Some quick questions about what clerks do on Class I freight railroads? Do they still work in yards or do they work in central offices now? Please let me know thank you.
With my carrier there are virtually NO clerks in the yards - there are very few in Division offices (a least compared to 40+ years ago). What clerks there are are mostly at headquarters locations - either Division or System.
Methinks the railroad clerk, as such, has been largely replaced by the computer and its associated devices, as well as vastly improved communications.
A document that was once produced by a local clerk can now be generated via a computer thousands of miles away, yet be printed locally and tracked throughout the system instantaneously.
Central Yard Office in Atlanta for NS - nearly a floor-full of clerks. Much of the traditional work of doing car reporting has been automated with AEI scanners, but they still do a lot of hand-bombing of car reporting for locals from faxed in reports. This work is slowly being replaces by real-time reporting by the conductor using a portable device (RIT).
More stuff to carry around, and more work dumped transferred onto the lowly conductor. Sigh. .
Can’t speak for other carriers…
My carrier is holding officers, Terminal Trainmasters etc., accountable for the correct dispatchment of trains - this means the order of ALL cars in a train are correctly identified. By holding officers responsible, that responsibility trickles down to the Yardmaster and the train crews for identifying the manner and order in which tracks are switched and trains assembled. Discipline is assessed for those who create errors.
What about inter-modal Yards? I see job opening for clerical jobs such as inter-modal clerk/service Representative every now and then, what do they do?
That’s the right way to do it! Who do they hold accountable for data quality (or lack of same)?
zugmann’s lament above came to mind while reading the following summary and article from the NY Times - see if you recognize the situations and the similarities to your life, and see also the subsequent comments:
“Self-Service: A Sign ‘The Robots Have Won’?” at:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/11/28/robots-shadow-work
“Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work” at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/our-unpaid-extra-shadow-work.html?pagewanted=all
Depending on the pace of the work and whether there’s a busy main line that’s being tied up or not, it occurs to me that it might be more efficient to have the conductor mostly just planning and recording with the device the switching of the cars, and only communicating to another brakeman/ switchman what is to be done - which cars to cut off and couple to, which switches to throw, etc. - instead of having the conductor try to do it all by himself (we’ll ignore for now loading the RCL task onto the conductor as well . . . [:-^] ).
- Paul North.
Having been involved professionally with mechanics of switching cars and the correct reporting of that switching to get everything lined up correctly - you are playing the game of Telephone wherein one starts a story at one end of a chain of telephone conversations and receives a totally different story at the end of the telephone chain. And everyone involved believes they are communicating just what transpired.
We all think we know what we are saying, however, in many instances while our mind registers one set of words - our mouth speak a totally different set of words…yet we insist we said what our mind registered. (I have one direct report, that for the past month or so has been consistently misidentifying train identities - consistently changing a middle position 5 in the train ID into a 8 when he communicates with me about those trains - AND HE SWARES HE ISN’T DOING IT - his mind doesn’t register what his mouth is saying)
While pushing the ‘final reporting’ of switching actions down the communications chain to the conductor doing the work can be considered ‘shadow work’ - it breaks through the game of telephone that has previously existed in reporting that work.
[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]
zugmann:
oltmannd:This work is slowly being replaces by real-time reporting by the conductor using a portable device (RIT).
More stuff to carry around, and more work dumped transferred onto the lowly conductor. Sigh. .
zugmann’s lament above came to mind while reading the f
But can’t the game of telephone work the other way?
When someone else in the line of communication catches an error on the conductor’s part.
From the side bar (Conductor-only: “Please, don’t give me a brakeman!”) to the article in the November 1994 Trains titled: “Answering the Call” about how train crews are assigned.
“He (conductor) also finds that, besides being the head brakeman, he also is doing the work of a rear brakeman, fireman, switchman, locomotive electrician and machinist, train-order operator, waybill clerk, supply man and janitor.”
I think our way freight/local conductors and industry yard job foreman do their own reporting at the end of shift on a computer. They only fax in stuff when they don’t have time (HOS or to stay off of overtime) left to do it. Thru trains that did intermediate work used to fax in work orders at the end of their run, but anymore the yardmasters (office or footboard) take care of that at the point the work’s done at. It’s allowed them to reduce the size of their centralized clerical center even more.
As to using self-service check outs, I don’t anymore. Unless a store employee is doing it or I absolutely would have to. A couple of months ago I was in line at the Walmart in Fremont. It was fairly busy and they only had a few check outs open. All the self-serve check outs were open. One of their associates asked if I’d like to use the self-serve line. I said, “No, I don’t work here and by using them I feel like I’m taking someone else’s job.” She took me over and ran my stuff through. She said they (self-serve lines) probably didn’t take too many jobs, half the time the check outs wouldn’t work right, requiring an employee to help resolve problems.
Jeff
Jeff, I know what you mean about Walmart self-service. The store I patronize the most has reduced the number of self-serve checkouts and increased the number of “associated” checkouts–and the self-serve ones that are left do not like my credit card; it takes assistance from an associate for anyone of them to behave.
As to an accurate record as to what cars are in a train, I wonder about how often a car is omitted in a report.
There ws an article a few months ago (either local or AP, I forget) about stores reducing the self-serve. Many people are avoiding them (guess the novelty wore off), and others are using them to shoplift easier.
I heard one chain’s self checkouts, officially named U-Scan, were called by employees U-Steal.
Lately, I’ve heard over the radio a few times where train management (corridor managers, AKA chief dispatchers) have called trains and told them the AEI scanners have added a car(s).
Some time this year I reported for work while an eastbound stack train was setting out about 10 cars. That’s not normal so I asked someone what was going on. The stack train was one that normally sets out cars at Council Bluffs, and that train was scheduled to set out about 30 cars there. This train however was blocked a bit different than usual. The 30 car setout was behind 10 thru cars. The condr hadn’t checked his list and just setout the first 30 cars. So he set out 10 he wasn’t supposed to and kept 10 that should have been set out.
Jeff
[(-D] Reminds me of the line in an article in Trains* some years ago about a train that was missed being reported “On Sheet” by a sleeping operator, but was nevertheless duly reported by another operator further down the line: “He must have come down by the woods road instead !”
*Probably this one:
“Had GR&I No. 5 passed Mill Creek? - the operator was asleep”
by Norman, Harold B., from Trains, January 1974, p. 32
(accident dispatch GR&I)
- Paul North.
Thinking of doing things ourselves, it struck me that at least one job has gone the other way. 40 years or so ago, when gas stations were pumping gas for us, we used to mow our own yards. Now hardly any of my neighbors even own lawn mowers, and there is a steady stream of pick-up trucks towing trailers all over town.