Thanks for the correction, Jeff. I should have known there weren’t two Joes in that show.
Happy birthday today to Brother Larry Ackerman. He hasn’t been around here much lately, but he’s still railroading. Our best to you!
I’m surprised the following item hasn’t already generated its’ own thread, but for those of you that follow the corporate side of railroading I found this on the CN website, datelined December 30, 2011.
CN completes merger of DMIR, DWP into Wisconsin Central
http://www.cn.ca/en/media-news-merger-wisconsin-central-20111230.htm
Bruce
One for Carl before I crash for the day:
New (to me) reporting mark I saw. EAMX 5200, 3 pocket ARI hopper built in 04. Any ideas of who they used to belong to? The marks looked fresh.
I remember the comment of one old-time radio announcer commenting on a note he received from a guy who listened to him “every night, before I crash.”
“Was he airborne?”
Couldn’t tell you right now who the previous operator of this car was; it seems to be one-of-a-kind on the Everest Railcar Services roster. (EAMX 5201 is similar–same dimensions, but a different volume and gravity-pneumatic outlets.) I’ll get back to you on this in a couple of weeks, when my contact for such info returns from his vacation/surgery recovery.
Pat and I will be taking advantage of our amazing weather by biking our errands around town today. We’re supposed to break 50 degrees today, and still be in the 40s tomorrow. It’s 44 right now, in mid-morning.
I’ve been increasingly bothered by the story of the suicide of young Alex Frye in Cheyenne a week or so ago. He was a kid who loved trains, knew everything about them, had a lot of friends (in the community, in his railroad club, and on the railroads themselves), yet was driven over the edge by bullying at school–apparently by some kid who thought it was “funny” to taunt him. There, but for the grace of God…
I hadn’t heard the cause of his death until now. Bullying has been around since time immemorial. Of course, that doesn’t make it right, but it’s only been in the fairly recent past that the way “out” seems to be suicide.
I wonder if the focus on stopping bullying by going after the bully might not be the totally correct course - perhaps we need to look more closely at “innoculating” folks against being bullied.
I suspect that one cause of bullying may well be that the bully actually has a low opinion of him/herself and seeks to “raise” their perceived status by lowering that of others. I’ve seen it happen in other contexts.
It is sad.
Middle school/Junior High is absolutely the worst…people seem to be able to dish it out, but don’t know how to take it. And it’s the ones who are too nice to dish it out who wind up getting it.
Back in a minute, with another pretty move involving our new crossover in town…
Busy monitoring news about CSX’s mishap in northwestern Indiana today. There are a couple of threads already on this.
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Funny you mention the 5201 as it was tagging along for the ride with its brother. Didn’t appear to be pneumatic, I think it was identical to the 5200. But I wasn’t paying that close of attention to it.
No biggie, just caught my eye. Probably because of the 2 sequential numbers.
UMLER could have bogus info on this car. Gravity-pneumatic outlets aren’t always dramatically different from straight-gravity outlets. I was surprised by the identical dimensions and different capacity, as shown in UMLER.
If you say these cars were built by ARI, and the 5200-cubic-foot capacity shown in UMLER is correct, they are Through-Sill cars (look like Center Flows, but have a distinct center sill, which Center Flows lack).
One day last week I showed up for work just as the first group to take this year’s rules test were tying up. 12 out of 17 failed it. One who just passed it by one question said to me, “A lot of good railroaders failed it.”
On another forum, populated mostly by railroaders, a person from Chicago said 33 out of 40 failed it. On the second try, 24 of the 33 failed it again. (Normally, two strikes and you’re out although I know of some who’ve been given a third, final chance before.)
Some, including it sounds like some officers, think the test might be flawed. Especially the part that refers to Air Brake/Train Handling rules. We are getting a new AB/TH rule book in a week or two. The correct answers on the test reflect the new book, not the current rules. Not everyone has yet received the new book. Some rules have been changed.
I haxe to take it in October. I have the study guide. A few have said the study guide this time around doesn’t really help with the test. Some of the questions on the study guide are. in my opinion, questionable. They don’t belong on a test. As an example, one question sets up a scenario where you’re being tested by a manager in the field with a red board. The question doesn’t ask what actions you take, but is this a valid test? Validity or fairness of a manager’s field test is usually decided later. Sometimes on appeal of discipline when a person has failed, sometimes to stop a precedent from being set when they passed.
I guess that should be added to the “life of a young conductor.” Every couple of years you have to retake and pass the rules tests to keep your job.
Jeff
We do rules every year, and brakes every other year. Add to that “special interest” stuff like the recent electronic device mandates and it turns into a long weekend (we’re mostly volunteer).
On top of that, the passing score on a couple of the tests was 100%. No room for error or a misinterpreted question.
With conductor certification coming, it’s just gonna get more involved.
I’m so glad that’s all behind me. Each time, before I’d take my tests, I’d be hearing rumors about how the one coming up was harder than before. I managed to pass them all, usually by comfortable margins, But I was uncomfortable afterwards, especially about air brake rules, since I never had the occasion to make brake tests or inspections in the course of my job (on the hump, air is The Enemy!).
(Note…a lot of the yard guys complained about the signals covered on the tests, how they’d never have to use those, etc. That wasn’t a problem for me–I was a railfan, and use those signals to figure out what I’m about to see happen. They never gave me a bit of worry!)
The last three or four times I took the test, we had a couple of facilitators–yard men like ourselves who would conduct the study classes. They were not able to actually administer the tests–a manager had to do that. But I understand that they no longer have “agreement” trainers. I’m not sure the managers have the same interest in having “their” people pass the tests and understand what they’re doing afterwards.
Jeff, I was lucky in a way–I never had to take the number of tests that you, an engineer, have to!
Jeff, Larry, I understand perfectly why knowledge of rules is essential to road work. Apparently not all the test writers know what they are asking.
The last eight years I worked, I had to be certified to ship hazmat by air and by ground, and I was recertified every other year for air and every third year for ground. Actually, we were not graded for our knowledge of the instruction, but were passed if we attended all the sessions. The carrier drivers also had to have knowledge of the regulations–and from time to time I had to instruct them (the first time I shipped “empty” gas cylinders, the truck driver told me he could not accept all of my shipment as it was–and he was right). Once a government inspector came by and wanted to see my certification papers; had I not had them, I would have not been allowed to ship. He also looked at the hazmat that was in my care to make certain that everything was marked as it should be. The air regulations were much stricter than the ground regulations (no inhalation hazard gases at all, among other things).
When I compare ETT’s of several years ago with more recent ones, it is obvious that the proper care with hazmat has become more serious.
"Left Hand, meet Right Hand . . . " [:-^] Or, with the high percentage not passing based on the numbers that Jeff cited, a real question of “Who’s out of step here ?” is raised. Did that many people with umpty-ump years of seniority really just become dumb and unqualified to operate a train, as they did the only day before ? Did MicroSoft write the new rule book, the guidelines, or the test, or were those tasks ‘outsourced’ to overseas or a lowest bidder who knows zilch about railroad air brake operations ?
Actually, it might be a good idea to have a couple officers/ managers who ought to know the subject - RFE’s, Air Brake Supervisors, etc. - take the test, and see if they too have trouble passing it. I’ll withhold any cynicism about that, but if enough don’t, then maybe someone will realize that for sure the test is flawed, not the people taking it.
If not - and those numbers of crewmen are mindlessly discharged - I want to be first in line for tickets to watch the hearing after the union ‘grieves’ that the test is factually incorrect and unfair, it goes to arbitration, and expert witnesses proceed to demonstrate ‘chapter and verse’ where the test is wrong. But it’ll never get that far - the disruption to train operations in the meantime caused by a lack of qualified crews will cause questions to be asked, explanations demanded, and orders to be given that will restore some sanity to the process. Not all change
Our managers have to take the new rules test every year before they can give the classes. How do I know?
They’ve asked me for help.
We’ve encountered this with the state EMT tests. Every now and then a test will come across with dismal scores. It’s quite obvious that the problem isn’t the students - it’s very unlikely one particular group would be that bad statewide.
In response to Larry’s post: Particularly if you can then isolate and focus on the few questions that almost everyone is having trouble with, and the answer(s) that are taking them astray - it becomes pretty clear.
zug - LOL ! [(-D] [tup] I rest my case . . .
- Paul North.
Further on Jeff’s posts: Didn’t some great and widely-respected ex-C&NW rules guru retire from the UP this past year, or the year before ? MIght it be that his replacement isn’t quite as sharp (for whatever reason), hence this snafu ?
- Paul North.
Well, it’s official: I just finished up my 5th year on the railroad. Now I’m one step closer to almost having a clue as to what I’m doing out here. But still a long way to go…