Rich Hunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SP1996, best check into all this before you go any
> further. A pool is a group/list of people, one
> for engineers, one for conductors that determines
> the sequence of you being called for a job/turn/
> other. There are long pools, usually high
> seniority for trains which can travel as much as
> 400
> miles, short pools for other assignments and as
> mentioned when you run out of people you go to
> the
> extra board which is a pool all upon itself. The
> extra board is usually people who don't have
> enough seniority to hold a regular pool job. Now,
> take Roseville for instance. You can go to Reno/
> Sparks, Redding, the Bay area, Fresno/Bakersfield,
> Stockton or several other places. Anything
> other than Roseville for most pools is an "away"
> terminal. Yes, some away terminals have their own
> power and crews but those guys have pretty much
> all been around for a while and have "bid" into
> those jobs as they come available based on their
> seniority. If you hire on to the UP and they take
> you they can request you show up for work pretty
> much at any hub. They do try to place you in your
> normal locale but if you want to work you're going
> where they place you. You mention watching
> crew changes, places like Elko NV are double away
> terminals and have both Salt Lake and Sparks
> crews staying over. You can see the same thing
> happen at Fresno and Bakersfield.

Sage advice, Rich.

And I might add, prepare to be furloughed for varying lengths of time, due to the ebb and flow of business and the need for T&E employees.

As an aside, I received an email this morning stating that UP intends to start Trip Optimizer between LA and Roseville on June 6th, and between Portland and Roseville on June 20th. The is the computer and GPS based system that runs the train without crew imvolvement. Combined with PTC, the ultimate goal is to eliminate the crafts of engineer and conductor on through trains and replace them with a single person onboard to primarily act as an observer. This will have a negative impact on the longterm number of T&E emp.oyees.