Scenario Across America (Really?....idk)

[LandN]

SMM Digital,

I like your idea better than anything so far. Crews can only drive so far and have to be qualified on the district they drive on. I have seen scenarios for MSTS where they want you to drive halfway across the country on one trip. The only place this would work is in Australia where they have two crews on the transcontinental passenger train which relieve each other at certain times.

[arizonachris]

I'm wondering, do railroads have a maximum number of hours an engineer can be behind the controls? Big rig drivers it's 8 hours, same with pilots (afaik) Fatigue is a factor in a large percent of crashes.

[Chessie8638]

Max working hours for train crew is 12 hrs. Within 3 hrs of going "dead" they must notify the dispatcher and relief crew called. If the crew goes dead while in-route they must immediately stop the train and relief crew called.

Little fact sheet: http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/PubAff ... 208doc.pdf

[SMMDigital]

I thought there was talk of going to ten hours for train crews recently?

Not to get to far off topic but to elaborated on the "dead crew" thing...

A few years back we had a crew on a CSX freight that went on dead time near Dalton, Ga. They stopped and left the train idling on a siding smack in the middle of downtown. The train was left unattended for somewhere near seven hours while blocking some of the downtown railroad crossing. Some very important people in Dalton got their pantaloons in a wad over it and tried to sue CSX for thousands of dollars. CSX responded that they were having trouble getting a crew for the train that day.

I guess for the crew to just drop and go like that, the hours of service rule must be pretty serious business.

[LandN]

Yes it is. It is a federal violation to exceed your time, even if you are within a few feet of making it into the terminal. The incident in Dalton looks like poor judgement on several peoples part. The crew should have notified the dispatcher of the time they would dog-law and the dispatcher should have put them in the clear somewhere before their time expired.

[arizonachris]

Air traffic controllers fall asleep, maybe the dispatcher did. Still, bad judgement to block a crossing.

[Hawk]

A lot of the sidings on the W&A Sub block crossings. That's why they built an underpass for auto traffic here in Acworth.
I've seen trains on the siding here as long as a day and a half. I've also seen as many as four trains stopped here for a few hours. That's two on the siding and two on the main.

[SMMDigital]

I found that old article from the Dalton Daily Citizen, 2006. It was an MOW train carrying 1/4 mile sections of rails. That explains what the train was doing there in the first place; CSX and NS use the Dalton holdouts for MOW cuts, but seldom for passing. As a matter of fact, i recently heard an NS dispatcher say she got her hand spanked for using the Dalton passing siding. Anyway, the city sued CSX for $43,000. There was no follow up story, so it's unknown if the fine was paid or renegotiated.

As far as Acworth, Junta is the bottleneck there. The line is much busier south of Cartersville than it is up here.

[Hawk]

It is pretty busy here in Acworth.