My wife is sitting on an Amtrak train stopped dead on the tracks because a crew on the freight ahead of the Amtrak train went "dead on the law".

What was supposed to be an hour and a half ride followed by lunch and shopping with friends has turned into a (so far) four hour nightmare. I feel terrible for suggesting the train to her.

Question: In the old days, weren't the passenger and freight crews renewed at regular places ("crew change points")? Also, wouldn't a dispatcher know when a crew was nearing the end and have a crew ready to go so that delays were minimal? Since the freight crew knew they were nearing the end, could they not have let the Amtrak train pass?

It's obvious I'm not a railroader, but I wish I understood the issues better.

Yes to all assumptions and questions...as to why it happened in your wifes situation? That is anyones guess.

The crews are normally assigned change points assuming few, or at most, reasonable delays. If there was a breakdown of the freight or even a train or trains ahead of it, the crew in question may have already passed the last point where crews are normally changed. Another unforseen event could have been a grade crossing accident involving a previous train, and sometimes in those cases the local police will close the scene until their 'investigation' is complete.

When a crew goes dead on the road, a new crew has to be sent, often an expensive trip by taxi, if you even find one willing to make a LONG round trip. And that assumes a fresh crew is available, waiting for assignment. Often in delays like this there is a snowball effect, quickly using up whatever crews are rested enough to go back out, as more than one train can easily be affected by such incidents.

A simple solution would be to have crew change points closer together, but that does not work either, if most of your men only work 4 hours per day. I believe that a crew can work up to 12 hours on, followed by mandatory 8 hours or more off. I think truckers are limited to 11 hours right now.

Bob Kutella

First, you must understand that whatever might make sense in the normal business world turns upside down on the railroad. If railroads were any other business, they would have gone out of business years ago. Stupidity reigns supreme and the left hand seldom knows what the right is doing. We routinely outlaw (12 hours) before reaching our destination, just 198 miles away, usually in a siding, but sometimes on the main. Sometimes a crew comes to relieve us, but other times they come hours later. As workers, we gave up years ago trying to make sense of it and just let them line our pockets with money. The taxi companies (but not their drivers) get rich hauling crews around. I have seen as many as four taxis called to relieve one crew, all of which got paid for the call.

Railroads that have any decent freight revenue would rather see Amtrak go away and are usually not concerned about keeping schedules. Only those that depend on those federal funds for income make an attempt to work around Amtrak. Some of them (like the Rinky Dink Central that I used to work for) have track so bad that they can't make a decent schedule anyway.

For the last 50 years or so, railroad managers have been trained to save money for the company, not make it. Getting rid of track, buildings, and especially, employees is all they know. Going after new business is not part of their makeup, nor is advice accepted from lower employees who try to steer business to them. That's a sad fact, but true.