I've written a bit about the Mainline(Chicago-Burlington) interdivisional
passenger pool before but I just finished reading a monster BRT file on the
subject. Just a quick summary to say it was absolutely amazing that with so
many parochial interests involved that somehow they managed to operate the
trains w/o too much in the way of chaos.
Starting with the 1907 and again the 1910 agreements passenger service on the
mainline(West of Aurora) as differentitated from North(toward Savanna) was
divided on the 40-40-20 basis.That is the first 40% of jobs went to Aurora
men.There was one giant caveat. Any Chicago division road passenger trainman
with a seniority date of 1910 or earlier that wanted had prior rights to any
of these 40% Aurora jobs. The next 40% of the work belonged to Joint
right(Aurora men at Galesburg) but if there weren't enough of them interested
in the run then the balance went to Aurora but did not count as part of
Auroras 40%.The next 20% belonged to East Ottumwa. For example if there was a
5 turn pool Aurora got the first 2 picks then Aurora(at Galesburg) the next 2
and East Ottumwa the last one. If it was a 10 turn pool after the first round
they picked again,etc,etc.So one of the continuing sore points was that East
Ottumwa always got last pick of the jobs and received the least desirable
turn in each pool.
The next problem routinely developed after a pool had been in existance for a
few years and the originial bidders left and vacancies were posted. Usually
it was a Chgo mans retirement that created the opening and then there were
often disagreements as to whether that particular turn in the pool belong to
Aurora,joint Aurora men or even if Ottumwa should get it so as to throw them
a bone for suffering so long.Usually time slips resulted no matter how fair
the greivers tried to be and then local mgmt would get involved and sometimes
local mgmt would muddle early and from some of the mens perspectives things
really got screwed up.
For example one the most protracted disagreements resulted over the
retirement of a chgo man in the mainline baggage pool.
The job was posted as an Aurora vacancy but an East Ottumwa man bid on the
job and was awarded it by the trainmasters clerk in Chgo. Lets just say all
you know what broke lose.
leo
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