How are Outlawed Crews Relieved?

I was watching Railroad Alaska, and laughing at it, much to the chagrin of my wife, who turned it on. The crew was going on about how they had problems and might run out of time.

This made me think. How does the company relieve crews? There must be lots of locations where there is no road access. Do they just put a new crew on if the first runs low on hours? Do they hi rail the dog catch? How often do they make the crew work over 12, but call it an emergency, or just pay the FRA fine?

dispatcher is notified ahead of time as to what time crew outlaws, so its upto railroad to get train to place with access before they do outlaw, be it crossing, a station, a yard parallel road.
the new crew gets there by jitney and outlawed crew takes jitney to home terminal or away from home terminal .

Normally, we coordinate with the dispatcher to get to a place with road access. Some parts of Alaska Railroad have lots of road access, other areas you can go for hours without any road access.

If something unexpected happens, and a crew goes dead in an area without road access, things can get a bit more interesting. HiRail is generally the next option, but the railroad has also chartered helicopters to get crews off a train.

You might want to cross post this question on the Pan Am forum. They're experts at having trains die on the law. The call it "getting canned". Kinda hilarious.

Engineer Spike wrote:How does the company relieve crews?

Some engines just have a bucket, and others have an actual commode (chemical toilet). You're well advised to relieve yourself before you get on the engine.

I like your reference to Guilford! I wish railroad.net had a like button.

RussNelson wrote:

Engineer Spike wrote:How does the company relieve crews?

Some engines just have a bucket, and others have an actual commode (chemical toilet). You're well advised to relieve yourself before you get on the engine.

Russ your years past due on your story, The Bucket story was from years ago on Norfolk Southern, all have been upgraded, no more buckets but regular chemical toilets as per FRA regulations .

DutchRailnut wrote:

RussNelson wrote:

Engineer Spike wrote:How does the company relieve crews?

Some engines just have a bucket, and others have an actual commode (chemical toilet). You're well advised to relieve yourself before you get on the engine.

Russ your years past due on your story, The Bucket story was from years ago on Norfolk Southern, all have been upgraded, no more buckets but regular chemical toilets as per FRA regulations .

https://www.ihasabucket.com/ comes to mind.

Relieved sorry for the typo, it was probably the spellcheck second guessing me, but at least it didn’t substitute a something dirty or suggestive.