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  • Pan Am Railways article in Trains magazine

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #771929  by Highball
 
Noel Weaver wrote:John Kneiling was a writer for Trains some years ago. He wrote a lot of stuff about his ideas for the future and some of his
stuff was pretty far out. He was also pretty anti labor in his writings. Trains finally dumped him and I for one was glad
when they did it. It was a waste of ink and paper.
I thought Kneiling conveyed good ideas with regard to rail labour becoming more productive for the future of the rail industry. Afterall, rail management was not the " enemy " to labour just prior to The Staggers Rail Act, it was the Trucking Industry.

I recall a story about 1978 or 1979, either in Trains Magazine or Railfan / Railroad, concerning the impending strike involving the Rock Island RR. In that article, a picture had the crew of a RI local way freight, posing on front of the lead power unit........six members, yes six.......engineer, fireman, head end brakeman, rear brakeman, conductor and last but not least, a flagman.

I guess for the Union, it was important to keep everyone's job. As for the Rock Island, it was soon to become a " Fallen Flag ".
 #796288  by ItaliDe
 
Highball wrote: I recall a story about 1978 or 1979, either in Trains Magazine or Railfan / Railroad, concerning the impending strike involving the Rock Island RR. In that article, a picture had the crew of a RI local way freight, posing on front of the lead power unit........six members, yes six.......engineer, fireman, head end brakeman, rear brakeman, conductor and last but not least, a flagman.
I didnt read thru this entire thread , just pressed for time.. but I read this last part... I remember in the 1980's watching the Chessie System... great times in railroading! Anyway, back then EACH POWERED unit had a crew member in it... They werent allowed to run online units MU'd together without a crew member.. So if a train had 4 units, there were 4 engineers/conductors/brakemen, one in each unit.. Plus 2 guys in the caboose... so thats 6 right there! Today F'n railroads are trying to cut it down to just 1 guy manning a train..and i have heard rumors that out onm the UP they are experimenting with no crew remote control trains on a small sector of rail! Not sure how far this will fly.. all that will take is one fatal crash and lawsuits will never end! People will say, well if you had a live person behind the throttle of the train this crash wouldnt have happened!
 #805137  by MJRuef
 
John Kneiling was called "The Professional Iconoclast." He did a very good job of putting something in his articles to anger anyone who read them. He was particularly antagonistic toward rail labor leaders, simplistically blamed them for all of the industry's ills, and mislead a lot of people who loved railroading and wanted to know who to blame for the dissapearance of the trains they loved so much.

Many people who learned the little they know about railroad labor relations from Kneiling's rants were led to believe that the industry would thrive if only the unions would make concessions out of enlightened self interest. The people leading the unions then were acutely aware of the industry's problems. Nobody wanted the industry to prosper and flourish more than they did; however, they were dealing with managements who appeared intent on destroying the industry, diverting the capital for other purposes, and would only use any concessions they could get for their own short term gain. Hardly an environment conducive then (or now) to mutually beneficial collective bargaining, and one that fosters a bunker mentality, which still curses the parties today.

Magazines like Trains should really stay away from labor relations issues. They need to have access to railroad properties and managment staff in order to write the articles they do, and if they ever tried to cover those issues in a balanced way they would instantly lose the access to the properties they have always enjoyed.
 #807863  by oibu
 
It's amusing watching these flame-war threads abot Guilford. Yeah ok we all know that most foamers love to gun for Guilford management. I guess it's easy to ignore that EVERY railroad today uses public money to it's advantage whenever and wherever it can; every railroad today crews trains more or less the way Guilford was attempting to in 1985-87; almost every railroad's ownership and/or management, from shortline to Class I, deals in things not related in the least to moving freight on steel rails; and every railroad screws up. You guys really think NS and CSX never have units run out of fuel at remote locations or otherwise make little faux pas of maintenance,m dispatching, power management, etc. that end up tying the railroad up for hours? You really think CSX's reputation for putting trains on the ground is due to their exemplary management and maintenance practices? Also at the risk of stating the obvious, as an example I dare say it's not up to Fink or Mellon to be sure every unit in a consist has enough fuel to make teh run prior to departure... I also doubt anyone on this forum, after taking the lambasting and suffering the traffic losses caused by the strikes of the mid-late 80s, would be keeping a very public, smiley profile. And just for the record, I am generally pro-labor but there does come a point where you have to admit economic reality, and no amount of featherbedding or tunring a blind eye is going to change it (see above comments re: crew sizes etc. today, traffic loss due to '80s strikes, etc). Teh damage done by those strikes is still strongly in evidence today, and it's pretty ignorant to say that it's all management's fault. That's a bit like blaming the CHinese for 100% of our current economic woes- just because they're an easy scapegoat doesn't make them fully responsible.
 #807879  by Noel Weaver
 
ItaliDe wrote:
Highball wrote:
I remember in the 1980's watching the Chessie System... great times in railroading! Anyway, back then EACH POWERED unit had a crew member in it... They werent allowed to run online units MU'd together without a crew member.. So if a train had 4 units, there were 4 engineers/conductors/brakemen, one in each unit.. Plus 2 guys in the caboose... so thats 6 right there! Today F'n railroads are trying to cut it down to just 1 guy manning a train..and i have heard rumors that out onm the UP they are experimenting with no crew remote control trains on a small sector of rail! Not sure how far this will fly.. all that will take is one fatal crash and lawsuits will never end! People will say, well if you had a live person behind the throttle of the train this crash wouldnt have happened!
This is a bunch of nonsense. The railroads nationally have been operating diesel electric locomotive since the 40's and
even before that with only one engineer and one fireman until the firemen came off beginning in the 60's. MU operation
allowed for all units to be controlled from the lead locomotive and the railroads took advantage of that, in fact this was
one of the big reasons for diesels in the first place, the ability to add or subtract units depending on operating conditions
and other needs. Today they do run radio controlled slave units in a train that are controlled from the lead unit by the one
engineer assigned to that particular train. They have been doing this for a good many years too, I ran trains on Conrail in
the 1990's with two six motor units on the head end and two six motor units maybe 125 cars back which were controlled by
what I did on the lead unit. I could also control these slave units independenly of the lead units if I saw a need to.
On Conrail at that time we had two trains daily or at least most days out of Selkirk for Elkhart and the railroad for a few
months combined them in to one "super train". Every trip that I had on that train was a good trip in more ways than one.
Noel Weaver
 #807994  by trainwayne1
 
Noel, not having ever worked with distributed power in my time in engine service on the EL, I was wondering if the rate of pay changed when you had extra units on the rear of the train. I remember we were paid rates determined by "weight on drivers" in the consist. It was a bonus when we were called for an eastbound out of Port Jervis that had 4 or 5 units going through to Croxton.
 #808016  by Noel Weaver
 
trainwayne1 wrote:Noel, not having ever worked with distributed power in my time in engine service on the EL, I was wondering if the rate of pay changed when you had extra units on the rear of the train. I remember we were paid rates determined by "weight on drivers" in the consist. It was a bonus when we were called for an eastbound out of Port Jervis that had 4 or 5 units going through to Croxton.
The slave units were considered part of the locomotive consist and the engine numbers went on the timeslip. There was
more than that to the story, it made the train a nice job in my book.
Noel Weaver
 #1192483  by MEC407
 
I never did get a chance to see this issue of Trains before it disappeared from the newsstands. Just wondering if someone out there might be willing to loan me their copy.