Lunch/ meal Breaks

I imagine each freight railroad has their own set of rules. Train mags often show locals parked by a diner for a break. What about larger trains? Is it common practice to hold up a 100+ car train for a cup o' Joe? Just curious

You'll hear that sometimes from the dispatcher, usually theres something going on ahead. The way it works here, "go get a cup" means take 30 minutes, "beans" is an hour, "coffee beans" is.... well an hour and a half. Most of the time a crew will take lunch after they have reached the terminal.

Hi,

True enough, the locals, the peddlers, have their favorite places, normally.

Notorious story: State st. Pomona, CA. A Southern Pacific freight stops in the siding and has some time before the opposing traffic passes it. I happen to be there and the Engineman says that it is time for lunch. I tell him that about a quarter mile west of where he stopped is the Lone Star bar and grill and they have excellent lunches. The engineman cuts off the lead engine and the crew, and me, take off for the Bar and Grill. He leaves the engine, an SD-45, Southern Pacific, in the siding, and we head for a great lunch. When we were finished, I went back to my office, and they ran the lead engine back, coupled up and took off for Cajon Pass. Great experience, great tall tales, and great lunch. These were not locals but a through freight. They appreciated my "assistance".

On the CN here, we get breaks for yard service and they take a lunch break on the road switcher.

On road trains you dont get a break. Condictors are qualified to operate the train in the presence of the engineer so the hogger can eat if he needs to.

And its not like we need to stop, being that we have fridges, hot plates and microwaves on our units.

gp9rm4108 wrote: On road trains you dont get a break. Condictors are qualified to operate the train in the presence of the engineer so the hogger can eat if he needs to.

Is this on the US side or Canadian?

I will stop any train, anywhere, to get a cup. When running from Carlsbad to Clovis, with DP potash trains, we stopped at Roswell every trip, time of day permitting, (Burrito Express' hours dictated the making of the stop) and got breakfast, lunch or dinner. We even sat down, and ate, while the train had the south end of Roswell tied up. We sat on 8 crossings, for only 20 minutes, while eating the best Mexican food, in east New Mexico. Of course, the train headed south, stopped every trip in Portales, to get a cup, at Town & Country. (a great place to meet the crews, and maybe even bum a ride, if you are buying.....) Every place I have ever worked, we always had time, for a hot cup of coffee, if it was close, and open. Running on Conrail, every trip up the Riverline, that came up the Northern, to the Swamp switch, resulted in "an emergency application, we almost hit a car", is how we reported it, to the DS. Dunkin Donuts was THE preferred spot, until you got to the middle of Teaneck, and the oriental grocery store, on the east side, north end of Nyack, and the general store on the west side, the general store at Haverstraw, on the east side, the bowling alley, at Newburg on the west side, the burger joint in the middle of Kingston and the restaurant, or convenience store, at Ravenna, either side of the bridge. You have to make time to eat. The first thing a real railroader asks, when landing on a new job is "what time does this job go to beans". You hear that, and you know it's going to be a good day......... Just a thought....

Road thru-freights you eat while your moving

Unless you stop, and enjoy a hot meal, at your favorite beanery......

Here on the Cajon Sub, they don't let us stop any more. In the past we would call in our orders in advance and make a quick stop in Hesperia to pick up our food and eat on the fly. Those were the best burritos...
Railroad knew what was going on, and sent a road foreman to sit by the joint and wait for the crews. Everybody who stopped got written up for delaying a train.

Now we just stop on the San Bernardino Sub. when the DS puts us in the hole... There is a Chinese place (not so good) and Starbucks.

On the locals we have more time and abundant choice of places to eat.

We have a small Mom and Pop store that has the best late lunches----If they are open and I am hungry we are gonna stop. It is such a good little operation that the owners have our credit card numbers stored behind the counter----we call them up and order a hot plate---tell them who you are and they run it on your card----you gotta luv it

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:I will stop any train, anywhere, to get a cup. When running from Carlsbad to Clovis, with DP potash trains, we stopped at Roswell every trip, time of day permitting, (Burrito Express' hours dictated the making of the stop) and got breakfast, lunch or dinner. We even sat down, and ate, while the train had the south end of Roswell tied up. We sat on 8 crossings, for only 20 minutes, while eating the best Mexican food, in east New Mexico. Of course, the train headed south, stopped every trip in Portales, to get a cup, at Town & Country. (a great place to meet the crews, and maybe even bum a ride, if you are buying.....) Every place I have ever worked, we always had time, for a hot cup of coffee, if it was close, and open. Running on Conrail, every trip up the Riverline, that came up the Northern, to the Swamp switch, resulted in "an emergency application, we almost hit a car", is how we reported it, to the DS. Dunkin Donuts was THE preferred spot, until you got to the middle of Teaneck, and the oriental grocery store, on the east side, north end of Nyack, and the general store on the west side, the general store at Haverstraw, on the east side, the bowling alley, at Newburg on the west side, the burger joint in the middle of Kingston and the restaurant, or convenience store, at Ravenna, either side of the bridge. You have to make time to eat. The first thing a real railroader asks, when landing on a new job is "what time does this job go to beans". You hear that, and you know it's going to be a good day......... Just a thought....

That's good advice. Maybe I'll cut and paste it over to the Employment forum and see how many new NS guys you can get fired. And there seems to be quite a few on that forum.

Blocking eight crossings for 20 minutes...give it a rest! Oh, I forgot, you'd just lay it off on the Conductor...

My last ten years working Selkirk - Buffalo, no stops for meals and
hopefully nothing else either. Pretty remote territory and not a lot of
places where we could get decent food either except in the cities and a
few towns. We would pack a big lunch and keep it in the frig until we
wanted it. A can of soda or a thermos of coffee helped too. Once in a
while, we would get held somewhere where there was a store or a
restaurant near by but that was rather unusual. We were working on a
very busy, main line with a lot of trains and multiple tracks and they had
to keep the trains moving. We did get a $2.00 allowance every trip in lieu
of a suitable meal enroute. I carried sandwiches that I made a home for
the entire round trip and they came in very handy enroute.
When I worked the River Line some years earlier we would sometimes
stop at Kingston southbound or Newburgh southbound or maybe Kingston
northbound for food, Mikes Diner, McDonalds/Dunkin Donuts or the
bowling alley. New Jersey, Haverstraw and Nyack were not good places
to stop, crossings, hostile police and vandals were among the reasons
that a lot of crews in my time did not want to stop in these areas.
I never liked stopping for eats on the road as it almost always made the
trip longer. On a single track division, the dispatcher would end up
changing a meet and we would really get screwed sometimes over a cup
of coffee and a hot dog.
On a local freight it was a totally different story, the conductor would
usually arrange the work so we got a decent lunch stop in a good place
and at a location where we had no crossings blocked and were not in any
danger.
In the yard, the contracts generally called for a 20 minute lunch break but
we usually got much more than 20 minutes, time enough to either walk to
a restaurant for chow, make something at the yard or something else.
In the few cases where the yard master or whoever was running the show
saw fit to give us a 19 minute lunch, we governed our output accordingly
and they did not get any more done by giving us a short lunch break.
Noel Weaver

Oh, I forgot, you'd just lay it off on the Conductor...

The Conductor should bad order his butt, that would teach him.

Hey "D", (BigC) it's a different world, riding the cushions. And besides, the Riverline is CSX, not NS. In a city, with 14 crossings, in 2 miles, blocking 8 isn't the end of the world. (population of Roswell, NM and surrounding counties, is 45,900) A Burrito Express meal is worth it. You gotta remember, we have less people in the entire state, than in the city limits, of Elizabeth. The stops on the Riverline didn't involve blocking any crossings. The law allows you 15 minutes. I notice is doesn't occur to you, that the conductor is hungry, and calls for the stops, as well. (never saw a fat hungry conductor before, I imagine) Yep, lay it on the engineer. "He's driving, I am just a rider, officer............" That $2.00 came to $1.88 for us. Man, you can eat like a king, for that kind of money!!! If you are nice, and treat the DS fairly, many will allow you time to make a quick pit-stop, and might even plan a meet, around it. It's a give and take, and you have to be prepared, to pay that favor back, when asked. The road in N.M. didn't have the traffic to delay, and we also stopped in the mountains, to hunt snakes, explore caves, and take photos, if we felt like it. Not much incentive, to race across the railroad, when you are being paid by the hour (no guarantee) and the 182 mile run can be made, in 4 hours and 40 minutes. If you want 8 hours pay, you have to spend 8 hours on the train. (or in Burrito Express!!!)