FRA to investigate METRA safety issues

[ctrabs74]

http://www.metro-magazine.com/news/story/2014/06/fra-launches-45-day-metra-investigation.aspx

[Busjack]

Daily Herald has back to Metra being a confusing mess, governance wise, with attempts to suppress an IG report about employee time logs, hiring a former IG employee, etc. The article also mentioned the investigation noted above.

I suppose that having worked on ME, trainman could comment on the work assignment mess, although probably for job security reasons, he can't.

[trainman8119]

Daily Herald has back to Metra being a confusing mess, governance wise, with attempts to suppress an IG report about employee time logs, hiring a former IG employee, etc. The article also mentioned the investigation noted above.

I suppose that having worked on ME, trainman could comment on the work assignment mess, although probably for job security reasons, he can't.

Well...let's see. First, I can't read the DH article because, as usual, unless you pay for it, you can't read it. But, so far, the information I have been reading in other papers and on the tv news has a lot of truth to it.

I will not say hours of service logs were forged. There was job swapping, with approval. It was usually done on Saturdays because you could never get a day off. There was no ghost payroll. Usually, someone would offer to work a job for someone and that someone would pay that person to do it. Occasionally, some people would get together and work two assignments one week, and the other would do it the next. This gave someone a two day weekend every two weeks. My guess would be that if something were "forged" it was more like something was not entered if there was a greedy person willing to work 3 assignments or something like that which would take you over the 12 hour daily limit. I think that might have been more on the engineer side than the trainman side. Most Saturday jobs at the time were only 3-4 hours for trainmen, so doubling up, time wise, usually was not a big deal. This was one of the few perks available in an organization with no perks....unless, of course, you are one of the elite few (which there still are).

In any event, if the brass didn't want the info out it is because of what the perception has become, which is wrong, as usual.

The practice was stopped by "Big Bad" Al Clifford who had no love for labor and screwed us at every opportunity, right down to taking water coolers out of train rooms all over. He supposedly contended that this was underhanded because taxes weren't being paid, which was BS. Also, the Trib version of this indicated that this was an anonymous complaint given to the IG. My guess is that it came from the callers office since they felt they couldn't rough shot personnel. Copies of who covered who were on hand in the DSO, Yardmaster and Callers Offices....so anyone who claimed they didn't know who was doing what is a liar. Also, it was common for officers to look for people during the week to do the same thing, because it benefited the company. So this was one of the few instances where both sides actually worked together. Now, there are only a couple of brownnoses who go out of there way to do anything extra.

If anyone wants a little more detail, PM me and I'll try to answer it on a case by case basis.

[Busjack]

Well...let's see. First, I can't read the DH article because, as usual, unless you pay for it, you can't read it. But, so far, the information I have been reading in other papers and on the tv news has a lot of truth to it.

...

It seems like you got the essence of it.

However, the Daily Herald (and other similar sites) are not pay. It says you have to fill out a Google survey to read the rest of the article, but if you click "No" the article generally shows up without further questions. For instance, this time the survey question was "Have you booked a hotel offline (i.e. by calling a travel provider/hotel, walk-in, etc) in the past 12 months?" The correct answer is "no."

I was more interested in whether the stink was overblown, although it obviously has to do with overtime pay laws, hours at the controls laws (note cross reference to Sleeping Beauty on the Blue Line), etc., as well as whether Metra is being governed in a clean manner or is going back to the Pagano days.

[trainman8119]

It seems like you got the essence of it.

I was more interested in whether the stink was overblown, although it obviously has to do with overtime pay laws, hours at the controls laws (note cross reference to Sleeping Beauty on the Blue Line), etc., as well as whether Metra is being governed in a clean manner or is going back to the Pagano days.

IMO, yes the stink was way overblown. There are a lot more problems regarding so called "safety" and it has nothing to do with whether something was or wasn't printed in logs. However, in the opinions of management, that does not count. Also, there are issues as in the hours of controls in that you can work 12 hours one day and not (in the eyes of management, with the blessing of the FRA, no doubt) have it count...in fact it is viewed as a day off, since you are not on the train. Just like Sleeping Beauty, she could have worked 70 hours prior to O'Hare, and because she only worked 6 (exaggeration, but you get the point) running a train, the other 64 don't count. Silly me, I guess you can't get tired unless you are actually running a train. What a farce.

[Busjack]

.... Silly me, I guess you can't get tired unless you are actually running a train. What a farce.

I guess that isn't any different than the Walmart truck driver who hit Tracy Morgan's Sprinter--apparently he was only so many hours behind the wheel of the truck, but was also awake a heck of a lot of hours just to get to the truck.