by GN 599
slchub wrote:Thats surprising to me I thought it was for all of us. I guess it would cause a lot of service interuptions for passenger opsGN 599 wrote:I am not sure what country or planet you guys railroad on but these rules for rest have been in effect since July 16 2009. Nation wide all railroads must comply. It was part of the Rail Safety Imrovement Act.The knee jerk reaction for this legislation was created by the Chatsworth CA accident included created the new hours and the federally mandated Positive Train Control installation by 2016. If you are in train, engine and yard service (i.e. conductors and engineers) when you complete a trip the minimum off is 10 hours undisturbed rest. So if you work somewhere that you get a 2hr call to show up for work you get 12 hrs off because of the 10hrs plus the 2hr call. If an employee works 7 consecutive starts in a row, say for example reporting for work 7 days in a row upon completion of the 7th start (trip or yard shift) a minimum 72hrs off is required. If an employee works 6 starts in a row 48 hrs off are required. There are things that apply to this though. 2 starts in one calender day only counts for 1 actual start. Deadheading does not count as a start. If you do not get a start on one calendar day your start count resets to zero. So for example if I tie up on Jan 1st at 2300hrs and have all day off the 2nd and report for work at the ungodly hour of 0200hrs on the 3rd I start all over at 1 start. In all reality these new rules did nothing as far as being rested is concerned. We still have crappy train line ups sometimes and still work terrible hours. I have only been laid off ''RSIA'' 3 or 4 times in the last year and a half we have been doing this. Many times I have worked 2 weeks straight and not hit 7 starts in a row because of catching deadheads or breaking the cycle by sitting on the board long enough to restart my clock.Also we are only allowed to work 276hrs a month. But I have never seen anyone hit that. A lot to take in? You bet. We are used to it now. As far as pay is concerned I dont see much of a difference. As an engineer I can book what they call smart rest. It allow you to book enough rest to get you through a calender day without a start so it starts your start count all over again. As for PTC, we will get into that later and most of us that read railroady type mags have a pretty good idea of the concept.The planet in which Amtrak operates does not have this FRA requirement. We are still 8 hours and as many days/starts as they can get in between.
What a long strange trip its been.