Just wondering which railroads are shutting down for Christmas observation. This way, us railfans dont wonder out to waste our time on a line that is shut down.
Maybe some of the railroaders have an insight on when their railroad will shut down and if so, for how long and when the start-up will resume
Thanks and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Paul
If you live near a high-density main line, you should be seeing activity. It may be down from a normal day or weekend day, but things will keep moving. Secondary lines may also have some reduced activity, depending on what kind of traffic (manifest, coal, grain, etc) it normally sees. If anyone shuts down completely, most likely it will be the regional or short lines. Even these may work some jobs depending on their customer’s needs.
Our holiday plans usually say something like, “reduced operations except for intermodal, automotive, priority manifest, shuttle grain and coal trains.” Then the proviso (not Proviso, sorry Carl[(-D]) is added, “unless weather conditions, service disruptions or new business opprotunities develop.” So what that means is many yard and local freights won’t work and they (probably) won’t run the lowliest junk manifests. Everything else should be pretty close to normal, subject to the next paragraph.
The biggest thing will be crew availablity. Holidays seem to be bad for one’s health. (Maybe allergies to mistletoe?) Holidayitis can deplete a crew board fast. When I last looked about 30 mins ago, I was 27 times out on my board, but had about 24 ahead of me either laid off for some reason or in other assignment status.
Jeff
**jeffhergert wrote: “…**Our holiday plans usually say something like, “reduced operations except for intermodal, automotive, priority manifest, shuttle grain and coal trains.” Then the proviso (not Proviso, sorry Carl) is added, “unless weather conditions, service disruptions or new business opprotunities develop.” So what that means is many yard and local freights won’t work and they (probably) won’t run the lowliest junk manifests. Everything else should be pretty close to normal, subject to the next paragraph…”
Around here it is a typical slow sunday kinda day. While walking the dog early I saw a grain shuttle, and a mixed ethanol/ with grain cars between the cuts. Later on there have been a couple of stackers:one was a J B HUNT/Schneider almost solid with about 20 cars of TOFC tacked on the rear (Fed Ex and Roadway, primarily). So not a lot of noise from the neighbors on the Transcon.
There’s times I miss the road trains. Get different engines all the times, get easy trips once in a blue moon with no real work required, lots of watching the country go by, etc.
But then there’s times like this when our terminal is shut down for Christmas. Then I do not miss the road trains. Just be careful out there: everyone that has to work.
Zug.
Well, there’s a catch this year. Christmas falls on a Sunday followed by “Christmas Observed” on Monday.
Seems to me like it’s just another excuse to give people a three day holiday, but with deliveries being expected on Tuesday that extra day will find rails working Monday playing ‘catch up’.
Used to be that most worked the day before Christmas and the day after regardless of which day of the week it fell on.
Be prepared to get called on Monday for deliveries scheduled for Tuesday.
JUST AN UNINFORMED OPINION,
My job is laid in Sunday and Monday.
We’ll get er all cleaned up on Tuesday.