We have a good one too, how about you being the hogger, your crew is shoving a track, you ask the crew if the point is protected, they say yes, you get down there and both the crew are standing by the air spot, along with the trainmaster, who fires all of you for shoving blind, with out protection. Better, your putting 10 cars in a track that holds 30, you know they fit, you have not shoved half the length of the track, you have shoved this track for years, and you can see the point anyway. Trainmaster says its dark, you can’t see the point, broken rails etch…by the way, your engins is facing away from the move, and the crew is on the off side where you cant see them. How do they justify firing the engineer, he did what he was suppost to, he asked, and was told yes. Is he suppost to get down, walk back, make sure someone is ridding the point, and then walk back, remount the motor and start shoving?
Yee Ha…
Ed
Ed,
I can’t believe it. Did you really irritate a trainmaster? Imagine that, as kind, courteous, considerate and tolerant as they all are (Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk)!
If it’s any consolation, when line supervisors screw up, the discipline they receive can be much more severe, especially when compared side by side with that assessed to those represented by a collective bargaining agreement.
Have a safe day…gdc
What do you mean by “Being Protected”? How do you protect your self? Is that not the job of the dispatcher who should know were you are at?
what he is talking about is when you are making a shove move there has to be somebody riding the rear of the cut of cars. if you know that the track is clear and that it would hold 15 cars and you are putting 5 cars in this track it should fit and with no worry of hitting anything. but the way the railroad officials think that somebody could walk out on to the rail back there in the way. the building could fall in and we not here it and derail those cars. the dispatcher may know where you are but that is not his responsibility to keep you from hitting another train. the dispatcher can run train after train in the same direction it is each crews responsibility to keep from running over each other. in other words the only real responsibility the dispatche has is move freight, and not have head light meets.
No consolation at all. Shame that the opportunity to teach employees, instead of puni***hem regardless of their rank, is so often missed. One of the jobs I had before railroading was as a manager of several retail auto parts stores, and as a manager, I always found it is more efficent, safer, and much more profitable to have your employees work with you, instead of for you. And irritate is such a soft word for his feelings for me. I think pissed off is a little closer. And all I did was point out his “flashey move” put two crews on deadhead, and left two trains out in the boonies, waiting for new crews to be cabbed to them. I did learn something though, dont help that type of person out, just stand still and let them shoot themselves in the foot, its safer that way. Kinda funny too!
Keep you posts coming, great info with really good style…
Ed
Hi Tim
What I was referring to was a new FRA safty rule here on the port. Due to a switchman taking a risk he shouldnt have,(shoving 34 cars into a track he knew holds only 36 cars) and losing count of how many cars he had shoved into a industry track, well, lets say its was a while before we got the cars back out of the ship channel and the catfish out of the cars.
What I meant by protection was the requirement that any shoving move in a yard or industry tracks covering more that 1/2 the distance of the track requires that a member of the crew be on the point, (leading car of the shove)watching the movement, or a member of the crew be in such a position that he or she may see the entire length of the track and the entire distance of the movement. In other word, you have to have someone riding the cut in, or watching from the other end to make sure you dont shove out, or over or into something. Also, I was referring to yard work and industry tracks, and most switchmen have worked the industries around their yards, and know how many cars fit where, shoot I walked the tracks and counted enought cars I should know, but, another one of those GCOR rules, “if in doubt, take the safest route”, and thats true. Use common sense, and if your not sure they fit, ride it in. Thats protecting your shove.
Talk to j about the version used on mainline roads, he works for one and would have more info on their version of protection.
Ed
a train master hates it when the rank and file try to and also shows them when they are wrong. kind of like being married.
I agree with that statement it is a whole lot like being married. Rodney Beck switchman/foreman BNSF Chicago Division Galesburg Terminal
Yeah, but at least when your married the sex is for both parties pleasure.
with or with out fore play
irritate was in a sarcastic tone!!!
You’r right though, it’s best not to try to help those kind. No good deed goes unpunished. It’s a shame! gdc
Just bang em till their ears bleed…
Sounds like youv’e have your share of it too!
What positon did you retire at? Sounds like you went pretty far, or were above average intelligence. Keep it coming,
Ed
Ed, we all had our share! It started in the first week as a cub fireman and ended on my last day. On the two days prior to my last, I was out of town and got a weather reroute home. Got home a little after midnight. On the last day, I got to work at 7:15 am for the regular morning conference call and didn’t leave until 6:15 that evening. So much for half days on your last day, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way! Ed, somewhere in these posts, you gave Tim your e-mail. Would you mind if I contacted you there?
A track warrent is written instructions or orders over the radio allowing a train to occupy that section of track. This has since been replaced by Directional Travel, Automatic Block Signaling, CTC, and PTC signaling but it is still used in dark territory and on branch lines.
Besides being 15 years late, you just failed a rules exam with that poor grasp of what a track warrant is. Go back and study some more to see what makes that statement wrong.
I’m not a railroader but I’ll venture a guess. Track Warrants are an operating system using a standardized form authorizing track occupancy which is completed in accordance with instructions from the dispatcher. Automatic block signals are a safety overlay that indicate track occupancy but do not authorize it. Directional travel involves a general assignment of train movement over two roughly parallel lines and does not assign occupancy.
I doubt that I got a passing grade.[:-^]
Track Warrant Control is a method to authorize train movements or protect men or machines on a main track within specified limits in a territory designated in the timetable. Where TWC is in effect, there may or may not be automatic block signals in effect.
Track warrants are also used to deliver track bulletins to trains, even where TWC is not in effect. This type of warrant lists all track bulletins in effect on the subdivisions the train might operate on. This warrant also has the “other specific instructions” box marked and instructs that the warrant only delivers the bulletins and does not authorize use of the main track.
Jeff
I like Jeff’s description of track warrants. Its used to grant authority on the main track where authorized by the timetable.
Engineers have a nationwide license, but they have to be qualified on the rules of the railroad on which they operate. Not all railroads use the same rule book and even those using the same rule book have very different sets of special instructions that modify the rules based on the the policies of that railroad.
Not all railroads use track warrants, the NORAC (north east US) use “Form D” and Canadian roads use OCS. All are very similar, but not exactly the same.
Not all railroads use the same track warrant form. The UP has changed its track warrant several times since 1985, the latest a couple years ago, where the items on the warrant were rearranged in their order on the page, to put the most restrictive stuff first.
Living near some dark territory on CSX, I hear a lot of their “EC-1,” and I’ve copied a lot of NORAC Form D’s. As noted, the information is basically the same, only the lines are changed.