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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Union votes down BNSF’s one-person crew proposal
Thank god!
Who would vote on a measure that might cut their own throat later?
What would be un-PC about Master Conductor? (Unless a woman in the job is called a Mistress Conductor…) Are there no women Trainmasters?
CB&Q and FW&D? What about C&S?
I’m surprised in today’s “politically correct” environment that Master Conductor was selected as a title.
I’m surprised in today’s “politically correct” environment that Master Conductor was selected as a title.
I’m surprised in today’s “politically correct” environment that Master Conductor was selected as a title.
David Streeter,
Here’s one:
“Jackie” Bigelowe (probably mutilated her spelling), assigned to Martinez, Ca
A notable woman, she was, including Evelyn Newell, the first of the Class 1 R.R. woman engineers. Made the cover of Time mag. Pretty good at the work of running engines and trains, Each were.
Then she was appointed Rules and Training Officer…nomadic, those officers held classes all over SP’s system, but as RFE, LA, if I had a question about rules, I could go to the bank with her answer. The R & T office was next to mine in the LA Taylor Yard office.
Judgement: later, as TM at Ozol, she’s helping one of those crazy moves that, if it works, denudes a fowl and a cap is decorated…it did.
The engine was on the east end; pulling the train out of the storage track, the track, shame on me, that’s how I identified it, that used-to be-SN mainline; it’s factual. A great guy, RFE friend, pulled it out…I pulled, from the other end, from \the Mococo line to the eastbound Cal-P at Ozol
She put her “foot on the rail” and our Conductor crossed me over, we came back “against the grain,” and she had lined us into the yard.
She said she would tie-down the engine.
We wasted no time rushing over to the engine and getting out of town eastward ahead of the Coast Starlight…stayed ahead of it…
I had brought that engine, running around the train, into the yard, way, way, way too fast…25 instead of 10 mph. She judged I knew the risks…recently rebuilt, renewed yard lead.
The trip was completed, no problems.
We never spoke again.
Coming your way: driverless trucks ten years from now… won’t be pretty for railroads.
Great news. Thankfully lessons must have been learned when the unions agreed to the elimination of the caboose.
(Fictitious conversation overheard at BNSF management) “Sir, with the PTC mandate taking place right away, we won’t need more than one person on the train, so I propose we use a person called Master Conductor until then! We won’t have to pay him extra because we’ll tell him if he doesn’t want the job someone else will take it because with smaller crews coming we won’t need as many conductors; so he better take this opportunity while he can. We’ll take another conductor that is not being used and pay him chauffeur’s wages to drive his own car to transport the Master Conductor to where he is needed and then chase the train to pick him up after he is not needed to drive to the next location where he is needed. To keep the Master Conductor from exceeding crew duty time we’ll say that while he is being chauffeured to a new location in a private car he is really off duty so we can use him immediately after he gets to his new location. Because we don’t have inward facing cameras, no one will know if he is sleeping. I believe we can save tens of thousands of dollars doing this and the money we will save will more than pay for any incidents we might have! What do you think; is it worth presenting; do you think the union will fall for; I mean buy off on it?” “Well son, with a fancy name like Master Conductor; it just might work!”
Are you kidding me? What was BNSF thinking? Did they really think the unions would allow this kind of nonsense. Lol lol lol lol lol lol inhale lol lol lol lol lol. Yes! It’s that funny.
This is GREAT news for all of us on the ground. As a conductor working for another class one this proposal had the rumor mile in overdrive. Glad to see common sense won out and the pursuit of profits takes a back seat THIS time.
Sounds like Jackie was good at her job.
I still don’t know what’s un-PC about “Master Conductor.”
As I have thought more about this the whole concept of “master conductors” is just plain stupid.
Ya know, you can insert all of the doublespeak you want about “right-sizing” and “working smart.” But it all boils down to taking away the straw to make bricks (doing more and more and more with less).
I guess BNSF did not learn from the Lac-Megantic wreck
Mr. Turcotte is on to something. Indeed, if driverless trucks are allowed unrestricted operation on the nation’s local roads and interstate highways it will be big trouble for the freight railroads.
But will a public, and a number of elected officials as well, that are up in arms about the current CBR traffic, be more accepting of driverless tractors hauling 53’ trailers and containers at high speeds up and down interstates? I have never driven such truck traffic-intensive interstates as I-81 but from photos taken along that particular road, it sure looks intimidating.
But getting back to the subject at hand, it will be interesting to see what BNSF’s next move will be. One thing in this debate that has greatly bothered me is the reference two notable rail industry observers have made (Messers. Frank Wilner of Railway Age and Trains’ own Fred Frailey) that for decades commuter and Amtrak trains have been, and continue to be, operated with only the engineer in the cab. Of course there’s nothing wrong or unsafe with that because the conductors are aboard back in the train! And where push-pull or DMU operation is in effect, the conductor can spend a fair amount of the trip in the cab. That’s a far cry from what BNSF is proposing. There may be good arguments in favor of the BNSF crew consist proposal but IMHO, the justification for it based on passenger train staffing simply isn’t fair.
PTC, either as an overlay to current ctc or as standalone, will inevitably bring other changes. In a way, the operating unions have only themselves to blame for the federally-mandated (if admittedly unfunded) initiative to get PTC deployed. If the totally avoidable Chatsworth collision not taken place, and that in the wake of other avoidable collisions that did not garner such media coverage, the imperative for PTC deployment would probably not have occurred. Spuyten Duyvil, another fatal and totally avoidable accident, only re-inforced the imperative.
Larry Gauthier…I think you have hit the scenario right on the head!
I read most of the agreement, its on the UTU website, look for BNSF GC0001. Wayyy too much “at the discression of BNSF…” for me to like. Even buying out the old heads was ‘up to the discression of BNSF,’ up till 2019!
After all the Prior Right people are gone then they can reopen Crew Consist…until then…its up to each General Comittee as to rather they want to get into it or not. With my employer it will be around 2018 or even later.
Delay, delay, delay…but the day of reckoning is coming…but I’ll be retired by then.