Crew Districts (or lack thereof)

PAR is perhaps the only large railroad in the US where no two train pairs have the same terminal points. I was wondering how crews are coordinated under such a system. It seems that road crews run until they expire on the hour of service law at some point out on the line. Am I correct in assuming that road crews are based in East Deerfield, Rigby and Waterville. Are there any others? Do any trains run regularly with crew changes enroute at the same location? Related question......how often do the ED495/495ED trains run on an average week and where is the most usual place in the Boston area for them to terminate?

Thanks to anyone who might make sense out of this system.

As a former employee, we have all (employees) tried to make sence of their set up...It aint easy with P/A,Guilford,Springfield Terminal,Boston and Maine, what ever you want to call it....On road jobs ,crews will start from their home terminal be it Waterville, Bangor, Ayer, Deerfield,Rumford but they have to end up at the end of their trip at the terminal they started from. So,if you start at Rigby and go west the terminal where you would take rest,as required by FRA hours of service, would be Ayer.
If you don't make it to Ayer becasue of hours of service, which is on duty time, then you would be cabbed (Taxi cab) your place of rest...Jobs that are posted on a bid sheet have an on duty time at the home terminal...There is no departure time because when you go on duty you don't exactly know what you will be doing....A crew that is suppose to go west, may have to go east first to bring in a train that canned somewhere or may be switching in the yard for awhile or may even have to put their rain together.
I'm sure Newpy will agree with most of what I have said...He's been there...It's the same on the reverse...When a crew goes on duty at the hotel,they are cabbed to where ever the train may be but at some point they have to end up at there home terminal.
If they start out of Rigby,thats where they have to end...Hope this helps some what!

riffian wrote:...how often do the ED495/495ED trains run on an average week and where is the most usual place in the Boston area for them to terminate?

They run more than once a week, though they're not daily IIRC. ED495's destination is Lawrence (495), but it typically cans at least once between Ayer and Lowell Junction.

Mcoov wrote:

riffian wrote:...how often do the ED495/495ED trains run on an average week and where is the most usual place in the Boston area for them to terminate?

They run more than once a week, though they're not daily IIRC. ED495's destination is Lawrence (495), but it typically cans at least once between Ayer and Lowell Junction.

Yes they are daily. They usually tie down in Lowell, Lawrence or Nashua. Sometimes the eastbound crew will catch an EDPO and sometimes heading west they will catch a POSE or a coal train. Probably 5 times per week they get their own train though...

Tim Mullins wrote:As a former employee, we have all (employees) tried to make sence of their set up...It aint easy with P/A,Guilford,Springfield Terminal,Boston and Maine, what ever you want to call it....On road jobs ,crews will start from their home terminal be it Waterville, Bangor, Ayer, Deerfield,Rumford but they have to end up at the end of their trip at the terminal they started from. So,if you start at Rigby and go west the terminal where you would take rest,as required by FRA hours of service, would be Ayer.
If you don't make it to Ayer becasue of hours of service, which is on duty time, then you would be cabbed (Taxi cab) your place of rest...Jobs that are posted on a bid sheet have an on duty time at the home terminal...There is no departure time because when you go on duty you don't exactly know what you will be doing....A crew that is suppose to go west, may have to go east first to bring in a train that canned somewhere or may be switching in the yard for awhile or may even have to put their rain together.
I'm sure Newpy will agree with most of what I have said...He's been there...It's the same on the reverse...When a crew goes on duty at the hotel,they are cabbed to where ever the train may be but at some point they have to end up at there home terminal.
If they start out of Rigby,thats where they have to end...Hope this helps some what!

Oh can I ever agree, lol. One night I recrewed 5 different trains and never got my own!

Like Tim said the railroad is broken down into terminals. Jobs originate and terminate at those terminals and the larger ones have "Spareboards" assigned. Spareboard people are called as needed for extra jobs. Regular jobs and the spareboard are "bid" and assigned in order of seniority. You obviously try to get a job closest to your home and with the best working hours and least BS work. The hump switcher was personally my hell and I was on the night shift a lot there!

When I was there the terminals that I worked were:

Rotterdam NY - crew terminal
Mohawk NY - crew terminal and spareboard
North Adams, MA - crew terminal (local)
East Deerfield, MA - crew terminal and spareboard
Fitchburg, MA - crew terminal
Ayer, MA - crew terminal and spareboard
Lowell, MA - crew terminal
Lawrence, MA - crew terminal and spareboard
Nashua, MA - crew terminal and spareboard
Dover, MA - crew terminal and spareboard
Boston, MA - crew terminal (local)
Rigby, MA - crew terminal and spareboard

Others that I saw on the bid sheet but never went to: Waterville, Rumford, Northern Maine Junction, Bucksport, Woodland, etc.

thankfully from what I have been told by my friends who still work there, recrewing other people's trains happen less often and they get their own train the majority of the time. Of course this isn't always the case and you will see crews cabbed all over still.

Are these lisitngs by state, or are there zones of some kind that are determined by a location in one state, like all or parts of ME & NH in a MA home zone? Cause I thought Dover was in NH, as is Nashua, and Rigby was in ME. I have always assumed that the defined districts had nothing to do with crew assigments, as crews operating on Dist 1 often came out of Dover on Dist 2, and so on.

Thanks for your help Newpy....I couldn't remember all the locations...BR4 to answer your question, The Dover,Ma and Nashua Ma. are a typo he meant Dover,NH and Nashua,NH both are crew locations however all are subject to change but for the most part, stay the same...Any jobs that are posted for these locations have a stipulation included that who ever bids the job posted must qualified to go to any locations that included in the job advertized...So if you bid a road job or a local out of Portland,you have to be qualified to go east like to Brunswick or the main line to Waterville as well as going west...Like Newpy said,it has gotten better about what your job does as advertized...When I was there and Newpy would agree, for a while when you reported to work,
you didn't know what you would be doing....Sometimes and this is the truth because the director of crew management was an
A-- ----- (fill in the blanks) would change locations and on duty times just to make things misserable for people....The locations that are listed have alot to do with how much time it takes to get a train from A to B...Speeds, meets of other trains, availability of crews, and locomotives need to be taken into concideration.

Rigby, Massachusetts?!

<spits out coffee>

Not since 1820!

hehehe oops on all accounts.

Do they still run LAED? At night I sometimes hear that train leaving Lawrence.

Nope. Cars go west mostly on 495ED...

Maybe you heard LAEV, that was a short lived turn job to the scrap dealer in Everett?

Yeah they scrapped (no pun intended) LAEV because they didn't get the volume they expected from the customer.

CPF363 wrote:Do they still run LAED? At night I sometimes hear that train leaving Lawrence.

LAED is 495ED, and EDLA is ED495.

I don't really know what you mean by "crew districts", but ST is still pretty much separated along B&M and Maine Central lines. An employee can work wherever he is qualified,however, and wherever his seniority will allow him. Generally speaking the major crew terminals are Waterville, Rigby, Ayer, East Deerfield, and Mohawk. Other places have "spare lists" according to the CBA but these are usually vacant, and are treated like "Outlying Points" like Lawrence or Bangor,Plainfield, and Dover. The rest of the yards where crews report like Nashua, Fitchburg, Worcester,NMJ, Old Town, etc. are "outlying Points" and are covered by adjacent "spare lists". Get it?