by BobbyT
Who said anything about blaming the crews? T&E employees in the Albany region continue to leave/retire from CSX much more quickly than they can be replaced, combine that with summer vacations and mark-offs and here we are.
Railroad Forums
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taracer wrote: ↑Thu Aug 25, 2022 5:28 pm Yes handwave all the damage that PSR has done at CSX over the past 5 years, the crew shortage it created.I certainly am not blaming the crews nor whitewashing PSR.
It's all the crew's fault. I just don't see the big picture.
CSX acknowledges that it is short of crews, partly because availability has dipped due to summer vacations.https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... kirk-yard/
“We are currently in the peak vacation period at Selkirk and we expect to be in a better position with crews after Labor Day,” Schild says. “We continue to hire and we also have a number of temporary transfers that are being sent to Selkirk to help in the meantime.”
The average amount of time cars spend at Selkirk has been rising in recent weeks. Dwell was 50 hours last week, compared to 43.8 the week before single-person remote control switching jobs were introduced, and 35.6 hours in the third week of July. Railroads generally aim for cars to spend no more than 24 hours in a hump yard.
CSX reduced remote-control switching jobs from two-person crews to one person on Aug. 9, Therrien says. “Since then, Selkirk employees have been harassed, intimidated, and bullied into accomplishing more work with half of the crew,” he wrote.
Therrien also claimed that CSX is violating its own safety rules as well as Federal Railroad Administration regulations.
“CSX strongly refutes the allegations of harassment and intimidation in the local chairperson’s letter. CSX operates in accordance with all federal regulations and local laws. We are committed to providing a safe work environment for employees, evidenced by our strong safety record,” the railroad said in a statement.
CSX also says it took proper steps before implementing single-person crews for remote control switching operations at Selkirk.
newpylong wrote: ↑Thu Aug 25, 2022 8:14 pm I certainly am not blaming the crews nor whitewashing PSR.It is PSR, they just used covid as cover for plans they had before that.
If you want to blame anything, blame the general workforce cuts during Covid that CSX believed could be rehired quickly. Foote went into great detail in the STB hearings in April about this. In case you have not noticed, businesses of all shapes and sizes are having issues filling positions.
The general trend of blaming every single thing on "PSR" as if it were a single malevolent force has just gotten old.
johnpbarlow wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 6:43 am Here's article from Trains Magazine on-line of Friday 8/26/22 (ie, today): "CSX refutes union allegations of problems at Selkirk Yard". On August 9, RCO crew size was reduced from two to one.This is mostly CSX propaganda. The fact is the road crews are in the wrong place due to the trains not running when they should due to the fact they cut the workforce down to the bone in the 5 years since PSR took over. They never had a problem covering vacations before 2017.