Throw Edgar from the train!



  • @FrostCat said:

    This, of course, is a WTF of its own.

    It would be interesting to see how often this happens. I wonder if it's tracked as such: you might be able to predict it and put a second crew on a train in danger of having the crew run out of hours.

    Normally, the dispatcher will stay on top of this, and make sure that recrews or dogcatch (relief) crews get out to where they're needed in a prompt manner...


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I'd rather put up with a squished seat for an hour and a half than be trapped in a comfortable one for literally an entire day out of my trip. I'd spend six hours in a nice seat over an hour cramped, sure, but that's a whole day I can't spend enjoying the sights, and it means a weekend trip is out of the question entirely.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @EvanED said:

    I believe this graph illustrates why trains are still a reasonable option if your end points are serviced and it's a mid-range trip like the one you propose:

    You forgot one very important part:


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    The track segments in question are quite old, and were rather state of the art the last time they were touched, and still work -- its just that the dispatcher can't sort trains on that part of the territory.

    Well, perhaps they should have been sat down before the last time. 😄

    Anyone who's played RT knows you need to put in a set of dual tracks every so often, for just such an occasion. 😄


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    Normally, the dispatcher will stay on top of this

    Hah, that's good to know. I wasn't sure it happened enough for people to be ready for it, but I kind of figured it was, since railroads have been around a while.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    The plane has all the airport shenanigans at each end, are you factoring that into the time taken?
    I don't know how it works for domestic flights in the US but that can add hours on if you need to be there x time beforehand, plus driving there, plus collecting your baggage etc.


  • FoxDev

    @boomzilla said:

    You forgot one very important part:

    wait.... amtrack is selling food at below cost?

    also what the flagnar are they putting in their burgers to make them that expen sive‽



  • @FrostCat said:

    Anyone who's played RT knows you need to put in a set of dual tracks every so often, for just such an occasion.

    The sidings are there -- its just that they are too short for the trains that are run in this day and age.


  • Java Dev

    When I was at uni I traveled by train daily - 40 mins there 40 mins back. Almost never delayed. Students travel free, 15 minutes bike ride at the home end.

    If I want to go shopping in Amsterdam, I'd still take the train. Car parking is hell, but the train drops you off in the heart of the city.

    Different world though - the Dutch railway system is almost more like a metro system.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @PleegWat said:

    When I was at uni I traveled by train daily - 40 mins there 40 mins back

    When I did my master's, I walked to campus, but it was only a 10-minute train ride into town to go shopping. But that was in the UK.

    It'd be a 2-hour train ride into London, and that was considered super far :|


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Yamikuronue said:

    that was considered super far

    Any journey that ends in London should be considered "super far".


  • BINNED

    @loopback0 said:

    Any journey that ends in London should be considered "super far".

    ...even if it also begins in London.



  • @tarunik said:

    recrews or dogcatch (relief) crews

    What's the difference between a recrew and a dogcatch crew?



  • @accalia said:

    amtrack is selling food at below cost?

    They are, apparently, selling food at ~1.5x the normal cost of similar food, but still losing money.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    What's the difference between a recrew and a dogcatch crew?

    A recrew is the normal replacement crew for that run taking over from the previous crew. A dogcatch is what you call when the train's dead on the law and needs to be dragged the rest of the way in (although if it's close enough to a terminal, a yard crew will sometimes take care of getting it the last few miles in in this day and age).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    The sidings are there -- its just that they are too short for the trains that are run in this day and age.

    I think that clearly illustrates rather a lot of what is wrong with the rail industry in the US. Infrastructure limitations that would need some spending to fix? Ignore 'em! Who cares if your operations are going to be screwed over on a regular basis? You're saving on having to make capital investment! Yay! 😦

    Not that I claim the UK is better. Just that it has different fuck ups. It does happen to be a lot more passenger rail friendly, but that's mostly because rail is being used heavily to keep road traffic levels down to non-gridlock levels…


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @tarunik said:

    dead on the law and needs to be dragged the rest of the way in

    Sounds like a plot summary from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dkf said:

    Infrastructure limitations that would need some spending to fix?

    Also, not worth making the investment if all anyone's going to get is slightly less aggravating passenger service.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    A recrew is the normal replacement crew for that run taking over from the previous crew.

    If they know this is going to happen, do they put the recrew on the train preemptively so they can just take over from the other one?



  • @FrostCat said:

    If they know this is going to happen, do they put the recrew on the train preemptively so they can just take over from the other one?

    @tarunik, I'm sure, can answer more definitively, but I think the answer is no. Normally,the crew change would be scheduled for a specific location where the recrew will be waiting1. The only place on a modern US freight train for crew to ride is a locomotive. There are generally multiple locomotives hauling the train, and I suppose the off-duty crew could ride in other locomotives, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were something stupid in the law that considered them to be not off-duty in doing so; thus, they would also be exceeding their work time limit and unable to take over. They'd almost certainly have to be paid as if they were on-duty, so the railroad would be paying for two crews for a single train. Also, this whole issue only comes up if there are unplanned delays, so putting the recrew on the train would still mean taking the recrew to an unscheduled crew change point, just before the train dies on the law instead of after.

    1 http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/6840#comment-55869


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @HardwareGeek said:

    They'd almost certainly have to be paid as if they were on-duty, so the railroad would be paying for two crews for a single train.

    I figured this would be a potential impediment.

    But I was wondering, because AFAIK in over-the-road trucking, you can put two guys in an 18-wheeler and have them trade off when the first one uses up his hours for the day. (But maybe I'm wrong about that too, or maybe it's just not done for $ reasons.)



  • @FrostCat said:

    AFAIK in over-the-road trucking, you can put two guys in an 18-wheeler and have them trade off when the first one uses up his hours for the day.

    I'm not sure, but I think truckers are, at least sometimes, contractors rather than employees. Also, I think they are often paid by the load rather than by the hour, so if two guys want to team up and split the money, that's up to them. However, my "knowledge" comes from long-ago popular entertainment, so is likely to be inaccurate.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I'm not sure, but I think truckers are, at least sometimes, contractors rather than employees.

    That's what independent truckers and/or owner-operators are, I would imagine.

    I just remembered I know a guy who used to do long-haul trucking, so he might know, although tbh the matter's pretty academic.



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    A quick and dirty graph of my options (axes are arranged so higher is better):

    I can understand why lower hours are better. Why are higher costs better?


  • FoxDev

    I thought that to when I saw it. I just assumed that she forgot to flip one of the axis.



  • You are indeed correct -- recrews typically take place at a terminal or other "nice" place on the line for a crew change (some sidings are more accessible than others for a crew van, or the crew may deadhead down on a different train, perhaps one that is due to leave the nearest terminal in ten minutes).



  • @tarunik said:

    the crew may deadhead down on a different train

    Is the crew on the clock while they are deadheading?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    You know airlines seem to handle that identical problem in a much more reasonable way.

    Only if you like staying in airport hotels.

    Air crew duty time limits are based on planned time gate-to-gate. So if the crew has 5 hours left, the aircraft pulls back for a 5 hour flight and then it ends up waiting half an hour on the taxiway because previous aircraft blew a tyre and runway has to be inspected, the flight continues. But if during pre-flight something fails and it takes a mechanic half an hour to fix it, the crew expires, because they can't depart for 5 hour flight with 4½ hour left. If you are at a hub, there is a stand-by crew available, but at remote location, or with a small airline, it can easily mean you are flying tomorrow. Happens. Not that rarely.

    @Jaloopa said:

    There are certain complications involved in leaving an aeroplane in the middle of nowhere when you've passed your allotted hours.

    That's why the time is only checked when leaving gate. And I would expect it to be checked only when leaving a station for train crews too.

    @Yamikuronue said:

    It takes an hour and a half to fly.

    You have to include the two hours to get through the airports and the time getting to and from respective airports, so you should really count something like 4 hours.

    @FrostCat said:

    But I was wondering, because AFAIK in over-the-road trucking, you can put two guys in an 18-wheeler and have them trade off when the first one uses up his hours for the day.

    As far as I remember (from bus holiday trips; the rules are the same for buses and trucks) rules here in Europe are:

    • Single driver must have ¾ hour break after each 4½ hours driving and 8 hours rest after 12 hours driving.
    • Two drivers must switch every 4 hours and must have 8 hours rest after 24 hours driving.

    They rarely use two-driver crews for trucks, because it ends up being more expensive, but they do use them for long-range buses, both scheduled lines and holiday trips. E.g. the Prague-London bus line is almost 24 hours and IIRC is still running though it does not make much sense any more with current air ticket prices.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Bulb said:

    E.g. the Prague-London bus line is almost 24 hours and IIRC is still running though it does not make much sense any more with current air ticket prices.

    Air tickets might be cheap, but the bus is even cheaper. For some people, saving money is more important than saving time (i.e., their time has extremely low value to them, or they can do something else at the same time).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Also, not worth making the investment if all anyone's going to get is slightly less aggravating passenger service.

    I guess it's more about reversing the problems caused by decades of underinvestment. In general, freight and passenger operations should be separated in cities (they go to different places in the city) and lines between them should have an appropriate number of places to allow traffic to pass, train crews to be changed, etc. The higher the speed differential between different types of traffic, the more of those places you need; eventually, it makes sense to have more lines built.

    Using a single track is like having a single track road as your highway. You really shouldn't be surprised when that causes congestion problems! Significant investment (e.g., to 4 tracks on a high-traffic route) is like upgrading to an interstate; the times shouldn't just get a little bit better.

    Though I'm guessing that they're more talking about fixing mixed freight/passenger bottlenecks in cities. That's expensive and necessary, and can improve things for both types of traffic.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @FrostCat said:

    tbh the matter's pretty academic.

    Said one person ever about long haul trucking.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @topic title said:

    this corporate lodging thread has been derailed

    Ha! I get it de-RAIL-ed...


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    >tbh the matter's pretty academic.

    Said one person ever about long haul trucking.

    FRIST!

    But more seriously, I meant in the context of tdwtf, where it doesn't affect anything.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    Is the crew on the clock while they are deadheading?

    I'm not sure of that, actually -- I'll have to check...

    @Bulb said:

    Air crew duty time limits are based on planned time gate-to-gate. So if the crew has 5 hours left, the aircraft pulls back for a 5 hour flight and then it ends up waiting half an hour on the taxiway because previous aircraft blew a tyre and runway has to be inspected, the flight continues. But if during pre-flight something fails and it takes a mechanic half an hour to fix it, the crew expires, because they can't depart for 5 hour flight with 4½ hour left. If you are at a hub, there is a stand-by crew available, but at remote location, or with a small airline, it can easily mean you are flying tomorrow. Happens. Not that rarely.

    Yep. At least you folks have a concept of passengers 'in transit'...

    @dkf said:

    Though I'm guessing that they're more talking about fixing mixed freight/passenger bottlenecks in cities. That's expensive and necessary, and can improve things for both types of traffic.

    Yes -- look at Chicago's CREATE project for a good example of this.

    @dkf said:

    Using a single track is like having a single track road as your highway. You really shouldn't be surprised when that causes congestion problems! Significant investment (e.g., to 4 tracks on a high-traffic route) is like upgrading to an interstate; the times shouldn't just get a little bit better.

    Yeah, ever taken a look at how busy the Triple-Track Main gets?

    BTW: I didn't realize the earlier numbers for Amtrak were 5 year numbers, not 1 year -- taking that into account, their capital budget is on par with the small end of Class I (it's what you'd expect from say the Kansas City Southern -- the big Class I's go through 2-2.5x that in capital, yearly).

    @Bulb said:

    That's why the time is only checked when leaving gate. And I would expect it to be checked only when leaving a station for train crews too.

    Unfortunately, that's not how the railroad Hours of Service laws work -- unexpected delays 'on the line' do count as "in service" for Hours of Service purposes.

    Sidenote: on that section I mentioned earlier -- the reason it's not changed is because it works well enough right now. The capital budget is going to higher-priority projects that will have much larger impacts on network velocity (although one of the major Amtrak routes in the southwestern US will benefit heavily from this work all the same).


  • Garbage Person

    In the US, there are daily limits for time driving and weekly limits for both time driving and time on duty. Time on duty includes time driving and any time spent in or responsible for a truck. The rule of thumb is that if you've got the keys or are on a third party site, you're on duty. You're also on duty if you're on company property and not free to leave. I think hotel time doesn't count.

    The intent of the on duty limit is to avoid people living in trucks or terminals full time.



  • @dkf said:

    What are they [s]spending[/s] blowing that on?
    Fully staffed fourteen-car cross-country trains with only one carful of passengers.



  • @TwelveBaud said:

    Fully staffed fourteen-car cross-country trains with only one carful of passengers.

    Actually -- our trip was a fully loaded train until we got to Denver, where a bunch of folks had to get off and catch a bus the rest of the way due to the detour we were sent on.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @tarunik said:

    BTW: I didn't realize the earlier numbers for Amtrak were 5 year numbers, not 1 year -- taking that into account, their capital budget is on par with the small end of Class I (it's what you'd expect from say the Kansas City Southern -- the big Class I's go through 2-2.5x that in capital, yearly).

    But considering that their annual profits are lower than @Weng's...



  • @boomzilla said:

    But considering that their annual profits are lower than

    Railroading is insanely capital intensive -- Amtrak gets off easy by leasing most of its track from the freight railroads, even.



  • @Vault_Dweller said:

    Ha! I get it de-RAIL-ed...

    And what a disappointingly literal derail it was too, said the guy who came here post-retitle, expecting it to degenerate into silllyness, politics or name-calling (or silly political name-calling...)

    Trains.



  • I like taking the Amtrak from Vancouver down to Seattle. It takes about 4 hours, but it's preferable to flying because you don't have too deal with Airport Security, and they serve beer on the train. Also you go along the coast and get nice views of the Pacific Ocean to look at. We're considering taking the Amtrak down to Portland on our next trip to the US, although that takes about 8 hours, so would need a long weekend, planning, etc.

    There's only one or two trains in each direction each day, so it's important to check the Amtrak timetable to make sure you don't end up on the coach, which is a quicker journey, but inferior in every other respect (e.g. you are on a coach the whole time, etc...)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tar said:

    There's only one or two trains in each direction each day

    That's the real issue (along with the length of time, which could easily be in the 90–120 minutes range for that sort of distance; it's less than 150 miles, damnit!) If there was a train every hour or two through the day and it was faster than driving, lots more people would consider it as their first choice. Which would reduce congestion on I-5 too.

    The Pacific NW is one of the parts of the US where HSR makes genuine sense.

    @tar said:

    they serve beer on the train

    It's the secret weapon! That and the fact that you don't need to pay attention to the road, and the way that airports are miserable. (Yes, I've been in both Vancouver and Seattle; flew in and out both times, and didn't think that either thrilled me all that much as airports go.)



  • @FrostCat said:

    two guys in an 18-wheeler

    That's only 9 wheels per guy. Try 62 wheels per guy.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @flabdablet said:

    That's only 9 wheels per guy.

    Well, they take turns, so it's still 18.

    I'd imagine those long trains only really work in the ass end of nowhere like that.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @FrostCat said:

    the ass end of nowhere

    I see you know the Aussie Outback…


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dkf said:

    I see you know the Aussie Outback

    Well, I used to watch a lot of TV.



  • @flabdablet said:

    That's only 9 wheels per guy.

    Didn't we already have the 18-wheelers don't have 18 wheels discussion somewhere nearby?

    @flabdablet said:

    Try 62 wheels per guy.

    Triple drive! That's pretty big hardware for road-going gear.



  • @FrostCat said:

    >I see you know the Aussie Outback

    Well, I used to watch a lot of TV.

    The Lost Tools of Henry Hoke



  • @tarunik said:

    There are effectively 100+mile two-lane streets with no passing zones the whole way out there, and those are among some of the more efficient parts of the US railroad network...

    My route to and back from college goes for a pretty far way on a one-track section. Which happens to be right near the point where the Northbound and Southbound trains cross.

    And one of only two horseshoe bends in the US (which you have to take slow - think a 175° turn)



  • @riking said:

    And one of only two horseshoe bends in the US

    Wikipedia lists 15 railroad horseshoe curves in the US. Three of these are abandoned or out of service, and six others are on old Denver and Rio Grande Western narrow-gauge lines, leaving six in active, standard-gauge service.

    By far the most famous is the one near Altoona, PA; I'm guessing that if you were referring to that one, you wouldn't have even bothered to mention any other one. The others are in WA, between Skykomish and the Cascade tunnel; central CA, between San Luis Obispo and Cuesta Pass (near Cal Poly, so that's a likely candidate for being on your way to college); northern CA, the Cantara Loops between Dunsmuir and Mount Shasta; OR, east of Oakridge; and PA, between Meyersdale and Hyndman.


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