As requested earlier here's the explanation as to why the La Grange Stone Ave,
north side freight house became really important to the road crew on the
Congress Park job(s). Yes for some years there were two jobs, a day and a
night. Stay with me as I need to explain the groundwork before I get to the
point.
After the end of WWII, with the concurrent end to rationing of everything and
the return
To a peace time economy,rail traffic switched from war material to a normal
flow of
Industrial and consumer products. The later being most important for our
discussion.
Congress Park interchange between the Q and the IHB concentrated on consumer
products. As the economy normalized and the pent up demand for consumer
products
Jumped so did traffic thru the Harbor
interchange.Livestock,meat,produce,autos,etc,etc
Traffic grew dramatically. Thus traffic via the interchange, which easily cut a
day or more off the movement through the Chicago terminal, likewise grew.
Soon Congress Park jobs were being told to not only switch out the North and
West cars into blocks, as they had routinely done, but now they were to take
blocks of cars to West Hinsdale,Westmont or Downers Grove to get them out of
the Congress Park yard so the Harbor Had room to deliver more cars. These
blocks would be picked up by the trough trains at the outlying points, rather
than at the Park.
Once caveat,I do not want to start a chain about work rules, let's just enjoy
the story.
So at this time the Congress Park jobs were wayfreights. They were "advertised"
to operate from Clyde to Congress Park and return. Management set the jobs
limits. Under
The work agreements if the crews were ordered to operate beyond these
limits,i.e. Go to
Points west, they were entitled to another day's pay. Crews began filing claims
for these payments and were turned down. Long story short there was a
conference of local division management and the union representatives and a new
local agreement was hammered out. The new stated anytime spent West of Stone
Ave freight house switch on the Congress Park would be at actual time spent,
over and above the regular pay and O.T. on the job. It was agreed that all
outstanding claims would be settled on that basis.
Management and labor worked together to solve an issue. There many,many,many
local
Agreements on all divisions covering various issues.
The question I have is why didn't management simply re-advertise the jobs to
operate
Clyde to Downers Grove and return ? Thus eliminating all premium pay without
any additional costs as the jobs would still operate under 100 miles, which was
the minimum
For a standard day's work.
In 1964 the system road switcher class of service was created. This allowed a
road switcher to operate up to a 25 mile round trip out of a terminal and back
without limits as to how many trips were made between the points in a day's
work(unlike a wayfreight
That could only make one w/o a penalty payment). The Congress Park job became a
road switcher but interestingly the premium payment for "west" time remained in
place.
Some nights multiple trips west were made to clear the park. The Congress Park
job was
Routinely one of the 3 highest paying jobs on the division. By the way, The
"Park Job" worked 7 days a week,365 day's a year, and usually worked up to
close to the hog law each night.
Then in 1979 a national board award allowed yard crews extended rights to
operate in road territory as agreed by local management and labor. Very quickly
the "park" was assigned as a yard job out of Cicero. There obvious transition
difficulties as the yard crews learned the nuances of trying to work between
and around the dinkies but over time they got it down. Then in the mid '80s the
deregulation of trucking brought a real
Earth moving change as truckers were free to bid on product moves for their
empty rigs
At rates that railroads couldn't compete with, as all the truckers had to do
was offset the
Costs of what had been an empty move for them.
Soon Congress fell silent and what little interchange remained was handled into
Cicero directly by the IHB crews who operated over BN tracks from and return to
Congress Park.
Hope you have enjoyed just one little "inside look" at the things worked in
reality.
Leo
Ps-while I knew some of the above from first hand experience, the historic
details were gleaned from the union claim files in my collection.
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Posted by: qutlx1@aol.com
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