Questions for an Amtrak engineer...

[NetJetAmtrak]

I have been a fan of Amtrak for a long time but, I have a few questions that might seem silly..but, I have always wanted to know. Can anyone out there answer? 1) On average, how long is your duty day? Are you limited as I am in aviation? We can work up to 14 hrs duty. 2) When it comes time for a break, who takes over? Or do you have to wait til in a station? 3) Can you order food from the dining car? Do you get meals from the train or do you have to bring a bag lunch? and lastly 4) Do you have engines that you prefer over others? Ex..#206 is always running smooth but #1 is a dog. At my company we fly certain planes that are dreams and others that when we see the number...we are like..how is this plane able to stay in the air...(well...almost)

Thanks for any responses...I have more technical questions but do not want to be too boring on the first time out.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

im not a engineer but i can anwer one of the questions. the engineers and conductors and assistant conductors etc can work a maximum of 12 hours but not per shift. if they work 6 hours the day before and had more then 6 hours rest but not more then 8 or something like that then those 6 hours count towards there next shift so next day they can only work 6 more hours.

 

[Asst Conductor OKJ]

To the first half of your question, yes we are limited. We are allowed a maximum of 12hrs on-duty time. if I work anythig from 00:01 to 11:59 hours I am required to have a minimum of 8 hours rest. If I work 12:00 + I run out of hours of service or "die on the law". If I "go dead" if you will I am entitled to 10 hours of rest. The company tries to have crew changes every 6-8 hours. If somthing happens and we run out of time en-route we must "cease work". We stop the train, call dispatch and await a new crew to relive us, regaurdless of where we are located.

When it's time for a break tough cookies..kinda. It really depends on the run. If the run is over 6 hours there are two engineers in the cab, in my expierence they usualy trade off half way. Runs under 6 hours get 1 engineer, so breaks are taken when your in the station..somtimes they will stop the train though if its urgent. There are also "crew change points along the route...for instance when going to Bakersfield, the engineer gets off the train in Merced, a relief engineer takes over. The original engineer is "at rest" until they are schedualed to take their return train back to Oakland.

Obviously as a Conductor, I can go to the dining car as I desire. We usualy bring a lunch though because train food gets old everyday. Engineers can either radio us to bring a meal up to them at the next stop, or they can also bring their own food.

Yes, there are certain pieces of equipment that crews prefer over other ones. IE: engine no 2006 shuts itself down at station stops. Engine no 2051 is known to have HEP problems en-route when its hot out, etc...There are also good engines 96 loads up fast and has a cold AC...

 

[amtrakwolverine]

why can't the FRA make it a rule to allow the crew to move the train to the closest station even if it means backing up after the crew outlaws. that's better then stranding pax say 1 mile from a station due to either not enough spare crews for that run or it would take 12 hours for them to get there etc. i don't want to be stuck on a train 1 mile from a station for hours due to no replacement crew available till morning or something. or allow a spare crew to sleep in the sleeping car after all it works on airlines cruse ships etc why not trains.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Because its a slippery slope-- the rule is hard lined for a reason. Conductors and Engineers used to be abused by the railroads which pushed them to physical limits regarding in accidents.

You must also consider that moving further down the line may be moving you further away from a rescue crew-- and that being stuck in the middle of nowhere it may take an hour or more to get to the nearest Amtrak station (especially if you're reversing which requires extreme alertness).

Do twelve hours at ANY job and most people are ready to hit the ground and snooze... would you really want a dead-tired crew to actually continue working on two million pounds of train in any situation? It's proven fact-- fatigue causes mistakes and errors, errors and mistakes on the rails causes accidents, accidents can cause death.

Better stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a dogcatch than stranded in the middle of a nowhere awaiting Alameda County's entire fire department to pull you from a wreck...

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

As for airlines and cruise ships... planes have the luxury of being able to fly at 300 mph and make an emergency landing and cruise ships have enough rooms for 3,000 people.

Crews have to be trained on the route and subdivision of the railroad they work on... you can't put a CHI crew on a Western LD train and expect them to be able to take over at SPK, RNO, or ELP if anything went wrong on the tip of a dime... Not to mention the impracticality of carrying four or five extra people for a very rare event.

IIRC the event last winter in CHI involving an outlawed crew stuck in a blizzard happened on a train that DIDN'T carry a sleeping car... So either way the discussion is moot-- you simply can't force the logistics to work.

 

[rrdude]

Because its a slippery slope-- the rule is hard lined for a reason. Conductors and Engineers used to be abused by the railroads which pushed them to physical limits regarding in accidents.
You must also consider that moving further down the line may be moving you further away from a rescue crew-- and that being stuck in the middle of nowhere it may take an hour or more to get to the nearest Amtrak station (especially if you're reversing which requires extreme alertness).

Do twelve hours at ANY job and most people are ready to hit the ground and snooze... would you really want a dead-tired crew to actually continue working on two million pounds of train in any situation? It's proven fact-- fatigue causes mistakes and errors, errors and mistakes on the rails causes accidents, accidents can cause death.

Better stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a dogcatch than stranded in the middle of a nowhere awaiting Alameda County's entire fire department to pull you from a wreck...

Unions, unions, unions,.......................... nuff said. The unions rose to prominence for a reason, as was stated, the RR owners abused the employees..(It's a pendulum-shift thing. One way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth)

But now with cell phones, good highways, etc., there is NO REASON a train should EVER "die in the middle of nowhere". None. But ask a union employee, and they will tell you 100 reasons.............

Hey, if a crew has to go an extra two hours, to get to the next station, then give them an extra day off, with pay. Probably cost a lot less than the expenses they have to put with now

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Hey, if a crew has to go an extra two hours, to get to the next station, then give them an extra day off, with pay. Probably cost a lot less than the expenses they have to put with now

Until the lawsuit resulting from a derailment... :unsure:

 

[MikefromCrete]

Because its a slippery slope-- the rule is hard lined for a reason. Conductors and Engineers used to be abused by the railroads which pushed them to physical limits regarding in accidents.
You must also consider that moving further down the line may be moving you further away from a rescue crew-- and that being stuck in the middle of nowhere it may take an hour or more to get to the nearest Amtrak station (especially if you're reversing which requires extreme alertness).

Do twelve hours at ANY job and most people are ready to hit the ground and snooze... would you really want a dead-tired crew to actually continue working on two million pounds of train in any situation? It's proven fact-- fatigue causes mistakes and errors, errors and mistakes on the rails causes accidents, accidents can cause death.

Better stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a dogcatch than stranded in the middle of a nowhere awaiting Alameda County's entire fire department to pull you from a wreck...

Unions, unions, unions,.......................... nuff said. The unions rose to prominence for a reason, as was stated, the RR owners abused the employees..(It's a pendulum-shift thing. One way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth)

But now with cell phones, good highways, etc., there is NO REASON a train should EVER "die in the middle of nowhere". None. But ask a union employee, and they will tell you 100 reasons.............

Hey, if a crew has to go an extra two hours, to get to the next station, then give them an extra day off, with pay. Probably cost a lot less than the expenses they have to put with now

The hours of service rules are federal laws, not negotiable union perks. Do you really want somebody to be running a train for 14 hours straight? It's up to the dispatcher to make sure that crews don't die in the middle of nowhere with no relief.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

The hours of service rules are federal laws, not negotiable union perks. Do you really want somebody to be running a train for 14 hours straight? It's up to the dispatcher to make sure that crews don't die in the middle of nowhere with no relief.

To add to that-- Amtrak can do a darn good job in getting dogcatches together sometimes. I have heard of crews being told to meet and get on a chartered van that is then driven to the train's location in under a few hours.

In the case involving the snow-bound Chicagoland train there was enough snow to make rescue near impossible as vehicles weren't moving-- Finding a rescue crew does you no good if they can't even back out of their driveways....

 

[AmtrakWPK]

If a ship or an airplane breaks down, that doesn't prevent other airplanes or ships from continuing on their routes. If the car in front of you stalls, you pass around it. If a train has a grade-crossing collision, which results in serious injury or death, that train is dead at that spot for hours, and if it's a single track section,, no other train can pass that area in either direction in the meantime. That in itself can cause a domino effect of train crews running out of time. There is nothing you can do about that - law enforcement will NOT release the accident-involved train until they finish their investigation. Worse, the accident may have damaged the engine, or caused one or more cars to derail, and then you are talking even more stoppage time. You are not talking two hours, here, you can be talking 12 hours. And that is just the train involved in the collision. All the other trains, the other dominos, if you will, on BOTH SIDES of the stoppage, are also going to be stuck. Now, the railroads keep enough "spare" crew to handle an occasional problem, but a major stoppage like what I have described can wreak pure havoc on crew schedules, and crew availability, for close to a week, I would imagine, in the worst case. You just have to remember than unlike air travel, ship travel, and even car travel, if there is a single rail line and that line has a stuck train on it, everything comes to a halt, sometimes for several hundred miles in each direction, as dispatchers store trains on sidings and in switch yards, (or if it is a passenger train that is really lucky, stops it at a station), waiting for the ability to start things moving again. And even then, it can be worse than your worst Interstate traffic-jam nightmare in getting all that stalled and delayed train tonnage back to something vaguely resembling on-time movements. And if you think it's simple to move passenger traffic around freight trains to expedite them when trains start moving again, a lot of sidings are shorter than many freight trains, which means that the passenger train gets stuck on that siding, not the freight, until enough of them can be moved out of the way. This whole subject is NOT a "unions, unions, unions",or bureaucratic idiocy, or any other simple-solution situation.

 

[GG-1]

Aloha

An Alert crew is .... I cant think of a word. I was on a Sunset Limited train some years ago that was on time from Orlando FL to Glendale CA. At the station the engineer saw a "funny" reflection on the rail ahead so he got out and walked forward. The Rail had broken, we were delayed about hours, If he hadn't checked how long would the derailment delay have been?

 

[had8ley]

New Hours of Service Laws went into effect recently on freight RR's but not Amtrak. Engineers cannot work over 260 hours a month counting "limbo" time which is time waiting on a ride after the hogs eat you up. There are many other new rules such as you must have two consecutive days off after working 6 straight days. I had a list of all the new rules but they disappeared. They can be found under the CFR (Code of Federal regulations) Part 249. This change was spurred by the California Metrolink disaster. Have no idea why they don't effect Amtrak engineers. With a few exceptions, every engineer has a "favorite" engine but you must accept what the round house or diesel shop assigns to you. It has probably been since steam days that an engineer kept his own assigned engine. We used to get engines for 3 months (92 days) at a time until the blue inspection card expired and they headed to the shop.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

why can't the FRA make it a rule to allow the crew to move the train to the closest station even if it means backing up after the crew outlaws. that's better then stranding pax say 1 mile from a station due to either not enough spare crews for that run or it would take 12 hours for them to get there etc. i don't want to be stuck on a train 1 mile from a station for hours due to no replacement crew available till morning or something. or allow a spare crew to sleep in the sleeping car after all it works on airlines cruse ships etc why not trains.

The FRA has a emergency clause in 12 hour rule, but it its very limited. as what constitutes as emergency, like total shut down of a line or locations were a crew can not be physicaly relieved, or line shut down due to derailments rockslides etc, poor planning by a dispatcher does not constututes as emergency, its the railroads obligation to get a fresh crew to a train before crew outlaws.

They (railroad) know when a crew will outlaw, If the rule were to be left open to interpretation, the railroads would abuse the loopholes.

 

[NetJetAmtrak]

Thanks everyone for the responses! Being in the aviation industry, a lot of rules and info is well known to the general public due to all the media. I find the railroad industry very interesting and almost a mystery. LOL. I was just up in Seattle and took the Starlight to Portland. It still amazes me how they get the train turned around in the right order. I tried to find a turn table to see how they get the engines to face the right direction but could not find one on google maps (using the satilite view). The coach cars seem to be able to just swivle the seats, the dining car would not matter which way it was traveling as is the lounge car, or sleepers. But, somehow they they must either have a turn table or do a lot of track movement to get them turned around. I am also glad to not see many freight cars attached to the end of the train. I do love to have that rear window for viewing!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Thanks everyone for the responses! Being in the aviation industry, a lot of rules and info is well known to the general public due to all the media. I find the railroad industry very interesting and almost a mystery. LOL. I was just up in Seattle and took the Starlight to Portland. It still amazes me how they get the train turned around in the right order. I tried to find a turn table to see how they get the engines to face the right direction but could not find one on google maps (using the satilite view). The coach cars seem to be able to just swivle the seats, the dining car would not matter which way it was traveling as is the lounge car, or sleepers. But, somehow they they must either have a turn table or do a lot of track movement to get them turned around. I am also glad to not see many freight cars attached to the end of the train. I do love to have that rear window for viewing!

Next time youre in the SEA/PDX area you might want to consider riding the TALGOs that run this route,especially the Northbound to Beautiful British Columbia!(its all good in this part of the country!)Im no expert so cant comment on the turn around but do know its done in the yards,perhaps someone who lives there or is a pro has more info!Have you considered a career on Amtrak instead of airplanes? :lol:

 

[MrFSS]

Thanks everyone for the responses! Being in the aviation industry, a lot of rules and info is well known to the general public due to all the media. I find the railroad industry very interesting and almost a mystery. LOL. I was just up in Seattle and took the Starlight to Portland. It still amazes me how they get the train turned around in the right order. I tried to find a turn table to see how they get the engines to face the right direction but could not find one on google maps (using the satilite view). The coach cars seem to be able to just swivle the seats, the dining car would not matter which way it was traveling as is the lounge car, or sleepers. But, somehow they they must either have a turn table or do a lot of track movement to get them turned around. I am also glad to not see many freight cars attached to the end of the train. I do love to have that rear window for viewing!

Not many turntables anymore. When they want to reverse a train they us a "Y". Sometimes a big yard can have a complete loop.You can find these on Google pretty easily. A link to the loop at NY Sunnyside is HERE.

There is sort of a "Y" south of Chicago Union Station that can be seen HERE. A train can travel south and turn to the west. Then back up east and then south and then the whole train is now pointing north.

 

[NetJetAmtrak]

Thanks everyone for the responses! Being in the aviation industry, a lot of rules and info is well known to the general public due to all the media. I find the railroad industry very interesting and almost a mystery. LOL. I was just up in Seattle and took the Starlight to Portland. It still amazes me how they get the train turned around in the right order. I tried to find a turn table to see how they get the engines to face the right direction but could not find one on google maps (using the satilite view). The coach cars seem to be able to just swivle the seats, the dining car would not matter which way it was traveling as is the lounge car, or sleepers. But, somehow they they must either have a turn table or do a lot of track movement to get them turned around. I am also glad to not see many freight cars attached to the end of the train. I do love to have that rear window for viewing!

Next time youre in the SEA/PDX area you might want to consider riding the TALGOs that run this route,especially the Northbound to Beautiful British Columbia!(its all good in this part of the country!)Im no expert so cant comment on the turn around but do know its done in the yards,perhaps someone who lives there or is a pro has more info!Have you considered a career on Amtrak instead of airplanes? :lol:

HA..funny you mention that. I have been in aviation for so long that I would LOVE to make a career change! I check the Amtrak job site and I would be more than eager to apply. Being in the same type of heavy safety environment and with little room for poor judgement in both industries, I would fit right in!

 

[had8ley]

Just to add to the turning capabilities of a train. Freight roads use "balloon" tracks that follow the outline of a balloon. A coal train will head into a power plant and run in a circular, or balloon, fashion to where it is turned completely around and headed back in the direction from whence it came. Just draw a picture of a balloon on a piece of paper and I think you will get the idea.

 

[sky12065]

Just to add to the turning capabilities of a train. Freight roads use "balloon" tracks that follow the outline of a balloon. A coal train will head into a power plant and run in a circular, or balloon, fashion to where it is turned completely around and headed back in the direction from whence it came. Just draw a picture of a balloon on a piece of paper and I think you will get the idea.

Wouldn't that be the same as the loop that MrFSS indicated in his above post? :unsure:

 

[JayPea]

I've noticed in a couple of places in my area, one a grain elevator and another a rock crushing operation, that balloon tracks have been built rather than the traditional sidings. In the Seattle area, there is a turntable that I know of, a little ways north of King Street station. I know BNSF uses it but I don't think Amtrak uses it.

 

[rrdude]

Just to add to the turning capabilities of a train. Freight roads use "balloon" tracks that follow the outline of a balloon. A coal train will head into a power plant and run in a circular, or balloon, fashion to where it is turned completely around and headed back in the direction from whence it came. Just draw a picture of a balloon on a piece of paper and I think you will get the idea.

Wouldn't that be the same as the loop that MrFSS indicated in his above post? :unsure:

Most pax engines just use a "Y". Think of it as backing into your driveway, and then leaving your driveway the opposite direction that you backed in. Very little real estate is required for a "Y". (tho more than RR would like to use..........)

 

[had8ley]

I've noticed in a couple of places in my area, one a grain elevator and another a rock crushing operation, that balloon tracks have been built rather than the traditional sidings. In the Seattle area, there is a turntable that I know of, a little ways north of King Street station. I know BNSF uses it but I don't think Amtrak uses it.

Balloon tracks have the advantage of turning entire unit trains (100 cars or more) in the opposite direction from where they came. It is very conducive to both the RR and the shipper to do this as following trains do not have to pick up empties (or loads) and take them in the same direction as they arrived and set them out in a siding or yard that will send them back in the opposite direction from where they came as opposed to a single direction spur.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Unions, unions, unions,.......................... nuff said. The unions rose to prominence for a reason, as was stated, the RR owners abused the employees..(It's a pendulum-shift thing. One way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth)
But now with cell phones, good highways, etc., there is NO REASON a train should EVER "die in the middle of nowhere". None. But ask a union employee, and they will tell you 100 reasons.............

Hey, if a crew has to go an extra two hours, to get to the next station, then give them an extra day off, with pay. Probably cost a lot less than the expenses they have to put with now

There is but one reason that a crew should outlaw- and that reason is sheer managerial incompetence. There is no reason on earth why Amtrak shouldn't be preparing to send out a relief crew to meet a train long before it actually outlaws.

This isn't a union thing. I know quite a few railworkers who would rather it not exist- the overtime they'd rack up without the HOS limitations would make them yearly incomes some Wall Street people would envy. I believe under the current pay scheme- this is how it was described to me by someone at CSA (ConRail Shared Assets) anything you work over 8 hours in a shift is overtime. Which I'm pretty sure they get paid whether they are actually running the engine, or sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting for the dog catchers.

 

[AlanB]

Unions, unions, unions,.......................... nuff said. The unions rose to prominence for a reason, as was stated, the RR owners abused the employees..(It's a pendulum-shift thing. One way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth)
But now with cell phones, good highways, etc., there is NO REASON a train should EVER "die in the middle of nowhere". None. But ask a union employee, and they will tell you 100 reasons.............

Hey, if a crew has to go an extra two hours, to get to the next station, then give them an extra day off, with pay. Probably cost a lot less than the expenses they have to put with now

There is but one reason that a crew should outlaw- and that reason is sheer managerial incompetence. There is no reason on earth why Amtrak shouldn't be preparing to send out a relief crew to meet a train long before it actually outlaws.

No, most of the time that there is no relief crew ready and waiting it's because there simply isn't a crew that is both qualified for the tracks in question and that has also completed their Federally mandated hours of rest. And if you pull another crew from another train, then 9 out of 10 times you're left without a rested-qualified crew for that second train.

Perhaps one could consider it a managerial thing that Amtrak doesn't have enough extra crews, but that's also a bean counter thing too.