Split rest was the legal practice of allowing an operating employee 4 hrs off
between assignments so long as total time on duty combined didn't exceed the
"hog law". During the heyday of the Zephyrs and Northerns it was common for
passenger and conductor extra list men to split rest out of C.U.S. and get
their full 8 hrs rest at Savanna,Galesburg or Burlington.Another area that
routinely saw split rest usage was on suburban on the weekends again off the
conductors and passenger brkmns extra lists. You were almost guaranteed a
split rest or full double to the night dinkies if you caught 300 or 302 on
Sat. morning. You'd be called to protect one "leg" or the other of one of the
night jobs. I recall one Saturday night that was so bad that it took 4 brkmn
each working on way over the road to protect the last round trip! Of course
this was in one sense agreeable to the most dreaded of calls on Sat/Sunday
night after working that morning. Care to guess? ........ OK the most dreaded
call was for 81,181 or 353 as you were going to be 12-16 hrs enroute after
already being up since 4 A.M. that morning. Just about impossible to stay
awake as the sun starting rising above the horizon after being up 24 hrs.
On the other hand if you received the call to split onto a night dinky then
all the next week you were stuck on afternoon and evening dinkies rather than
the preferred morning jobs.
Leo
P.S. another hot spot for split rest was the extra list @ Eola Yard. One
brkmn took to split resting out of his car to save the bother of going home
between shifts.
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