Assistant Stationmaster

I saw a Assistant Stationmaster job came up and I was wondering was stations they work out of?

in application it states: -May be assigned to work in Penn Station, Jamaica Station, Atlantic Terminal, Public Information Office, or other locations as required.

Penn Station, Brooklyn, Jamaica all have regular assignments. Station Masters are also assigned to special projects and planned disruptions at places like Woodside, Great Neck, Babylon and Long Island City. Jobs are assigned by the Railroad but are usually based on seniority. New Assistant Stationmasters usually work the extra list, calling in each day to find their daily assignment and days off.

It's a management job that is represented by a union. Therefore you get many of the benefits of management, but with the higher salary of a union job and a hybrid of overtime pay and time off. Most Assistant Stationmasters make a very good salary and work many hours overtime. Because of this, it's one of the best paid crafts on the Railroad.

Assistant Stationmasters supervise train crews and ushers and clerks in their jurisdictions.

Stationmasters supervising train crews? That's a new one. Did not realize they were DSLE's as well..
Informing a crew they have to run another round trip, or "21 to West Side" after the train is already fully platformed, are not acts of supervising, rather being an intermediary.

The guy is a manager who can take you out of service; take away your hat and punch and send you home.

That makes him your boss.

Unless it has been changed, Rule 801 states conductors are supervised specifically by assistant stationmasters and generally by everyone else who represents the Superintendent - Transportation.

We see a supervisor as any Company officer with authority to give a direct order under force of an insubordination charge or relieve you from service. Assistant Stationmasters effect both these duties and do so daily -- tasks long upheld under the Railway Labor Act.

So if you want to be a boss and make a great salary, and don't want to punch tickets and get ordered around by everyone else, put in a resume for Assistant Stationmaster.

Not sure why my previous post was deleted. Anyway. You are wrong. The guy cannot take anyone out of service. No where in the rules does it say he is a Supervisor of T+E. What the rules do state, as far as complying with instruction goes, he will give you a track assignment. Or he may request you do a different train in the event of a disruption. That does not make one a Supervisor. The only person assessing discipline and handing out trial notices would be the manager on duty, whom the Stationmaster works under.
BTW, seems to be an on going theme here. Familiar writing style.

Not sure why my previous post was deleted. Anyway. You are wrong. The guy cannot take anyone out of service. No where in the rules does it say he is a Supervisor of T+E. What the rules do state, as far as complying with instruction goes, he will give you a track assignment. Or he may request you do a different train in the event of a disruption. That does not make one a Supervisor. The only person assessing discipline and handing out trial notices would be the manager on duty, whom the Stationmaster works under.
BTW, seems to be an on going theme here. Familiar writing style.

EM2000 has a skewed sense of whom an Engineer's immediate supervisors are. It is like this:

1. All Upper management, inc the President, VP's, etc.
2. All Intermediate Managers, such as Superintendent's, Transportation Managers, Road Foremen, MofE Management personnel union or non-union, Asst. Train and Station Masters
3. All Yardmasters, Crew and Train Dispatchers, Track, Signal Foremen, etc.
4. Conductors
5. Switchtenders, qualified and unqualified
6. Brakemen when in control of the doors
7. Wife or spouse, domestic partner or government agent.

The Engineer gets to supervise Engineer Trainees. In the chain of command, the Engineer is low in the food chain. This is why the Conductor is the boss on the train and HE will delegate his authority as instructed by the aforementioned job positions.

1. Save up some money.

2. Next time the Stationmaster orders you to punch tickets on a train to Babylon, just tell him he's not your boss and that you're going home instead.

3. Then pay us to represent you at your trial.

Hahahah.

Kelly we had one out in KO years ago that spoke like this guy/gal. They change when their job is on the line and their union can't help them.

Not sure why my post keeps on getting deleted, anyway, I'll leave this here again:
I see we are responding with the "other" username now. I'm not going to debate with your falsehoods and bait tactics. Anyone who is RR knows what you state is completely false. An Engineers only Supervisor, Boss, or whatever you want to call it, is a DSLE.
The only one...I mean two people who have a skewed sense of anything is you.

EM2000 wrote:Not sure why my post keeps on getting deleted, anyway, I'll leave this here again:
I see we are responding with the "other" username now. I'm not going to debate with your falsehoods and bait tactics. Anyone who is RR knows what you state is completely false. An Engineers only Supervisor, Boss, or whatever you want to call it, is a DSLE.
The only one...I mean two people who have a skewed sense of anything is you.

I'm RR like the other two and what you wrote is false. Are you even an employee coming up with this stuff?

So you are saying that a Stationmaster can take you out of service? Do you even know what DSLE stands for?

Any qualified manager can relieve an engineman of his duties. Your trial notice would be signed by a DSLE.

At the risk of talking way over your head, we'll explain further. The manager relieving you must possess the necessary technical qualification to identify the violation with which you are charged and be able to relate that knowledge at trial. While a DSLE would certainly be needed to cite you for certain train handling or technical mechanical violations, a Track Foreman could relieve you for exceeding MAS or for failing to move a work train as ordered by him. A Station Master or Yardmaster can relieve you for passing a stop signal, or failing to make an ordered station stop since they are all qualified in the rules. Any of them, and virtually any management employment, can give you a valid order and relieve you for insubordination if you refused to execute that order. Your only defense for failing to obey would be if "submission to the order WILL result in a dangerous condition".

The Engineers' contract requires a DSLE to "remove an engineer from service". In practice he does this by sending the trial notice after you're sitting home relieved without pay for a week.

Trainmen too can be relieved by any supervisory employee. There have even been cases when a conductor has relieved a collector or brakeman, though the Carrier frowns on this sort of puffery and often doesn't back him up.

It should be said that in practice, little of this happens often. Usually these matters are worked out man-to-man by good people working together. It's generally the buffoons and blow-hards that engage in the "take-em-out-of-service" dialogues. For the most part, if you find your self out of service, you know it before anyone has to tell you and before the wheels stop spinning.

All this goes way back a century in railway case law.

Interesting. Another simple calm and collected post deleted. I see that if you're one person posting false information for ones own entertainment under two different usernames, that's allowed to stay.

Maybe you should have become a cop. Many of them spend the first half of their careers thinking they are everyone's boss. As they learn the job, they realize they are mere minions, on the bottom of a long chain of supervision. Railroading is similar. And you sound angry too -- typical of a five-or-ten-year employee starting to get it.

Call us when your trial comes up.