Holding a Turn and the Extra Board

Sence theres no over the road jobs here in GR i have no clue how that stuff works. At your home terminal when do they start calling the guys off the extra board insted of a pool guy, and at the away from home terminal does the extra board guy who came over with a pool guy stand in line with the rest of them to go back home? That last question is kinda dumb, im sure he does. Like i said ive never been there so i have no clue of how that stuff works.

You want to put that in english, for a dud like myself. where I work you're either on a signed job; we run on a 10 week cycle, where you either sign onto a 3 man crew job, or you sign the spare board, and either you pick from any holes or you "ride the spare board " and hope you don't get called and get the guareentee, 6.5hrs pay.
Pool?, extra board? i'm guessing the extra, is the spare board for me.

"Extra board" has been the term used for over 100 years. No doubt it is the same thing your line calls the spare board. There's no "right" or "wrong" but use of the term Extra Board is pretty generic to the whole industry.

When do they decide to call an extra board guy and put him with a pool/turn guy? When theres no guys rested on the turn board? then they start calling off the extra board?

UPRR engineer wrote:When do they decide to call an extra board guy and put him with a pool/turn guy? When theres no guys rested on the turn board? then they start calling off the extra board?

Since nobody else has answered, I'll give it a shot. It's been a while, but yeah, I think that's how it goes for the most part. I was actually a yardman with the CNW, but got in a good number of road jobs (which makes me wonder how quickly the road board was turning). Being from the yardman board, we had the discretion of accepting a call for a road job, or not. I always took them as it's nice to get out of the yard now and then (except for that South Pekin fiasco), and with agreements etc. being what they were, a yardman on a road job could be pretty lucrative. The SOO had a wider separation between yard and road, so aside from transfers, yardmen didn't get out on the road nearly as much.

As for what I think you're asking about the away from home terminal, the crew would stay together for the entire trip. If the crew was pool/extra guys, the crew as a whole would get marked-up in FIFO fashion. Regular turns/assignments you'd go back with that crew on their next start. Of course, that's how it was supposed to work.

Chris

On the NS it's a little different. I worked the road board all of last year. The dispatcher will call you for yard jobs, and you are required to take them *IF* you answer the phone. The trick is to watch your standing on the board, and only take the calls when you're first out. You don't get wacked for missing calls if they are not calls for your assigned board.
-r

Thanks Chris