Acela150
Super Buff
#50 departed last night with a crew short on HOS. The re-crew got stuck in a heap of a mess of traffic leaving it stuck with an Outlawed crew.
This is the second occurrence with in the past month or two where this has occurred. Most recent memory shows Train 48 leaving CHI with a crew short on HOS and the crew going dead en-route with the train ending up well over 10 hours late!
It seems that Amtrak needs to step up the hiring for Crews in and out of Chi-town.
Even the NEC sees issues on occasion. I fell victim to it in June. I was boarding 66 in Philadelphia and it didn't help that it arrived 2 hours late. In between PHL and TRE the Head End called CTEC 5? and asked if their was a crew waiting at TRE to replace them. CTEC 5? responded with "No, I wasn't aware you were short on HOS". To I simply almost gave in and contemplated getting off at TRE and going back to PHL. Even more so when their were no deadheading Employees on board who could run the train to at least NYP. The only deadheads were LSA's. The dispatcher then called a Work train that we had passed and requested that the Conductor be dropped at TRE to relief the conductors and then have the work train proceed to HAM and Tie Down. At HAM the Head End and a Second conductor took over and took the train to NYP where we made a very quick 7 minute stop. In those 7 minutes I briefly talked to the work train crew who were very funny and very nice to talk to. I cracked a joke saying "I bet running a 7,000 HP electric locomotive wasn't on your job list for tonight was it"? To which the Engineer said "It was funner then I thought it was gunna be"!
So crew shortages aren't just limited to Chicago. But Chicago is a major hub that shouldn't be having an issue. Sure hiring more qualified crews would be the answer. But it's a matter of having the funding for it and having the patience of people getting hired on and then saying we don't want this job. It's also hard to find people that are qualified to make it past the application stage. Railroads want folks with steady employment history and in these day and ages it's hard for that to happen.
This is the second occurrence with in the past month or two where this has occurred. Most recent memory shows Train 48 leaving CHI with a crew short on HOS and the crew going dead en-route with the train ending up well over 10 hours late!
It seems that Amtrak needs to step up the hiring for Crews in and out of Chi-town.
Even the NEC sees issues on occasion. I fell victim to it in June. I was boarding 66 in Philadelphia and it didn't help that it arrived 2 hours late. In between PHL and TRE the Head End called CTEC 5? and asked if their was a crew waiting at TRE to replace them. CTEC 5? responded with "No, I wasn't aware you were short on HOS". To I simply almost gave in and contemplated getting off at TRE and going back to PHL. Even more so when their were no deadheading Employees on board who could run the train to at least NYP. The only deadheads were LSA's. The dispatcher then called a Work train that we had passed and requested that the Conductor be dropped at TRE to relief the conductors and then have the work train proceed to HAM and Tie Down. At HAM the Head End and a Second conductor took over and took the train to NYP where we made a very quick 7 minute stop. In those 7 minutes I briefly talked to the work train crew who were very funny and very nice to talk to. I cracked a joke saying "I bet running a 7,000 HP electric locomotive wasn't on your job list for tonight was it"? To which the Engineer said "It was funner then I thought it was gunna be"!
So crew shortages aren't just limited to Chicago. But Chicago is a major hub that shouldn't be having an issue. Sure hiring more qualified crews would be the answer. But it's a matter of having the funding for it and having the patience of people getting hired on and then saying we don't want this job. It's also hard to find people that are qualified to make it past the application stage. Railroads want folks with steady employment history and in these day and ages it's hard for that to happen.