Final Terminal Overtime

[NW Mailing List]

Gee Whiz Harry, you sure know how to ask a (lot of) loaded question(s)!

Jimmy, being a road man, can be more definitive about this, but I don't believe anyone gets Final Terminal anymore. I think these were phased out in contracts beginning in the early 1980's. I'm sure no "unprotected" men (hired after about 1985) get any "arbitraries". Protected men have precious few of them left.

If a crew "hogs" (exceeds the hours of service law, i.e. 12 hours on duty), often they will be trucked to the call office, and at that time, or later, a yard crew will be trucked to the train to bring it into the yard. Incidentally, Cimarron has recently been replaced by another contractor, out of Ohio, I believe.

The track changes in RT are a complex. Say, for instance, you have a fairly fluid yard. Now, take a bowl of spaghetti and throw it on top of the tracks. Now stare at the tracks, scratch your head, and try to figure out which noodle you're going to yard a train on, or depart a train on, all the while you have yard and light engine movements criss-crossing you're noodles all through the yard.

We used to classify and build westbound trains in the Empty Side yard at the west end of the yard, where there was no interference with other movements. After the changes, which expanded the  Forwarding Yard, westbound trains were built there, where it takes 40% handbrakes (on the wrong end of the train), whereas, at the West End, you literally needed NO handbrakes (though they are now required by rule). Crews used to get on and leave town. Now, crew gets on, after air test, waits for someone to get brakes off east end of train, then waits for an opening in traffic to navigate its way through the yard where there is almost constant traffic on both ends of the Receiving Yard. Bad order cars become more difficult to cut out. All these things spell TIME. Many trains, both east (north, south) and westbound trains, are made up in the Receiving Yard of recent. This does help. Less handbrakes and easier switching. But trains in either direction still must be navigated through sometimes congested areas to leave town. I didn't mean to go on too long, and there are certainly more smaller things which still affect the movement through the yard. But that's enough for now. Hope this gives you some idea.  

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 9:34 AM
  Subject: Final Terminal Overtime


  Jeff, Jimmy -

  The recent discussion of Boaz pusher siding brings up
  some questions.   Certainly there have been some
  changes in the contract lately.  Do crews still get
  overtime for final terminal delay ?  Think it varied 
  terminal-to-terminal, but best I can remember, if a crew
  didn't go off duty 90 minutes after passing the yard board,
  they went on overtime.

  Sometime after Hank Kinzell retired, there were some
  track changes on Roanoke Terminal.  Prior to that
  time, it was very rare to see a westbound crew held
  out at Berkley Road.  Frequently one can now see a
  train being held out on both main tracks.  One
  observer even noted from Berkley Road east toward
  Blue Ridge, there were five being held out.  Sometime
  the trains will be standing at Berkley Road without a
  crew.  Maybe Cinnamon Coach has taken them to the
  yard office to mark off. If a crew is being held out, but they
  haven't passed the yard board can they still qualify for final
  terminal overtime ?  And what was it that B. J. Hoops
  changed that led to this congestion ?
                                                           Harry Bundy





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