I’m on the TE/SL that’s having mechanical issues UPDATE: We are about 14 hours late

[me_little_me]

You know, maybe some of these trains should have a spare operating crew onboard, sleeping when they're not on duty, so that if the other crew runs out of hours, a fresh crew is immediately available. They do something like that on those long overseas nonstop flights so the plane doesn't have to land at intermediate points and pick up a fresh crew.

Rather than than that, some manager should have used his/her head and, realizing that the conductor would run out of time because of delays, would have replaced him in El Paso by having him there when the train arrived.

 

[iliketrains]

They’ve announced a complimentary dinner for all because of the extreme lateness of the train. They are serving beef stew.

 

[tgstubbs1]

They’ve announced a complimentary dinner for all because of the extreme lateness of the train. They are serving beef stew.

Any pics?

 

[bratkinson]

Any pics?

Years ago, I was on #422 and crew ran out of hours 10 min shy of SAS. thankfully, the next crew for the train was rested and called early.

As for having spare, fully rested 'emergency' crew available, the cost of doing so, including out of home terminal would more than double T & E crew costs. And don't forget, they are all covered by collective bargaining agreements, etc.

 

[Maelstrom]

Looks like you finally made it.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Although the ID of the rider will not be provided to protect the Guilty, I know of a passenger that hopped off the Texas Eagle #21 several times while it was" in the hole" close to the Austin Station waiting on Northbound UP Freight and Rock Trains that sometimes cause the Eagle to be 2-3 Hours Late into the Austin Station.

Engineers change in Austin, Conductors go to San Antonio from Ft Worth,but several times we sat for hours waiting on relief Crews when the T&E Staff timed out!

No, the Conductor wasn't told and a party that also will remain nameless opened and closed the Downstairs door for the detraining passenger!

Said passenger was home before the Eagle ever got Clearance to proceed to the Austin Station thanks to Uber/Lyft!

 

[me_little_me]

Although the ID of the rider will not be provided to protect the Guilty, I know of a passenger that hopped off the Texas Eagle #21 several times while it was" in the hole" close to the Austin Station waiting on Northbound UP Freight and Rock Trains that sometimes cause the Eagle to be 2-3 Hours Late into the Austin Station.

Engineers change in Austin, Conductors go to San Antonio from Ft Worth,but several times we sat for hours waiting on relief Crews when the T&E Staff timed out!

No, the Conductor wasn't told and a party that also will remain nameless opened and closed the Downstairs door for the detraining passenger!

Said passenger was home before the Eagle ever got Clearance to proceed to the Austin Station thanks to Uber/Lyft!

So how much was your Uber trip home, Bob?

 

[NSC1109]

You know, maybe some of these trains should have a spare operating crew onboard, sleeping when they're not on duty, so that if the other crew runs out of hours, a fresh crew is immediately available. They do something like that on those long overseas nonstop flights so the plane doesn't have to land at intermediate points and pick up a fresh crew.

can’t, it’s not legal. would be considered a deadhead.

 

[NSC1109]

Rather than trying to travel with excess crew "just in case" - why not just allow the crew that is onboard to work "emergency hours" until the emergency is over. There is no real "need" to hold a train in distress just because the crew "timed out".

Lol what

Does FRA allow that?

No, absolutely not.

 

[tgstubbs1]

can’t, it’s not legal. would be considered a deadhead.

What does that mean?

 

[NSC1109]

What does that mean?

traveling from one location to another to begin your work is one meaning. Another is a crew returning from a place to their terminal.

For example: I have a crew that goes on duty at my terminal at 0700. They have twelve hours to work, so they die at 1900. The train they’re supposed to pick up is at a plant two hours away, so they have to take a van from my terminal to get to the train. Their on duty time is considered 0700, not 0900 when they get to their train. The two hour journey to get to the train is called a deadhead.

Another example is if an Amtrak crew (or any train crew) who expires on the mainline remains on the train after the new crew has taken over and continues to the first crew’s terminal, where the crew change was to have originally taken place. That is also considered a deadhead.

The other issue is that the crews would have to be qualified on the territory and you’d be paying two crews to do the job of one to cover the small chance of needing a recrew away from a crew change point. It wouldn’t be worth it. And they sure as heck aren’t gonna do that for free.

 

[Trogdor]

Rather than than that, some manager should have used his/her head and, realizing that the conductor would run out of time because of delays, would have replaced him in El Paso by having him there when the train arrived.

Your pointless snide comment notwithstanding, they do this quite often when a crew is reaching their HOS limit. However, it can't be done in every circumstance. Maybe the crew was expected to make it before they ran out of hours, but some new delay put them beyond that limit at a point too late to send out a crew before the first one expired. Or maybe the train is traveling away from the crew base, with a similar situation, and they determined that it's easier to hold the train there while the crew caught up to it rather than have it continue further away from the crew that is coming to relieve them (if the train is in a location convenient for the dogcatch crew to access, but moving forward would put the train in some middle-of-nowhere area more difficult to get to them, it makes more sense to stay where they are).

Or, and given the situation around the country right now, a quite likely alternative is that they simply ran out of available crews because staffing is thin, extra board is near or at zero, and delays causing trains to be hours out of their scheduled slot mean that the normal crew rotation doesn't work because the crew that would have taken that train is now needed to take the train in the other direction that the now-hours-late crew was originally supposed to head back on. So you're stuck waiting for someone to get legally rested enough to call them out to send them out. And when you're dealing with a train that only runs 3 days/week, you're already not going to have a very large crew base of conductors & engineers to start with. Add a multi-hour delay, COVID sick calls, and the general staffing shortage affecting many industries throughout the US and the world, and you're going to wind up with little to no margin for error. A few days ago, this resulted in a handful of LD trains being cancelled outright. Here, it results in a delay. Pick your poison.

"Some manager" can't make a crew appear out of thin air, despite what some on here apparently think.

 

[Asher]

Said passenger was home before the Eagle ever got Clearance to proceed to the Austin Station thanks to Uber/Lyft!

Said passenger? Heh heh

 

[peteypablo]

I've wondered about just abandoning a train on which I am a passenger a time or two. Once, the Lake Shore Limited headed for Chicago was stranded by a derailment and they ended up sending buses for us. The dining and lounge car crew threw away all the food the minute they heard we would be bused, but it was about five hours before the buses actually showed up. I considered jumping off and walking to the town I could see and calling for a taxi from there. Another time, the westbound California Zephyr was stalled short of Green River, Utah, and I considered calling a friend to pick me up on I-70.

My guess is that the train crew will insist that they have the right to refuse to permit you to detrain because of the liability issues created by allowing you to wander off into unfamiliar territory. However, once you are off the train, I doubt they would dare grab you and put you forcibly back on the train because that would possibly constitute wrongful detention or even kidnapping. So, assuming you are confident enough in your ability to care for yourself once off the train, the trick is to get off without them noticing until you are gone.

I suppose there could also be repercussions that would affect future train travel if they decided to revoke your points for the trip or even deny you the right to travel on Amtrak in the future.

 

[NSC1109]

Your pointless snide comment notwithstanding, they do this quite often when a crew is reaching their HOS limit. However, it can't be done in every circumstance. Maybe the crew was expected to make it before they ran out of hours, but some new delay put them beyond that limit at a point too late to send out a crew before the first one expired. Or maybe the train is traveling away from the crew base, with a similar situation, and they determined that it's easier to hold the train there while the crew caught up to it rather than have it continue further away from the crew that is coming to relieve them (if the train is in a location convenient for the dogcatch crew to access, but moving forward would put the train in some middle-of-nowhere area more difficult to get to them, it makes more sense to stay where they are).

Or, and given the situation around the country right now, a quite likely alternative is that they simply ran out of available crews because staffing is thin, extra board is near or at zero, and delays causing trains to be hours out of their scheduled slot mean that the normal crew rotation doesn't work because the crew that would have taken that train is now needed to take the train in the other direction that the now-hours-late crew was originally supposed to head back on. So you're stuck waiting for someone to get legally rested enough to call them out to send them out. And when you're dealing with a train that only runs 3 days/week, you're already not going to have a very large crew base of conductors & engineers to start with. Add a multi-hour delay, COVID sick calls, and the general staffing shortage affecting many industries throughout the US and the world, and you're going to wind up with little to no margin for error. A few days ago, this resulted in a handful of LD trains being cancelled outright. Here, it results in a delay. Pick your poison.

"Some manager" can't make a crew appear out of thin air, despite what some on here apparently think.

If I had a nickel every time someone wanted me to just “find a crew”, I wouldn’t have to work anymore. Crew bases were slashed with the PSR craze, they’re bumping people left and right, terminal to terminal to terminal in an effort to alleviate staffing issues that were caused by their own shortsightedness and driving morale into the ground at the same time. It’s a joke. I frequently end up holding at least one train for crew rest and one train for no locomotives (even though we have 150 of them stored nearby…..)

 

[Barb Stout]

If I had a nickel every time someone wanted me to just “find a crew”, I wouldn’t have to work anymore. Crew bases were slashed with the PSR craze, they’re bumping people left and right, terminal to terminal to terminal in an effort to alleviate staffing issues that were caused by their own shortsightedness and driving morale into the ground at the same time. It’s a joke. I frequently end up holding at least one train for crew rest and one train for no locomotives (even though we have 150 of them stored nearby…..)

What is PSR?

 

[allanorn]

What is PSR?

Precision Scheduled Railroading. A method of logistics planning that serves shareholders over customers by attempting to minimize labor, operating costs, and potentially rolling stock such as locomotives.

 

[MARC Rider]

I've wondered about just abandoning a train on which I am a passenger a time or two. Once, the Lake Shore Limited headed for Chicago was stranded by a derailment and they ended up sending buses for us. The dining and lounge car crew threw away all the food the minute they heard we would be bused, but it was about five hours before the buses actually showed up. I considered jumping off and walking to the town I could see and calling for a taxi from there. Another time, the westbound California Zephyr was stalled short of Green River, Utah, and I considered calling a friend to pick me up on I-70.

My guess is that the train crew will insist that they have the right to refuse to permit you to detrain because of the liability issues created by allowing you to wander off into unfamiliar territory. However, once you are off the train, I doubt they would dare grab you and put you forcibly back on the train because that would possibly constitute wrongful detention or even kidnapping. So, assuming you are confident enough in your ability to care for yourself once off the train, the trick is to get off without them noticing until you are gone.

I suppose there could also be repercussions that would affect future train travel if they decided to revoke your points for the trip or even deny you the right to travel on Amtrak in the future.

I was once on a 10-hour late Capitol Limited, so late that I was starting to worry about the last connection of the night to Baltimore (NER 66). It occurred to me that if I got off at Harpers Ferry, my wife could pick me up. It's about a 1 hour 15 minute drive from our house to Harper's Ferry, and thus, I could have gotten home much earlier than taking the train, even if I made my connection in Washington. I asked the crew about it, and they had no problem with me detraining at Harpers Ferry, but my wife was reluctant to drive around in the winter dark in unfamiliar territory, so I stayed on board. Fortunately, I was able to make 66 and get home that night.

Of course, that involved getting off at an actual station stop, not hopping off at some random stretch of track.

 

[MARC Rider]

Precision Scheduled Railroading. A method of logistics planning that serves shareholders over customers by attempting to minimize labor, operating costs, and potentially rolling stock such as locomotives.

Of course, in the end it screws over the shareholders because the rail service is so lousy that the customers abandon shipping by rail and switch to trucks, thus causing revenue and profits to crater. The bright MBAs who thought it up don't have to worry, though. Even if their jobs with the railroad are now at risk from the cratered revenue, they can just go find jobs in other industries to wreck them, too.

 

[allanorn]

I've wondered about just abandoning a train on which I am a passenger a time or two.

Bailing at a station? No problem. Plans change all of the time. If I was in a sleeper I would let the SCA know as common courtesy, but they won’t stop you from getting off at a station before your destination.

Bailing away from a station? Likely covered in the Contract of Carriage but it’s plausible that Amtrak can make you a persona non grata for future trips if it’s not an emergency.

 

[Asher]

They’ve announced a complimentary dinner for all because of the extreme lateness of the train. They are serving beef stew.

You always give full reports on trips and good ones at that. I’m wondering what has happened to the conclusion of this trip. You didn’t take ”Said Passengers“ method of departure I hope.

 

[me_little_me]

Precision Scheduled Railroading. A method of logistics planning that serves shareholders over customers by attempting to minimize labor, operating costs, and potentially rolling stock such as locomotives.

It's the railroads' version of firing most of their Customer Service staff and replacing them with the "...We are experiencing a high volume of calls so your wait time ..."

 

[NSC1109]

What is PSR?

Others have explained it well but I’ll take a stab at it too:

It’s essentially doing more with less. Where can we find areas to maximize our efficiencies and minimize our wastes. On paper it’s a good strategy: you have trains scheduled for departure at this time, scheduled to arrive at this time with X amount of buffer time to account for delays. You should always know when a train is arriving and departing and as a result you can reduce your workforce because you won’t have as many dogcatches and folks can rest better because they know when they’re working.

Unfortunately what some of these folks forgot about when creating this mess was that the railroad is a high impact place. The equipment is used and subjected to work nearly every single day with little downtime and as a result they wear, quickly. It wasn’t just people they cut, HQ cut locomotives too. We have something like 150 in Northtown alone. My old terminal had 12 Geeps stacked up on a service track, most of them RCL equipped. As a result, the remaining locomotives get used more and more and break more often leaving trains stranded because they don’t have enough horsepower to run or don’t comply with train makeup instructions. Additionally, they cut staffing at the system shops so now locomotives take longer to fix too. They also cut train crews and support staff and reorganized everything so managers who have no business making operating decisions and who have rarely if ever been exposed to the field work making operational decisions. Trainmasters no longer have the authority they used to have. This all adds up to delayed trains, overworked and unhappy crews, and the culture of being one or two service interruptions away from a crisis on a part of the network and no one having the ability to fix it locally, it has to be routed through HQ, unless you’re at a major terminal.

Despite all of this I wouldn’t go work anywhere else because while I’m here I know I can do what I can to make my little corner of the railroad a better and happier place.

Hope that helps.

 

[alanh]

You can definitely be banned from future travel if you bail out at an unauthorized place. Opening the door when it says not to breaks the "Who refuse to comply with safety or security rules or with instructions of Amtrak personnel" term.

Arrest? Probably not, though it's technically trespassing to be on the railroad ROW without authorization.

 

[AFriendly]

Precision Scheduled Railroading. A method of logistics planning that serves shareholders over customers by attempting to minimize labor, operating costs, and potentially rolling stock such as locomotives.

Most cynical term in the history of corporate America (which is saying a lot). Slash employment, disregard safety, and generally run everything into the ground all while insisting on running nothing but slow 120-car trains guaranteed to turn off shippers. Best of all, its a win-win for the railroads: the cost-cutting either raises share prices or it creates a new crisis for them to "fix."