Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne Maybury
Wes
How do you work 108 hours per week? That's 18 per day, 6 days per week? That doesn't even allow enough time to sleep, never mind eat or anything else. Are there no work limits based on safety standards?
Wayne
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Wayne,
It's complicated, a hundred years in the making. The company does try to minimise the number of employees necessary to barely cover operations. We go along with it because we work by the mile, not by the hour. It often does not seem always safe to me, but yet we want the healthy income a lot of miles brings. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 is meant to address this but...
We work on a 24 hour clock. We can legally be forced to work 12 and be off for 8 (Actually we can work 11:59 and be off 8 ...but for simplicity...). The next "wake-up" call to work comes 1 hour+15 to 1 hour+30 minutes before the 8 (or 10 hours are up since a full 12, or over, mandates 10 hours off). We can't legally operate the train after 12, but we continue to count total hours-of-service until we are arrived at our tie-up destination, one way or another. I have been asked, and complied, to continue "over 12" train operation for an "federal exemption emergency" but it has basically been only d@mn poor planning by dispatch. The "emergency" is to get the train off the main line and into a siding, out of the way. You can see that during extremes, there is not 8 hours rest, but more like 6:45 or 5:30 because of the time it takes to get home to bed, visit a bathroom, possibly eat and the subsequent early call.
Below is an extreme example of how the hours
can accumulate in a busy seven day period. We work 200 miles west, then 200 miles back east:
Mandan: Go to work at 0000 hrs midnight Sunday/Monday, work until 1200 hrs noon Monday ........................Hours worked so far, 12.
Glendive: Off until 2000 hrs Monday, work at 2000 hrs Monday, work until 0800 hrs Tuesday .........................Hours worked so far, 24. Hotel so far 8 hrs.
Mandan: Off until 1600 hrs Tuesday, work at 1600 Tuesday, work until 0400 hrs Wednesday .........................Hours worked so far, 36. Home for 8 hrs total.
Glendive: Off until 1200 hrs Wednesday, work at 1200 Wednesday, work until 0000 hrs Wednesday/Thursday ...Hours worked so far, 48. Hotel so far 16 hrs total.
Mandan: Off until 0800 hrs Thursday, work at 0800 Thursday, work until 2000 hrs Thursday ..........................Hours worked so far, 60. Home for 16 hrs total.
Glendive: Off until 0400 hrs Friday, work at 0400 Friday, work until 1600 hrs Friday ......................................Hours worked so far, 72. Hotel so far 24 hrs total.
Mandan: Off until 0000 hrs Friday/Saturday, work at 0000 Friday/Saturday, work until 1200 hrs Saturday .........Hours worked so far, 94. Home for 24 hrs total.
Glendive: Off until 2000 hrs Saturday, work at 2000 Saturday, work until 0800 hrs Sunday .............................Hours worked so far, 102. Hotel so far 32 hrs total.
Mandan: Off until 1600 hrs Sunday, work 8 until 0000 hrs midnight Sunday/Monday plus 4 more after ...............Hours worked so far to 0000, 104 for the week, Midnight Sunday to Midnight Sunday (or 108 until off at 0400 hrs Monday). Home for 32 hrs total.
In reality, we are in a hotel about 12 hrs in between two 12 hour work trips, so that a round trip (tour) is about 36 hours. If I count
time officially away from home, I add 3 casual tours of 36 hours for 108. There is 168 hours in a 7 day week, so typically three 20 hour periods might be spent at home to burn the leftover 60. If I don't count hotel time, I'm only technically on the train itself for 72 hours, three 24 hour actual in-seat round trip tours.
At my age, I prefer to be only gone for two 36 hour tours, for 72 hours a week from home. My internal clock is screwed up from years of this 24/7 B.S.
Work calls actually vary and are more random than regular. The proverbial long hours of boredom, broken up by brief moments of sheer terror and a few stolen hours of blissful sleep.
Wes
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Hybrid Mode
