights to block many street crossings north of the yard.
- Ed Kyle
The monster sized manifests predate the new plan. Even some intermodals are often in the 10000ft or more range. I had a 14850 ft manifest yesterday.
I heard a rumor that the remote control yard engines are going to go away. That although an RC switch job lowers the cost per car handled, conventional switch crews tend to handle more cars.
Jeff
[quote user=“jeffhergert”]
I heard a rumor that the remote control yard engines are going to go away. That although an RC switch job lowers the cost per car handled, conventional switch crews tend to handle more cars.
Jeff
[quote user=“jeffhergert”]
Jeff,
As a greedy stock holder I am glad to hear that the remotes are going away in yard service. I have always suspected that cars per engine hour was less than half what a competent two man crew could do. Sounds like somebody determined that I was right.
Mac
The UP VP was walked out because the position was eliminated in the reorg and EVERYBODY that was eliminated was walked out, company policy. He just retired early. Actually that’s pretty common. A relative of mine was caught in a force reduction at an ethanol producer, and they told him his job was eliminated, walked him to the door. He didn’t even get to clean out the desk, they just emptied everything into a box and mailed it to him.
RCL is at least a 33% reduction in personnell costs and the reports I’ve seen less than a 25% reduction in production. When business was booming, that might have been an issue, but with railroads running with excess capacity, is it a problem? If a 3 man crew can switch 1000 cars an shift and a 2 man crew can switch 800 cars a shift and you are handling 700 cars a shift, is the increased production worth a 33% increase in costs?
Just because EHH liked it, doesn’t mean it was right.
Cripes! How do you handle such a long train in hogback country? Also, what was the power distribution? And did you make it end-to-end in one piece?