Whiskers and such

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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To maybe clear up a point we may have taken for granted that you folks understood…

Seniority applies to where you work also.

If, like on Jeff’s carrier and location, most trains are handled with pool crews, keep in mind the crews are assigned to that terminal…not the train or job, by seniority.

So, if terminal A is way out in the frozen wasteland of upper Montana, with a good day being only -10 degrees with 30 mph winds, and you get called out every 3rd day…

And terminal B is right next to Miami, Florida , you work every day, maybe hog out every time…guess where all the senior guys are going to bid into when the chance arises?

If a position on the board at terminal A comes open, say a guy retires, then that vacant slot is put up for bid…if no one bids on it, the youngest guy in that district or division is forced to it…even if it means he has to rent a room and live away from his family to hold it.

Which is why you find some terminals flush with old heads, and some where most of the employees are younger than my boots.

That’s one of the less romantic aspects of class 1 railroading, you may end up moving ever few years as the business changes, increases or drops off, and seniority helps you choose places you at least like to live.

I am lucky, I work for a class 3, switching/terminal railroad, we never leave Harris county, Texas, so I am home in my bed in the house I have lived in 40 years every night.

Here is a small example of the difference in local agreements.

Here on the PTRA, North Yard is the only home terminal.

Pasadena Yard is an away from home terminal, as is Manchester Yard.

These are our 3 major yards and by contract the only places our class 1 member lines can interchange cars with us.

(weird thing is, all 3 yards are less than a 10 minute freeway drive from each other)

If you were hired pre-1985, you are considered a “protected” man, meaning in essence you

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These appear to be pretty complex labor agreements. Jeff, Ed, and others…thanks for explainations. Are the old 100 miles for a day arrangments pretty much over? If I recall, that was bumped up to about 130 miles back several years ago, then it seems like in the 1980’s or so the contracts changed.

If you could change your contract…what provision would you eliminate or modify. If this is something that for legal reasons you dont want to answer, then I apologize for the question. What is the most unusual situation you have been in due to the contract/work rules.

Ed…you have moved up in seniority to a fairly desired position. Is there a reason (either economically or other) for you to consider moving from switchman to engineer?

BTW, as a commission salesman, while my compensation/work rules are not nearly as complex as yours, there are always plenty of things to be considered and anticipated. Like you, we always have to keep track of what we do, who we sell to, the margins, exceptions, provisions, etc. It can make for quite an accounting and rules interpretation…

Everytime you put a couple of sales people together from different industries, it takes about 5 minutes of conversation for it to turn to “ok…now what is your compensation based on?” So, dont take it personal for all of these questions from me. If so…tell me to shut up and I will.

ed

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These appear to be pretty complex labor agreements. Jeff, Ed, and others…thanks for explainations. Are the old 100 miles for a day arrangments pretty much over? If I recall, that was bumped up to about 130 miles back several years ago, then it seems like in the 1980’s or so the contracts changed.

Depends on the railroad and the local contract, when NS and CSX split Conrail, they had to honor the local agreements at the various terminals, so do and some don’t have mileage.

If you could change your contract…what provision would you eliminate or modify. If this is something that for legal reasons you dont want to answer, then I apologize for the question. What is the most unusual situation you have been in due to the contract/work rules.

Reinstate “productivity pay” for all T&E…somewhat like a profit sharing plan, only guys hired before 1985 have this, the unions traded it away for new hires to as a bargaining tool back then…protected men can make $20,000. A year out of this at a busy terminal.

Ed…you have moved up in seniority to a fairly desired position. Is there a reason (either economically or other) for you to consider moving from switchman to engineer?

I have run an engine…if I worked for a class 1 or a regional, I might bid on engine service, but at the PTRA, well, its about 32 miles on each side of the ship channel, so a few trips out and back and you pretty much saw all there is to see, plus on a switching job in the yard, you kick, stop, stretch, stop, kick, stop…you get the picture, real boring, for me at least, but some guys take to it like a duck to water…

BTW, as a commission salesman, while my compensation/work rules are not nearly as complex as yours, there are always plenty of things to be considered and anticipated. Like you, we always have to keep track of what we do, who we sell to, the margins, exceptions, provisions, etc. It can make for quite an accounting and r

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I’m not really contemplating giving up a career that’s been good to me for 29 years. I do appreciate learning from you and the other railroaders about the industry. Thank you.

In 1982, when the economy was in a bad way, I found myself living in Gillette, Wyoming. One of the guys that rented a room in the same house I did was a BN engineer, hauling coal trains out of the Powder River Basin Mines. He was from LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He said his options at the time, were to sit at home, or work in Wyoming. Would BN have forced him to go out there and work, or was that an economic choice on his part?

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Yes, kinda and yes…

BN didn’t force him out there, his choice to remain employed did.

If the remaining jobs in Wisconsin were all held by guys senior to him, his choice was to exercise his seniority at some other location, or quit railroading.

You are required, by contract, to “protect” your job.

That means placing yourself on a job through the bidding process…once you are bumped off your current position, you have 48 hours from the time you are notified of being bumped to place yourself(bid on a job)…if you don’t, you are marked up on the extra board or pool service, if no slots are open on the pool or extra board, you are forced to any open position there is on any job, if no positions exist at all at that particular terminal, you have the option to place yourself through seniority at any other terminal, if you don’t, you are considered to have resigned your employment.

Some contracts have a furlough agreement, that is like accepting a layoff, but you are off with no pay and often can‘t work for any other carrier.

My railroad has what is know as a “flowback” agreement with UP…guys furloughed from the Port can exercise their seniority at the two UP yards here in Houston…but of course, the furlough list starts at the bottom of the PTRA seniority roster, so guys going over there have zero whiskers…they get little work and no guarantee pay.

But the hook is before the PTRA can hire any new employees, they must “flowback” the guys from the UP, if those guys have 1 year of seniority at the PTRA.

Again, this may vary by local contract, but most read like the above.

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Maybe not. I can’t really speak for BNSF or BN, as it was then, but in my part of the railroading world, in the large seniority district we’ve got, you can either chase your seniority from terminal to terminal or take the furlough until you’re called back in your home terminal. We’ve seen this again with this most recent slowdown in business, where some elected to migrate to whatever they could hold wherever they could hold and others stayed home and waited out the furlough. Just worked with a man a few days ago who was furloughed 13 months but, in all honesty, I’m not sure he had much of anyplace he could have gone.

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With all due respect to Valley and to Ed You can see the differance in contracts, I do know that the BNSF has system wide senority and that means they can go anywhere that the senority they hold allows them to hold a job. and Valley is on a big senority district. on my section of railroad my senority district is St.Louis to louisville ky. My guys have no rights in St.louis we can just take trains there but anything else between we can bid and hold we can . 2 rosters only so to work you haft to have whiskers.

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The current basic day is 130 miles, up from 100 miles. Some of our locals and yard jobs still show working 100 miles for pay purposes. That comes from being paid by the mile, not the hour for the most part. (There are some places where miliage rates have been replaced by hourly rates)

The thing to remember, and this came up on the model railroad side a while back, is that the 100 mile (and now 130 mile day) is not a maximum distance that a crew can work, but the minimum miles paid when you go to work. 100 miles = 8 hours at 12 1/2 mph. If your run was 100 miles or less it paid 100 miles. If over 100 miles, say 125 miles it paid 100 miles at the basic rate and 25 miles at a higher rate, called over miles. Trains had an article some time back that kind of explained how everything worked.

The other thing is runs of 100 miles or less paid overtime after 8 hours. For runs over 100 miles, there is a formula to determine when overtime begins. The long and short of it is that the longer the run, the more time on duty before overtime begins. For today, substitute 130 miles for 100 miles. I’ll use two of the pools I have posted before where I work to show how overtime differs. The North Pool, Boone to Ma

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By moving to Wyoming, did he use his seniority to bump another guy with less whiskers?

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Jeff:

Nice explanation. It finally sunk on me. Each district will have a pay rate. Run 197 miles and you get this standard compensation…which is different from 108 miles, which is different than 145 miles, etc.

Is “overmiles” where you get a differential based on the additional miles?

So, what is the ideal run? Would it be the longer run (with higher threshold for overtime) or is it the smaller run with OT kicking in early?

Does the compensation differ based on longer runs within a district? Here is an example…Fort Wayne to Calumet Yard (Chicago) is about 145 miles. Fort Wayne to Van Loon (interchange to CN) is about 132 miles. All things being equal, does the Calumet Yard run pay more than Van Loon run? Or is it the same since it is in the same district? The Van Loon interchange would probably result in longer time, since it involves interchange and tie downs of cars, but that is another issue (time).

Hey, dont blame you for bringing up the potential flame war here. In my opinion, well never mind.

Ed

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In the early '70’s Wisconsin abolished it’s full crew law, but left a grandfather clause for those working as firemen (mostly at LaCrosse) at the time. The BN went to each one and offered them a deal to move to Alliance, Edgemont or Sheridan which were all in the Denver Region seniority district. The guys that took the offer got moving expenses, some cash, and kept there years of service for vacation time/pay purposes. They went to the bottom of the Denver Region list as system seniority was still way off in the future.

Was that engineer’s name Dave Lysacker ( can’t remember the exact spelling) by any chance?

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Sorry, I don’t recall his name. Truth is, I hardly ever saw the guy, because he was usually either working or sleeping. The longest talk we ever had was when we were trying to explain to his wife on the phone, back in LaCrosse, how to troubleshoot a well pump.

It seemd like he and a lot of other people there were just putting in their time, hoping to move back to somewhere else, whenever the economy improved.

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Good posts here on this subject. Just a few thoughts from myself for what its worth. Actually BNSF does not have total system senority. As a holder on the NHSF roster, I can place myself on all former SF, CB&Q & Frisco lines but up north on the GN, NP, SPS & west of New Orleans on former SP, this does not apply. If one were to work there, they would go the the bottom of the roster and the original hire date would not apply. One change that has taken place in relation to 100 mile yd jobs is in order to get paid a full 8 hrs of work, the job now has to work atleast 4 hrs. Recently a yd crew had a short day of about 3 hrs or so and only got paid for the time actually worked. RSIA is another story. On March 31st, I showed upfor work on aassign local. Four straight starts which this one would have been #5 and then off for the RSIA day followed by rest day. Logged 253 hrs for the month–nothing close to the 276 capped. Did not until I showed up that earlier in day, crew office marked me off acct RSIA. Called crew office to resolve it, they were not going let me work. Filed a claim which thus has not been paid but not declined either. Three days later on April 3rd i show up to begin another work wk, they still hads me off RSIA. This time I got it resolved and was allowed to work. Has anyone out there been hasseled by a RSIA rule?

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Ed, sorry it took so long to answer.

All things being equal the longer run, the more it pays. The 145 will pay more than the 132 going by miliage only. Overtime will start earlier for the 132 mile run (8’07" on duty) than the 145 mile run (8’55’). There is also different rates for different classes of service; thru-freight, local freight, etc.

So if the shorter run is classed at a different and higher rate, and/or usually gets overtime, it could pay more than the longer one. Which is better? I guess it depends on how hard you want to work.

Longer runs (where there is a signifcant difference in length of runs) usually will have more turns in the pool, shorter ones less turns. All things being equal, the longer pools will work less, but make more per run. The shorter pools will work more, but make less per run. At the end of the pay half if everything is staffed right, everyone will gross about the same amount of pay. Some just worked more (or harder) than others to get it.

Jeff

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The first requirement is a frontal lobotamy. After that its a great place to work!! I really do enjoy my job. But I couldn’t tell you why.