(wish I had the book to compare your notes to)
My big (long winded coming) point on the subject of rules, investigations, etc.
is that, basically, train crews were set up for failure with the company
holding all the cards. The RR had the furthest thing from a true "safety
culture" as you could get. It was all reactive, and nothing proactive.
Example: when I went to from train to engine service. It was very much like my
first months as a brakeman. Anything I learned was basically up to me. There
were no classes, no books, no guidance. You picked it up on the job. So, if you
worked with a good engineer (same with a conductor for a brakeman) who
communicated, you learned some things. If not..... (and there were a lot of
engineers who wanted no part of having a fireman and acted accordingly).... And
there was no guidance on that. The Road Foremen took little interest, didn't
assign firemen to certain engineers, didn't monitor progress (beyond getting
some minimal feedback from some engineers) or do any continuing educational
efforts. The unfortunate thing was, with minimal fireman staffing, you spent
most of your time on suburban. Hard to learn geography, freight handling and
ops that way.
Engineer school in St Paul (in the old GN HQ building basement) was almost all
on learning very rudimentary systems diagrams (cooling, air, electricity, etc).
Not nearly enough to actually be able to do anything with a bad engine on the
road. Very little about actual ops except repeatedly being told to "always use
dynamic braking" which very few ex-Q men on the C&I did very much (but we had
some amazing "wizards with an air brake").
And the set-up to engineer came very fast. I was examined in a year, and was
immediately being called for fill-in engineer jobs. I was full-time set-up
shortly thereafter. There were huge gaps in my knowledge and I'm surprised I
didn't get in even more trouble than I did. A saving fact was that the extra
list gave you wide exposure to go out and, in reality, teach yourself how to be
an engineer.
I felt sorry for some fellow new firemen who came in from other departments
(mechanical, a clerk, etc) who were completely lost. I mean, some of them had
near zero ops (or personnel) knowledge. At least I had those years in train
service that gave me a lot of basic knowledge (and knowing who to fire for and
who not). The first time some of these new engineers saw a branch line is when
they caught it off the engineer extra list! (This was an unfortunate byproduct
of not (mostly) taking firemen from the train service as was done previously. A
change in seniority policy in the early 70's didn't help)
The point is there was so much more than the Consolidated Code and Special
Instructions to learn and retain. And the whole educational process was mostly
ignored.
Now, compare that to say an airline pilot. The requirements to get into their
"left seat" as opposed to our "right seat" weren't even on the same planet. And
their procedures to run simulations of emergencies and operational situations
once or twice a year to maintain their certificates - absolutely nothing like
that on RR. Once you had been examined they never looked at you again. Apart
from the mentioned spot tests - which were very rare as I remember - unless you
screwed up (and were caught) you were out of sight, out of mind. I think I had
a Road Foreman do a cab ride one time - and he was just catching a ride to a
derailment site.
So, when something went wrong, it was all about blame, and blame could be very
simple and easy if they weren't interested in the systemic reasons. The
attitude was "that's they way it's always been, it works." But as far as a real
safety culture (systemic analysis deeper than the obvious surface, learning and
then educating), I saw none of that. No "lessons learned" were taught (unless
you heard it through the grapevine). There were never any "refresher" efforts.
I have heard things have improved (somewhat)......sorry, ranting over
Doug
----- Original Message -----
From: qutlx1@aol.com
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2012 5:30:42 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Fwd: Away from home accomodations/was Fire Insurance
Doug et al,
Further research in "The Burlington Waycars" book appendix reveals that as of:
8/1/68 there were 7 assigned waycars in the C&I pool. The nicknames that were
assigned will be familiar.
Gabby, the preacher,the crazy one, the hunkie, and a couple others who's
nicknames would be too obvious to the general membership of this list. To all
readers, I did change the order of nicknames to the list of names on page 651
of the book to protect myself and the innocent. Doug and a few others know
exactly which goes with whom. Also the name at the bottom of the memo should
ring a bell or two. I witnessed him ring a young lazy brakemans bell one
morning on a dinky and I don think I've ever seen it done better.
As of 1-20-69 a internal company memo on page 643 still shows 6 assigned w/c's
in the C&I pool specifically between Cicero and Savanna.
So from this it must have been sometime in 1969 or later that the C&I pool went
to the thru pool waycar system
Leo Phillipp
Doug et al,
Further research in "The Burlington Waycars" book appendix reveals that as of:
8/1/68 there were 7 assigned waycars in the C&I pool. The nicknames that were
assigned will be familiar.
Gabby, the preacher,the crazy one, the hunkie, and a couple others who's
nicknames would be too obvious to the general membership of this list. To all
readers, I did change the order of nicknames to the list of names on page 651
of the book to protect myself and the innocent. Doug and a few others know
exactly which goes with whom. Also the name at the bottom of the memo should
ring a bell or two. I witnessed him ring a young lazy brakemans bell one
morning on a dinky and I don think I've ever seen it done better.
As of 1-20-69 a internal company memo on page 643 still shows 6 assigned w/c's
in the C&I pool specifically between Cicero and Savanna.
So from this it must have been sometime in 1969 or later that the C&I pool went
to the thru pool waycar system
Leo Phillipp
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
CBQ-digest@yahoogroups.com
CBQ-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CBQ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|