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tehluggageBefore I embark upon, yet again, another bitch-fest, a bit of terminology.
Sometimes, the Operations Manager, or OM, will call a crew on a road trip, and ask them if they want to protect a certain train at, say, Red Deer. To protect the train means that once they reach Red Deer, if that train is there, they'll hop right back on and head home, with little to no delay. The downside is that instead of a twelve hour clock, you're working on an eighteen hour clock, and if the timing is off, you'll end up working a very long shift with little sleep. The upside is that you don't rot in the bunkhouse for twelve hours, but instead are headed home right away.
Anyway. I was about thirteenth up on the spareboard yesterday afternoon, and figured I wouldn't work until at least tonight. Ha. Ha ha. I get the call at quarter to four, telling me I'm called for 103-06 at 1710. Good thing? It's a hotshot, so everyone gets out of my way. Bad thing? It's a late call, which means I'll be scrambling like mad to get to work somewhere on time.
So I head to work, and I find the brownhouse absolutely packed with train crews. Apparently there'd been an avalanche on the Mountain Sub, which is the Subdivision west of the Laggan, which is the one I really like, so there was no west traffic going that night. At all. There had to have been at least four west crews, another four north crews, and for some reason, a yard crew that apparently just wanted to hang out with us.
Of course, being railroaders, we took immediate advantage of the wonderful opportunity afforded to us to gossip like mad. It was great! The chatter mostly revolved around the avalanche, and if/when the west crews were going to be canceled. Ultimately, the Train Yard Coordinator gave us a call after I'd been there an hour anna half, and he started canceling crews right left and centre.
"Okay, where's the conductor for 199? Hey there, you're canceled, have a good night. Grab the guy for 403, would you?" And so on, and so forth. I believe I watched four crews get canceled in the space of ten minutes. It was oddly amusing.
Regardless, a very long story short, we eventually caught up with our train and headed north. Along the way, the OM rang us up on the radio and asked us if we'd like to protect 260-09 up at Red Deer. 260 is a big money train, and we were making great time, so we said sure, why not.
And...it wasn't a bad decision, per se. It was just that our eighteen hour clock ran out at eleven this morning, we tied up at ten am, and out of that seventeen hours, about fourteen of them were spent on a train. The rest of it was at the Red Deer bunkhouse, the brownhouse and me, outside, wading through knee-deep snow. That was good, 'cos it kept me awake.
So I had a long night, but I made a pile of money. All in all, a good day.
Sometimes, the Operations Manager, or OM, will call a crew on a road trip, and ask them if they want to protect a certain train at, say, Red Deer. To protect the train means that once they reach Red Deer, if that train is there, they'll hop right back on and head home, with little to no delay. The downside is that instead of a twelve hour clock, you're working on an eighteen hour clock, and if the timing is off, you'll end up working a very long shift with little sleep. The upside is that you don't rot in the bunkhouse for twelve hours, but instead are headed home right away.
Anyway. I was about thirteenth up on the spareboard yesterday afternoon, and figured I wouldn't work until at least tonight. Ha. Ha ha. I get the call at quarter to four, telling me I'm called for 103-06 at 1710. Good thing? It's a hotshot, so everyone gets out of my way. Bad thing? It's a late call, which means I'll be scrambling like mad to get to work somewhere on time.
So I head to work, and I find the brownhouse absolutely packed with train crews. Apparently there'd been an avalanche on the Mountain Sub, which is the Subdivision west of the Laggan, which is the one I really like, so there was no west traffic going that night. At all. There had to have been at least four west crews, another four north crews, and for some reason, a yard crew that apparently just wanted to hang out with us.
Of course, being railroaders, we took immediate advantage of the wonderful opportunity afforded to us to gossip like mad. It was great! The chatter mostly revolved around the avalanche, and if/when the west crews were going to be canceled. Ultimately, the Train Yard Coordinator gave us a call after I'd been there an hour anna half, and he started canceling crews right left and centre.
"Okay, where's the conductor for 199? Hey there, you're canceled, have a good night. Grab the guy for 403, would you?" And so on, and so forth. I believe I watched four crews get canceled in the space of ten minutes. It was oddly amusing.
Regardless, a very long story short, we eventually caught up with our train and headed north. Along the way, the OM rang us up on the radio and asked us if we'd like to protect 260-09 up at Red Deer. 260 is a big money train, and we were making great time, so we said sure, why not.
And...it wasn't a bad decision, per se. It was just that our eighteen hour clock ran out at eleven this morning, we tied up at ten am, and out of that seventeen hours, about fourteen of them were spent on a train. The rest of it was at the Red Deer bunkhouse, the brownhouse and me, outside, wading through knee-deep snow. That was good, 'cos it kept me awake.
So I had a long night, but I made a pile of money. All in all, a good day.
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Date: 2009-01-11 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 06:28 pm (UTC)Oh wow. Sounds like you really got snowed in. It's very warm here, which means the roads are getting slushy. But hey, at least you get a day off of work, right?