[CBQ] Fwd: Fire Insurance

[qutlx1@aol.com]

Here's a real life "incident" that happened and resulted in an investigation. This is an early BN time period incident but it could have have been Q just as easily.

 

We worked east out of Savannna with several non aligned coupler equipped GP7/SD7 and or 9s. At Eola after p/uing up and s/o ing we went to the "house" and p/u'ed a couple more non aligned units. Total units were now somewhere North of 7. There was a special instruction at the time requiring that a consist of more than 6 or was it 7 non aligned units would have any excess "off line". Leaving Eola we had a s/o for Congress Park. 

 

The engineer was an Aurora Div man who lived in Galesburg and usually worked the mainline pool but due to economic conditions he couldn't hold the mainline pool and was living in his camper at the Eola rdhse and working the C&I pool.

 

When we stopped at Congress Park to s/o he used a lot of independent as he had used the train line earlier. My partner made the cut and they pulled ahead spreading the mainline rail all the way to Maple Ave. Long story short the evening dinky parade was a mess and we all received the letter about" to determine your responsbility concerning the incident at Congress Park on ".

 

The engineer received as I recall 30 days off for non compliance w/special instruction.......... should he have remembered the clause buried in the special insutructions,I guess so. What was of real interest to me was as the rear brakeman I was asked if I complied with Rule 99 flagging requirements? While I had(truly) what other answer did the kangaroo court expect me to give ?

 

Leo

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--- Begin Message ---

To:	cbq@yahoogroups.com
Subject:	Fire Insurance
From:	QUtlx1@aol.com
Date:	Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:16:47 -0400 (EDT)
Full-name:	QUtlx1

Let me try and shed some insider details. We never called it fire insurance, it was job insurance. You could get it through BRCF or the UTU.

 

What did it insure ? Working on any RR,not just the Q,was pretty much like working in a military organisation except there were no guns. There were mutliple rule books, the Consolidate Code,Signals & Indications rules,Safety Rules,Air Brake and Train Handling rules,rules pertaining to current timetable and special instructions and current Supt and trainmasters bulletins. If you screwed up and put something on the ground one of these rules would apply. How did I just come up with that long list.........Doug Hartman just emailed a couple days ago the Supts letter to him,myself and a couple dozens others that we were to prepare ourselves for the exam to Condr promotion in 1976.

 

If you had any kind of a derailment,accident,incident,etc you would receive a letter asking you to attend an investigation to "determine your responsibility......................." concerning the incident. The end result,if found guilty of one of the 700 plus rules was time off. The job insurance replace a portion of your wages while you sat home for the prescribed time off before returning to work.

 

Was there any other industry with this type of penalty system ?

 

Leo Phillipp

Former Brakeman,Condr,and local Greiver........yes I have been to a few investigations.

 

 

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