My father worked as a conductor from 1950-1992 in central Washington state. Around 1975 he was asked to testify in a court case as an expert witness for another railroad. The hearing was about a grade crossing accident and what was in question was how long it took to stop a locomotive with six boxcars of a certain weight at 30mph. A few days before the hearing, he asked his engineer to put the train into emergency stop so he could confirm what he felt would be an accurate stopping distance. This was way out in a rural area and he felt it was safe at this speed and weight. When his railroad found out about this they fired him for doing this.
Does the conductor have the authority to do this type of “brake test” ?
At what point does his authority end in respect to his train?
P.S. He was reinstated six months later with back pay after a long battle.
It’s my guess that the railroad’s rationale in assessing the discipline against your father went something like this:
The conductor is the employee ultimately responsible for the operation of the train.
It was a generally accepted fact that placing a train in emergency ran a significant risk of causing a derailment.
The train your father was conductor of was placed in emergency for no valid reason (no real emergency existed). The railroad would not have considered the “brake test” a valid reason since railroad management didn’t order it.
Your father was probably deemed guilty of unnecessarily endangering company property, equipment and right-of-way.
I spent enough years in management (auto industry) to know how they think.
Goofy conductor should have dumped the air himself, from his caboose (this was 1975–they still had those). Then at least he could have feigned ignorance.
The dispatcher is in charge of the movement of trains and maintenance of schedules of trains directing extra stops, meets, take sidings, track assignments, etc. This stop was neither directed by timetable nor by the dispatcher nor was it an actual emergency. Therefore the conductor was out of line and should bear the consequences.
The problem was that he was using (risking) the equipment and track of one railroad to benefit another railroad (possibly a competitor) for his own personal gain (since he was probably being paid as an expert witness).
I also find it hard to believe that a railroad would hire a conductor from another railroad as an “expert witness”. Are you sure he wasn’t retained as a plaintiff’s witness? That would diffintely raise the ire of the railroad, that he used (risked) the railroad’s equipment and track to testify against another railroad for his own personal gain (since he was probably being paid as an expert witness).
The conductor would have the authority to stop his train any time he felt he had to. He would not have the authority to borrow the railroad’s equipment to do tests for another railroad for personal gain and certainly would not have the authority to use the railroad’s equipment to do tests in order to testify against another railroad for personal gain.
Remember, we are talking about a loco freight with six cars in the middle of nowhere going 30mph.
My father had testified several years before against his railroad in another case. At times he was pretty out spoken. I bet he kind of made the railroad nervous and this was an oppertunity to dump him. Now that I’m older and wiser, I have a hard time believing all the stories I’ve heard about that “big, bad, terible management” doing evil things to their “sweet little workers”.
Was there a lot more “friction” in those days between union employees and management? I’m sure there are issues now, but aren’t those relationships more “reasonable” these days?
Doesn’t matter. If it was a railroad train operating on a railroad track it was opertating either by timetable or train order authority; there could be a hundred trains due on the track in the next ten minutes or not another train expected in ten years. The only starts and stops came through those authorities or other orders or messages relating to the movement and operation of the train and the picking up and setting out of customer’s cars. The action of stopping the train, or having the engineer stop the train, in the manner described, was not authorized by either and therefore it was an action that subjected himeslf and his crew to disciplinary actions. It definitely could have been disasterous with any one or all the cars derailing striking who knows what, damaging equipment, track, buildings, anything in the way and even may have caused injury to a bystander or members of the crew. And what if a brake got stuck and or something else happened and the train could not get going again? Even back then there were books and tables and statistics available that could have been used for the court arguement.
Anytime you make an enemy of your supervisor, they will be more than willing to return the favor when the opportunity arises. The opportunity arose and they did their duty.
Historically, there’s never been a lot of love lost between “labor” and “management”, regardless of the individual players.
As for the stop, it doesn’t sound like the crew stuck together very well, but they may well have been in two different unions. IIRC, they didn’t get along particularly well together, either.
I was thinking that a full service reduction might have helped him illustrate his point, but even then, he might have gotten in trouble, given the rest of the circumstances.
Let’s go back to first principles. According to the posting that started this string, the incident in question happened in 1975. Now, at that time, how could “management” ever find out that the engineer had put his train into emergency in the middle of nowhere, whether requested by the conductor or not? Someone on the crew was obviously ticked off about it (or at someone) and spilled the beans.
I would guess that in 1975 there would definitely have been two unions represented; the old BLE for the engineer and fireman (if present) and the UTU (or whatever it was back then) for the conductor and brakemen.
As someone else pointed out, someone on the crew had to have been the “whistle blower”. Otherwise, how else would management have found out?
I’m with everyone else, either someone on the crew didn’t like your father or someone spilled the beans, perhaps quite unintentionally. Then it was done and they came after him. I take it the engineer wasn’t disciplined because he was following the instructions of the engineer but I, like others, wonder how it is that your father came to be a expert witness. Was he involved in the unions? Was he perhaps a friend of the lawyer? Seems curious. I don’t know if relationships are more harmonious today between the carrier officials and the people who run their trains but they do talk more politely today than then. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Thanks for all the input. If I remember the crew was real close but there was a representive from his railroad at the hearing and that is how they found out. He was an expert witness in two or three cases over during his employment. I think it wasn’t because he was such a expert but rather he loved to talk and it was this habbit that got him in trouble at times.
The rest of the crew didn’t have to turn him in, and in fact could be in as much trouble as he was, especially the engineer who went along with the dumping of the air. No, he evidently told the court how he knew what he was talking about! And anyone in railroad managment (legal department) who saw, heard, or reviewed his testimoney took it from there…he cooked his own goose so to speak.
Maybe. We don’t know that the engineer went along with it. As someone else mentioned, this was still during the caboose era and he could have dumped it from the caboose, although that might negate the results of his test, the air being dumped from the rear end rather than the head end. Or, he might have rode the head end to help with the work, although with a six car local, it wouldn’t have been like he was away from the work and, in the course of riding the head end, reached over and pulled the emergency brake valve, catching the engineer unawares. Don’t know, one must remember that this was still the remnants of the era when enginemen and trainmen didn’t always see eye to eye. I know what has been said, that the crew all got along well, but still, it is possible.
It is probaly easier to start from the top…Trainmaster/Road Foreman of Engines, dispatcher, conductor, engineer, head brakeman, rear brakeman, trainmen, fireman (if any). The conductor is in charge of the train, interfaces with trainmaster, dispatcher, and operators on one side, engineer, train personell on the other; the engineer is in charge of the operation/movement of the train under the auspices of the trainmaster/roadforeman of engines, the dispatcher,and the conductor. And that is probably only an interpretation of the rules. Best definition is in the Operating Book of Rules of any given railroad which probbly differes in wording from time to time and road to road, but is a basically outlined above. Yes the difference between the authority of the conductor and the engineer is blurred, very blurred which has caused great arguments and ill feelings between the two crafts. But it has also worked for over 175 years!
When I worked for the BNSF as an conductor, the local union steward would go ballastic when you mentioned “management.” He would say that if you hired on as a conductor with the thought of getting into management, you might as well plan to transfer when you become a manager because no one will talk to you.