Thanks, OPPRMS for your input. As a trainman, it took me over 3 years to be reasonably comfortable with my job, figuring rest and following signal indication when my eyeballs were completely dried out and on fire...and figuring out how to properly get paid. Fifteen years later, I still am learning. The rules, interpretations, laws and agreements remain fluid. One thing that never seems to change: How to manage my life as a father and provider, while still trying to maintain my health and sanity. Many of the avoidable manpower problems never go away, because of greed on BOTH sides of the street. Rails turning and burning to maximize earnings at the cost of safety, and management's greed at eliminating guarantee time payments by keeping people marked to the board under threat of dismissal under an ill-conceived 'one size fits' all Availability Policy.

I simply don't have the time to type up all of my experiences, but try this:

I used to work at a location that had a regular habit of deadheading to the AFHT at 07:00 on a fairly daily basis so they could have crews in place for lop-sided traffic. Typically, you'd arrive there and rot in the unsanitary hotel room (the carpet made my socks black) until the late evening or early morning. Now, to the unitiated, that sounds like no big deal, right?

Here's the problem: If you're called to deadhead out to the AFHT after a good night's sleep in your own bed, what will you do to get rested for a 23:30 on duty time at the AFHT? If you're sitting around all day doing nothing, because there really is nothing to do except walk around the block a few times or hang out at the truck stop, how can you be expected to manage your rest for that night's return trip? More to the point; how do you fall asleep at 15:00 after waking up only nine hours earlier so to be genuinely rested for a 23:30 on duty call? How do you do that if you're NOT TIRED?

Solution: Immediately start drinking heavily when you arrive at the AFHT at 08:30 so you can pass out by 13:00 to be fully rested for the 23:30 dead freight.

But a better solution (suggested, but rejected because the carrier could not develope confidence in making it work right) was to put on the lineup well in advance for a call to be on duty two hours prior to the on duty time of the train at the AFHT, then van there and work back under continuous time.

The projected elapsed time was still under par for the track record of those trains on that run, and it could be made under HOSL, and you could eliminate the cost of the hotel room, and you could eliminate one more RSIA start (thereby keeping crews available). The cost of the van ride remains the same. All of that benefitted the carrier for obvious reasons, but they decided not to do it because of a secret lack of confidence that they could manage to have their trains ready within the two hour call of the deadhead. Yet, the carrier claimed to real reason is the trainmen did not have a Continuous Time agreement for that turnaround, or "flip", but they do it in essence every day on an adjoining district. It could have been worked out.

They still deadhead out at 07:00. Have a nice day.