Last ride for the KELX (Kellogg's) box cars.

[esprrfan]

Just putting in my .02 worth. If your paid by the mile to move something why wouldn't you route it your normal shipping route. To us on here it makes "sense" to go the "backway" but if its your income your cutting by doing it why would you go that route for a onetime move. Maybe Kelloggs wanted that shorter route too but NS said well then since its not a normal route you'd have to pay for a special move $$$.

It I'm sure involves just finding a common ground, the company wants to make the most, the shipper wants to pay the least. Since too as these are going to scrap I bet Kelloggs didn't care if it a week or two to get to the junk yard nor would they care to pay a price for a priority move .

Another issue is is there a qualified crew to take them the short way? the distance don't really matter. Like in Toledo a number of guys aren't qualified on the belt from CP 286 to Homestead so if the carrier wants you to take a train you need pilots. Myself I'm no longer qualified Toledo-Maumee as I'm a road guy and those trains are handled by yard guys. You might think its only a few miles on "un qualified territory" but derail or hit someone and the FRA will show you how big of deal and mistake that was.

[bctrainfan]

Noticed today that some of these old green boxcars are still on Kellogg's property, unknown if this is the same group or some different ones still in storage, on the in-plant tracks on the west side of the factory.

[bctrainfan]

Looks like the box cars avoided the torch for the last time, they are set out again for NS to pickup tonight. Think there are about 16, all that old PC green except one brown one, all with KELX reporting marks. I was told they are going to be headed to Elkhart via Detroit, unknown if they are still going on to Kalamazoo from there.

They had been set out for NS about a month ago, but apparently Kellogg's objected to the cost of NS shipping them to Kalamazoo the long way via Detroit, Toledo, Elkhart instead of straight to K'zoo. They ended up being shoved back into Kellogg's in plant yard. Must have negotiated a new agreement.

[GAP]

An observer from another board reports seeing "a dozen or so" on Grand Elk 302 today heading for Kalamazoo. They did take the scenic route after all. I imagine they will be scrapped on the "junk yard" siding like the ALAB cars were a while back.

[Jetlink]

I was on Amtrak 351 from Battle Creek to Chicago yesterday. We held at West Botsford for 350 for about 5 minutes. There were 12 KELX green box cars sitting in the yard there.

[chapmaja]

Just putting in my .02 worth. If your paid by the mile to move something why wouldn't you route it your normal shipping route. To us on here it makes "sense" to go the "backway" but if its your income your cutting by doing it why would you go that route for a onetime move. Maybe Kelloggs wanted that shorter route too but NS said well then since its not a normal route you'd have to pay for a special move $$$.

It I'm sure involves just finding a common ground, the company wants to make the most, the shipper wants to pay the least. Since too as these are going to scrap I bet Kelloggs didn't care if it a week or two to get to the junk yard nor would they care to pay a price for a priority move .

Another issue is is there a qualified crew to take them the short way? the distance don't really matter. Like in Toledo a number of guys aren't qualified on the belt from CP 286 to Homestead so if the carrier wants you to take a train you need pilots. Myself I'm no longer qualified Toledo-Maumee as I'm a road guy and those trains are handled by yard guys. You might think its only a few miles on "un qualified territory" but derail or hit someone and the FRA will show you how big of deal and mistake that was.

I think you hit on several things that are really hurting the railroad industry. All of them can be lumped into customer service, but each individual thing is its own issue.

First, the idea of making the most money if paid by the mile. Logic would say that you make more money by having a contract to haul something rather than not have the contract at all. I can understand certain moves not being profitbale and thus not worth the companies time, but some of the services railroads have declined to perform for customers are things they could make money on.

Second, the idea of qualified crews bugs me. I think some railroads are to strict with ther idea that certain members should only perform X job. Many shortlines operate with the idea that crew member A can provide X, Y, Z service to customers. In my opinion all crew members should be qualified to work any potential tracks the railroad operates within the vacinity of their home base. No customer should be denied service because they are not qualified over a certain section of railroad.


Finally, I think some of the railroads routings put more emphasis on the milage allowance then it does on customer service. Customers pay to get an item from point A to point B. They don't pay for the car to sightsee in point D, E, F and Z along the way.

I think the people on the ground realize this, but those sitting in big offices ovr 1000 miles away from the action don't have a clue what customer service really is.

Maybe undercover boos needs to go to each of the Class One's so the big bosses can actually see what happens at the ground level.

[GP9R]

Second, the idea of qualified crews bugs me. I think some railroads are to strict with ther idea that certain members should only perform X job. Many shortlines operate with the idea that crew member A can provide X, Y, Z service to customers. In my opinion all crew members should be qualified to work any potential tracks the railroad operates within the vacinity of their home base. No customer should be denied service because they are not qualified over a certain section of railroad.

Some of that is the union, but as far as not being qualified to operate over territory. A shortline generally doesn't have 12-13k Ton trains. A great example is Battle Creek, From Helmer Road, which is the bottom of a hill, you have several speed restrictions, and in like 5 miles there is 6 control points, a yard, numerous crossings. If an engineer didn't know what he was getting into he could wind up rolling through downtown Battle Creek and get in trouble by hitting something or going through a signal. Another good example is, Going from Frankfort on the EJ&E, towards Joliet. You can't block any crossings. There isn't really any significant speed restrictions, but you have to be at "The Rock" by a certain time. If you're early you have a stop, and if you're late Metra starts to scream.

[chapmaja]

Second, the idea of qualified crews bugs me. I think some railroads are to strict with ther idea that certain members should only perform X job. Many shortlines operate with the idea that crew member A can provide X, Y, Z service to customers. In my opinion all crew members should be qualified to work any potential tracks the railroad operates within the vacinity of their home base. No customer should be denied service because they are not qualified over a certain section of railroad.

Some of that is the union, but as far as not being qualified to operate over territory. A shortline generally doesn't have 12-13k Ton trains. A great example is Battle Creek, From Helmer Road, which is the bottom of a hill, you have several speed restrictions, and in like 5 miles there is 6 control points, a yard, numerous crossings. If an engineer didn't know what he was getting into he could wind up rolling through downtown Battle Creek and get in trouble by hitting something or going through a signal. Another good example is, Going from Frankfort on the EJ&E, towards Joliet. You can't block any crossings. There isn't really any significant speed restrictions, but you have to be at "The Rock" by a certain time. If you're early you have a stop, and if you're late Metra starts to scream.

The point I was trying to make is that the railroad should make sure that every crew member based out of a particular place should be qualified on ANY potential trackage near the point they are based out of. I am not saying that being qualified is wrong, I completely agree that crew members should be trained over the tracks they will run. I just think the idea that you make not have qualified crews available is rediculous. Every operating crew should be able to run on every track near where they are based. This is a union issue in my opinion. The unions should be there for protections of the workers and for the details regarding payment of the employees. They should not dictate to a company how they should run their company, and too much now it seems the unions think they are in the business management. They aren't.

Don't think of this as anti-union either. I am from a union household and support union membership fully, I just think some unions have gone overboard on what they want done and in the end it hurts the company their employees work for.

[MSchwiebert]

To me it sounds like there's confusion between seperation of crafts (engineer vs. conductor for instance) and being qualified to operate on a specific track segment/route. I don't know if it's practical to have every crew member "fresh" on all the track within their crew district. A couple of real world examples in addition to the aformentioned NS situation that I can think of (mine are on CSX).
Example 1, CSX operates one train each direction a day from Chicago to Cincinnati (Q500 & Q501). The Lima - Garrett portion of this run is operated with Garrett crews. Now I'm not certain what the total number of engineers & conductors based out of Garrett is, but a large number of those crews could go a long time without being called to run that train.

Example 2, Along these lines, the CSX Lima - Toledo pool has 3 destinations (Toledo Docks, Stanley & Walbridge) and two routings (via Bates or via Fostoria). Based on train frequency, the Lima - Toledo Docks (via Bates) is the least common routing. Again, a conductor or engineer could go a long time between operating that run.

What I don't know is what the time period is before a conductor or engineer "loses" their qualifiaction for a specific routing. Added to it is the seniority system where a recent hire may not be be able to hold a job long enough to maintain qualifiation on a particular route, its understandable that not everyone is qualified to run everywhere.

[TrainWatcher]

There was a 10+ car cut at Botsford on Friday as I viewed from Amtrak.

[chapmaja]

How many times per given time period does a crew need to operate over a particular section of track to remain qualified on that section of track? I assume it is a set number per given period (likely one year).

I think the railroads need to have all crews qualified to run on all tracks for one simple reason, flexability. Let's use the Lima-Toldeo Docks example. Say CSX has 3 crews that are qualified to run to the docks via Bates. What happens if a derailment occurs at Fostoria which takes this route out of play for trains going from Lima-Toledo Docks. These trains would either need to be held at Lima or run via Bates. If only 3 crews are qualified for the routing the railroad is limited to being able to run only 3 trains over the routing because of a lack of qualified crews.

This is a big issue for the railroads. Having all crews qualified on all trains is something the railroads need to work on getting done, to allow flexability with their railroads. The unions often do stand in the way of this because of the idea of seniority. As with many unionized jobs the contract restrictions are so tight that it prevents flexability within the job.

A non-railroad example of this was at Meijer. When I worked in sporting goods/ automotive/toys/hardware/ect were were contract employees. The contract was pretty clear that only in the case of an emergency could management run the cash registers in the store. This put the company in a quandry when it got busy and the store did not have enough cashiers to run the lanes needed to service customers. The contract required the store to pull union employees from the departments to run cash registers before management could run a register. We actually had this become a major issue in my store. The problem was if you pulled department employees to run registers you were left with little to no help in the departments. The unions lack of flexability on this issue lead to problems for the company which could easily have been handled if the company and management could work together. Instead the union wanted to play hardball and it cost the company time, money and customers.

[sd70accsxt700]

A non-railroad example of this was at Meijer. When I worked in sporting goods/ automotive/toys/hardware/ect were were contract employees. The contract was pretty clear that only in the case of an emergency could management run the cash registers in the store. This put the company in a quandry when it got busy and the store did not have enough cashiers to run the lanes needed to service customers. The contract required the store to pull union employees from the departments to run cash registers before management could run a register. We actually had this become a major issue in my store. The problem was if you pulled department employees to run registers you were left with little to no help in the departments. The unions lack of flexability on this issue lead to problems for the company which could easily have been handled if the company and management could work together. Instead the union wanted to play hardball and it cost the company time, money and customers.

For some one who grew up and is a UNION person, you sure take the company's side. How about the companies failure to PROPERLY staff said store. Yea I know about the argument that you wastefully have more employees then you need. Your telling me that there is nothing for one or even maybe two more people to staff to do, so that durring the bussy times you have enough people to cover? To me that is a COMPANY problem and not a UNION problem, more likley the company not wanting to have to actually spend any money to make it. I am sure said company loves the new checkout lines that only need one person for 8 lanes to run it. I am sure the UNION would have no problem with the company hiering more people to run the place. Its the same argument on the railroad, railroads wont higher enough people to run the place, just the absolute bare minimnum. When you do that your going to run into problems.


Perfect example. On saturdays Q35631 from Willard to Cleveland, they wanted us (my conductor and myself) to stop at Parma, OH. and pick up a unit that needed a 92 day inspection and was dead it was in G track. Now we were the second crew (same train) who was told to do this and just like the other crew, we said we are not qualified, never been there. Now we regularly work Parma off the main, using Parma 1 & Parma 2 to set off and pickup. They are right next to the main around the corner from Parma Yard. Now I can see three or so locomotives over in the yard from the mainline. Its really not that far, but having never ever been there before, I have no idea what lies between US and IT. Now Parma has a yard job, that could have set the locomotive out on Parma 1 & Parma 2 along with cars that needed to be picked up.

I am sure just using your own work experance at Mijer, that other stores must be laied out diffrent? Or are all Mijers the exact same? There are no situations that would cause you to go ummm....... And yes I know Mijer and the railroads are two compleatly diffrent subjects, but I think you get my point.

I dont know if you have any railroad experance at all, but if you did I would think your look on this would be a little diffrent. I cant tell you how many times I hear stories of so and so took the day off on the local job, and they had a person who has not worked those industries on say 5 years, they have no idea abuout it or the track, except for what they see when they go by on the road train. Well needless to say, they go hurt or killed or derailed, ect. ect. ect. all because thay did not know about the new derail, chocks, chains, close clearances, ect because they dont regularly work the job, or it was never put out in a bulliten that there is now a derail on that industry track where there never was before.

Anyway back to the subject at hand. So lets look at the Timetable and see what that says.
Off to the Great Lakes Division TT we go. Look up Cleveland Short Line Sub, what does it have to say about Parma? Only thing it has to say is. First it says all trains must make sure that the diamond at CP 16 is cleared when picking up and setting off cars at Parma. Next it says there is a continous wayside radiio station at Parma (not much help there). I can see that the Cleveland Short Line Sub crosses the Cleveland Sub, so lets go look at the Cleveland Sub in the Timetable to see what it has to say about Parma. It says Parma is a remotley controled diamond. It also says Parma is a radio base station for the old B&O side too.

Oh now we come to some possably helpfull stuff. It says Parma has Remote Control Zone. It say RCZ zone is established with signes placed. It extends from 10GM out the warehouse lead to the end of track. WOW that was really helpfull, that could have gotten me FIRED. Only one problem I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE ANY OF THOSE TRACKS ARE. I have never ever been here before and neither has my conductor. Looking further I see that Parma GM has close clearance on GM4, 5 & 6. OH SNAP that would hurt, but once again I DONT KNOW WHERE THEY ARE.

Oh here are emergency phone numbers for Parma Yard. Oh no answering the phone. That is it. That is all there is in the timetable. Next up is the Indianapolis Dist Bullitens, what do they have to say about Parma. Well on Cleveland Sub, it says that the raido station in Parma is now on 028 028 instead of 28 28 because of the narrowband comming, but that is it. I look for the Cleveland Short Line Sub in the bullitens, but cant find it, dont know if it means that there are not any updates to that section of the timetable or if they forgot it.

Now if you were in my spot what would you do. Would you just throw caution to the wind, and just as Nike says JUST DO IT, not knowing what lies between you and your destination, I mean there are hundreds of ways to get fired, hurt or killed just in those 2000 ft. Or would you say your not quallified.

Just to keep this closer to your pont, I have been on this assignment for three weeks, and back in January was qualified from Willard to Cleveland. Never once did we do anything but work Parma 1 and Parma 2 off the main. And never had anyone who I qualified with, (its a small pool so I worked with just about everyone) had or have ever went back into Parma Yard, its not what we do on this pool. Every job has its assigned "stuff to do" but in order to keep eveyone quallifed everywhere, as you suggest, that would mean that trains that dont even need to stop there would have to at least once a month and just run back somewhere for the heck of it. That is how it would have to work, as you never know what train you are going to get and you never get the same train twice. There for you could work this pool and never go to places. As far as the whole seniorty thing, it rules. If a old head wants to work a yard job that switches a bunch of places that is his right. He knows the tetoratory. He is not going to like it if he keeps getting pulled of the job, so someone else can work it to remain qualified. Just like if someone at Meijer keept taking your job away from you so some one would know how to do it.

Its just the way it is, people do specific jobs, and some times never get to see a section of track again for years and years. I cant stress how much of a ligistical nightmere it would be to keep everyone qualified on every single section of track in there area. Its not that we dont want to do it, its just praticly impossable.

As far as my situation on Saturday, we made the trainmaster come out and show us to and through the yard to pick up the locomotive. And yes there were a few supprises that could have gotten me fired or my conductor killed, just as we suspected.

[AARR]

SD70 - That is the best writing I have ever seen from you! Good grammar and spelling and everything. Very enlightening for me too.

[sd70accsxt700]

SD70 - That is the best writing I have ever seen from you! Good grammar and spelling and everything. Very enlightening for me too.

Um ok if you say so Don, I would trust you above a lot of other people. I did nothing diffrent then any other day.

[AARR]

SD70 - That is the best writing I have ever seen from you! Good grammar and spelling and everything. Very enlightening for me too.

Um ok if you say so Don, I would trust you above a lot of other people. I did nothing diffrent then any other day.

I am being serious, that is superbly written! I now understand much better why crews trained on one district cannot just be shifted to another district without proper training and/or maintaining their familiarity.

[GP9R]

A non-railroad example of this was at Meijer. When I worked in sporting goods/ automotive/toys/hardware/ect were were contract employees. The contract was pretty clear that only in the case of an emergency could management run the cash registers in the store. This put the company in a quandry when it got busy and the store did not have enough cashiers to run the lanes needed to service customers. The contract required the store to pull union employees from the departments to run cash registers before management could run a register. We actually had this become a major issue in my store. The problem was if you pulled department employees to run registers you were left with little to no help in the departments. The unions lack of flexability on this issue lead to problems for the company which could easily have been handled if the company and management could work together. Instead the union wanted to play hardball and it cost the company time, money and customers.

For some one who grew up and is a UNION person, you sure take the company's side. How about the companies failure to PROPERLY staff said store. Yea I know about the argument that you wastefully have more employees then you need. Your telling me that there is nothing for one or even maybe two more people to staff to do, so that durring the bussy times you have enough people to cover? To me that is a COMPANY problem and not a UNION problem, more likley the company not wanting to have to actually spend any money to make it. I am sure said company loves the new checkout lines that only need one person for 8 lanes to run it. I am sure the UNION would have no problem with the company hiering more people to run the place. Its the same argument on the railroad, railroads wont higher enough people to run the place, just the absolute bare minimnum. When you do that your going to run into problems.


Perfect example. On saturdays Q35631 from Willard to Cleveland, they wanted us (my conductor and myself) to stop at Parma, OH. and pick up a unit that needed a 92 day inspection and was dead it was in G track. Now we were the second crew (same train) who was told to do this and just like the other crew, we said we are not qualified, never been there. Now we regularly work Parma off the main, using Parma 1 & Parma 2 to set off and pickup. They are right next to the main around the corner from Parma Yard. Now I can see three or so locomotives over in the yard from the mainline. Its really not that far, but having never ever been there before, I have no idea what lies between US and IT. Now Parma has a yard job, that could have set the locomotive out on Parma 1 & Parma 2 along with cars that needed to be picked up.

I am sure just using your own work experance at Mijer, that other stores must be laied out diffrent? Or are all Mijers the exact same? There are no situations that would cause you to go ummm....... And yes I know Mijer and the railroads are two compleatly diffrent subjects, but I think you get my point.

I dont know if you have any railroad experance at all, but if you did I would think your look on this would be a little diffrent. I cant tell you how many times I hear stories of so and so took the day off on the local job, and they had a person who has not worked those industries on say 5 years, they have no idea abuout it or the track, except for what they see when they go by on the road train. Well needless to say, they go hurt or killed or derailed, ect. ect. ect. all because thay did not know about the new derail, chocks, chains, close clearances, ect because they dont regularly work the job, or it was never put out in a bulliten that there is now a derail on that industry track where there never was before.

Anyway back to the subject at hand. So lets look at the Timetable and see what that says.
Off to the Great Lakes Division TT we go. Look up Cleveland Short Line Sub, what does it have to say about Parma? Only thing it has to say is. First it says all trains must make sure that the diamond at CP 16 is cleared when picking up and setting off cars at Parma. Next it says there is a continous wayside radiio station at Parma (not much help there). I can see that the Cleveland Short Line Sub crosses the Cleveland Sub, so lets go look at the Cleveland Sub in the Timetable to see what it has to say about Parma. It says Parma is a remotley controled diamond. It also says Parma is a radio base station for the old B&O side too.

Oh now we come to some possably helpfull stuff. It says Parma has Remote Control Zone. It say RCZ zone is established with signes placed. It extends from 10GM out the warehouse lead to the end of track. WOW that was really helpfull, that could have gotten me FIRED. Only one problem I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE ANY OF THOSE TRACKS ARE. I have never ever been here before and neither has my conductor. Looking further I see that Parma GM has close clearance on GM4, 5 & 6. OH SNAP that would hurt, but once again I DONT KNOW WHERE THEY ARE.

Oh here are emergency phone numbers for Parma Yard. Oh no answering the phone. That is it. That is all there is in the timetable. Next up is the Indianapolis Dist Bullitens, what do they have to say about Parma. Well on Cleveland Sub, it says that the raido station in Parma is now on 028 028 instead of 28 28 because of the narrowband comming, but that is it. I look for the Cleveland Short Line Sub in the bullitens, but cant find it, dont know if it means that there are not any updates to that section of the timetable or if they forgot it.

Now if you were in my spot what would you do. Would you just throw caution to the wind, and just as Nike says JUST DO IT, not knowing what lies between you and your destination, I mean there are hundreds of ways to get fired, hurt or killed just in those 2000 ft. Or would you say your not quallified.

Just to keep this closer to your pont, I have been on this assignment for three weeks, and back in January was qualified from Willard to Cleveland. Never once did we do anything but work Parma 1 and Parma 2 off the main. And never had anyone who I qualified with, (its a small pool so I worked with just about everyone) had or have ever went back into Parma Yard, its not what we do on this pool. Every job has its assigned "stuff to do" but in order to keep eveyone quallifed everywhere, as you suggest, that would mean that trains that dont even need to stop there would have to at least once a month and just run back somewhere for the heck of it. That is how it would have to work, as you never know what train you are going to get and you never get the same train twice. There for you could work this pool and never go to places. As far as the whole seniorty thing, it rules. If a old head wants to work a yard job that switches a bunch of places that is his right. He knows the tetoratory. He is not going to like it if he keeps getting pulled of the job, so someone else can work it to remain qualified. Just like if someone at Meijer keept taking your job away from you so some one would know how to do it.

Its just the way it is, people do specific jobs, and some times never get to see a section of track again for years and years. I cant stress how much of a ligistical nightmere it would be to keep everyone qualified on every single section of track in there area. Its not that we dont want to do it, its just praticly impossable.

As far as my situation on Saturday, we made the trainmaster come out and show us to and through the yard to pick up the locomotive. And yes there were a few supprises that could have gotten me fired or my conductor killed, just as we suspected.

Now think, that is just a small district. In Battle Creek crews need to be qualified on the Flint, Strathroy, Holly, South Bend, Elsdon, Matteson, Chicago. Thats what we have to be on, If we where qualified everywhere, We'd need to be qualified on Flint, Strathroy, Holly, South Bend, Elsdon, Matteson, Chicago, Leithton, Lake Front, Waukeshaw, Parts of the BRC, parts of the BNSF, Parts of the UP, Most of the IHB, and some sections of the NS. That is probably close to 1000 miles of trackage,

[GAP]

Saturday (April 7) there were 4 KELX boxcars on the "junk yard" track waiting to be scrapped. Nearby there was another one on its side and several freight car trucks from previously scrapped cars.

[Standard Railfan]

Saturday (April 7) there were 4 KELX boxcars on the "junk yard" track waiting to be scrapped. Nearby there was another one on its side and several freight car trucks from previously scrapped cars.

We should all have a bowl of Corn Flakes in memory of the departed...

[bctrainfan]

Saturday (April 7) there were 4 KELX boxcars on the "junk yard" track waiting to be scrapped. Nearby there was another one on its side and several freight car trucks from previously scrapped cars.

The junk yard next to CN Battle Creek yard or somewhere in Kalamazoo?

[GAP]

The "junk yard" siding I was referring to is in Kalamazoo. Actually it's just a spur east of the old GR&I depot but it's where Kalamazoo Metal Recyclers (KMR) occasionally loads gons with scrap. KMR's actual place of operation is over on King HIghway and processed scrap metal is trucked over to the "junk yard" spur. What they load is fist-sized chunks of iron that they somehow make from old cars, etc.