Rare mileage crews

I was wondering, lets say a Class 1 railroad is rerouted via some rare mileage due to a sudden shutdown of the normal mainline. How do the crews be familiarized with the tracks before they are going to them? Does the hosting railroad (of the rare mileage) send someone to the train and guide them as they go or are they handed out special instructions?

Thank you,

We get a pilot. Someone preferably an engineer who is qualified for that line.
We even have yard pilots but they are hard to get.Plus we only have one foreign train that comes to our yard and all their crews are qualified.

In the few places I have worked---ONLY qualified crews from our sub-division operated trains over our territory. When something happens to part of a rail system and trains get re-routed----you still work the same territory----the trains take a different route than normal. As far as PILOTs-there may be part of your territory that you havent been to in 10-12 years and you ask for a pilot --------you are usually told where I am from To take your time, you will do fine ------youre not getting a pilot

CSX-COAL HAULER wrote:In the few places I have worked---ONLY qualified crews from our sub-division operated trains over our territory. When something happens to part of a rail system and trains get re-routed----you still work the same territory----the trains take a different route than normal. As far as PILOTs-there may be part of your territory that you havent been to in 10-12 years and you ask for a pilot --------you are usually told where I am from To take your time, you will do fine ------youre not getting a pilot

lol...

Thanks a lot guys

CSX-COAL HAULER wrote:In the few places I have worked---ONLY qualified crews from our sub-division operated trains over our territory. When something happens to part of a rail system and trains get re-routed----you still work the same territory----the trains take a different route than normal. As far as PILOTs-there may be part of your territory that you havent been to in 10-12 years and you ask for a pilot --------you are usually told where I am from To take your time, you will do fine ------youre not getting a pilot

Only time it happened to me was before Conrail stopped being Conrail. We were being rerouted over the old Nickel Plate, over a crossover at Madison, Ohio. Our instructions were to turn the train over to the NS crew there, and cab into Collinwood. Didn't ride it in; it wasn't going back to CSX until Berea, with a fresh Westbound crew.

We don't have much duplicate routes that are our own. As far as going on unfamiliar trackage in some terminal, if a crew is so clueless as to demand pilots, they'll be taken out of service at the end of the run until they are qualified on that trackage. That's particularly a problem in Buffalo, where there are a lot of out-of-the-way yards and secondaries to get to them.

If they tell me to go, and the conductor understands the job and knows the run, I'll go. Nice and slow...I joke about tying a white cane to the snowplow...but, if that's how they want to run the railroad, I'll play along.

I'm not worried about getting into the jackpot - too much - as long as I have timetables and maps and a knowlegeable partner.

Buffalo could be confusing - and probably still can be, to a lesser degree.

I'm sure the story is still floating around out there about a certain legendary Division Superintendent who was out hirailing with some out-of-town guys. He came to a major junction - and had to radio the dispatcher to ask him which way to go to get to his destination!