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Re: ON THE SPOT

To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: ON THE SPOT
From: liljo@o...
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 05:54:31 -0000
In-reply-to: <a5.11b7fee5.27c17ba2@a...>
User-agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
--- In BRHSlist@y..., PSHedgpeth@a... wrote:
> Speaking of three man crews. How about 4 man crews as in "full 
crew law 
> states". On the Rock Island it was Arkansas. 
> 
> A train crew consisted of engineer, fireman, three brakemen and a 
conductor.


my understanding of a full crew law in a state was a crew of 5, 
meaning an engineer, head and rear brakemen, a conductor and a 
fireman. firemen were terminated on may 7, 1964.... "Persuant to 
paragraph c(2), Part C, Section II, of the Award of Arbitration Board 
No. 282, established by Joint Resolution of Congress under Public Law 
88-180, which was made on November 26, 1963, firemen with less than 
two years service as of January 25, 1964, may be seperated from 
Carrier's payrolls and have employement and seniority rights 
terminated....." believe reading back then that this could affect 
*up to* 25,000 jobs nationwide, this including men with more than two 
years service but not ten years. men with more than ten years or more 
they had to keep.

taking the burlington west from chicago... illinois, iowa, nebraska 
were not full crew states. colorado was. also, but not involving the 
burlington, oregon was a full crew state. know there were more. 
some states passed full crew laws just before (maybe 3-6 months) 
arbitration board 282 went into effect.

have never heard of three brakemen, but probably existed somewhere. 
no arkansas remarks here <grin>


> Just as an aside,if memory serves, when the multi unit diesel 
consists came 
> into being in the late 30's early 40's the organizations wanted an 
engineer 
> and fireman on each unit. The compromise was that the fireman 
stayed long 
> after he had anything like something necessary to do. The 
exception was 
> passenger trains with steam generator units. These took up a great 
deal of 
> the fireman's time as it seems they malfunctioned for often than 
they worked 
> correctly. They were far from automatic.

from what was told by older engineer's, the unions, should say union, 
fireman's union, (ble never tried for anything except for the dollar 
and a half, and they probably didn't ask for that) when the ft's came 
started negotiations to have a fireman on every unit, believe even 
threatened a labour (for our nz friends) dispute. so a 4 unit ft 
consist would of had 1 engineer and 4 fireman. of course calmer heads 
prevailed. probably used as a bargining point, have a foggy memory of 
being told that only one fireman on diesel road units and burlington 
would not try to get rid of firemen until a later date or drop their 
attempt to get rid of them at that time. (think they might of been 
trying to get rid of firemen on yard engines) this fireman thing went 
on for 20 years

when firemen were terminated did not effect passenger firemen, 
passenger fireman at that time was considered as a co-engineer, for 
saftey. although he did have his boilers and engines to tend to. how 
long this practice was continued? today if run is 4 hrs? no asst 
engineer is needed?


> Among other things I have been wrong about was my thinking that the 
fireman 
> and the hotbox would be with us forever.


even though you didn't have a fireman at least back then you could 
still drag a blazer out onto the bridge at burlington <grin>




> 
> Pete Hedgpeth
> 
> 



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