Help me understand...........

[M.D.Bentley]

Why the SAM HILL would Conrail after all of these years, change the name of CP's. Some are decades old, others not ? Let me explain, Conrail Bulletin order no. 9-4, effective July 9,2012. Detroit Line, 15.5 CP - FN now CP - RODNEY. 20.0 CP - JD now CP - DAY. Sterling Secondary,11.29 KM now ERIN. 14.0 TM now TODD. 19.3 WS - now ANDREW. North yard branch, 9.6 CP - NORTH YARD now CP - BONITA. NOW I know that management likes to stroke themselves by naming crap after each other. Some deserve it most DON'T. There is a ton of NEW guys on the railroad that are still trying to figure things out and now this crap ? I'am waiting...................................................

[CharlieX90]

I'll be F***ing darn if i am referring to CP FN as CP RODNEY!!! Jesus Conrail is losing whats left of its marbles or something.

[Y@]

CP BONITA? WTF is that BS?

[A No.1]

That is sad.

[AARR]

They are making it very hard on the veterans who work there (and probably don't care).

I too would be very interested in knowing why the change? I have many years of working with upper management and am trying to recall a time we changed names of something that had a long hisotry of being named something else and what the reasons were and cant come up with anything right now.

Even though it makes no sense to us there has got to be a decent reason for a change that management must know will cause a great deal of confusion until the veterans learn the new names...at least i hope there is a good reason

[J T]

There are a ton of NEW guys on the railroad that are still trying to figure things out and now this crap ? I'am waiting...................................................

Then they'll just have to learn the new names. Can't be the hardest thing to learn on the railroad, can it?

[SD80MAC]

Railroaders (and railroads, even) are incredibly resistant to change, JT. It's like dragging a 4 year old kicking and screaming by their feet.

[Garry K]

I think it's mostly when someone new takes over they like to put their personal "stamp" on things by making changes. The problem is that they never consider enough data before they make the changes, so frequently after several years they get broomed out and things can revert to the previous way when things actually worked better.

For example, I work at computer networking, and we have had a long-standing computer naming convention. We can look at the network and can tell where a computer is based on its name. That makes it easy to go to the location and fix it when needed. However, we now have someone in our department who wants to change the way we name computers, and it will make it much harder to figure out where they are. :-( I guess we'll have to go along with the change, although I'm betting within a couple of years we will revert to our current naming convention! BTW, our current naming convention was arrived at over a number of years. It can be said to already be optimized, so there really is no way to improve it.

Garry K

[A No.1]

The changing of names is like some loss of a historical location. I mean, Yes, Its just a name, But in my mind its like tearing down an old tower or something. Why not leave the names well enough alone.

[Mr. Tops]

...and when Todd gets fired and they hire Ron to replace him, it will again be changed from CP TODD to CP RON...

[M.D.Bentley]

UNLIKE the railfan community. NEW hires have a hard time taking in all of the information that is required to do the job. Whereas in days of old a new guy would be on a crew of 5 and be able work/train with the old guys and now they get stuck with a new guy who is trying do the job themselves AND train a another new guy in 6 months ! What a crock. I just don't see the cost justification here as well as the common sense thing.

[redside20]

That would be funny if they named another Control Point, CP Richard or CP Ginger.. Isn't there a CP Lou and CP Mort on the Michigan Line?

[Fred]

I'm sure the CN & CSXT crews are also just thrilled with the name changes too !! This should even add more confusion to those crews already not quite sure where the hell they were at to start off with !!!
Why the changes now? Lappin & Strauss as well as Day are all retired & gone already. FN should stay as FN ! There is not much history left now as it is.
Keep em' on the rail Matt !

[M.D.Bentley]

Hi Fred, i'am trying More information. According to the rules and compliance officer at Conrail, after an NS crew got into trouble on the Sterling Secondary earlier this year. The crew went farther than they should have and got pulled out of service. The confusion came when they were to stop at " TM " and thought the dispatcher said " KM " thankfully no one got hurt. So, the local NS chairman wrote a letter and said the letters were to confusing and should be changed to prevent this from happening again. The R & C guy did not sound happy about the changes. Now if they had never put the " KM " up ( which by the way did nothing but bottleneck the Sterling secondary AND cause ALOT of overtime ( THANKYOUVERYMUCH ) this would have never happened.) Sometimes things are better left unchanged.............

[AARR]

According to the rules and compliance officer at Conrail, after an NS crew got into trouble on the Sterling Secondary earlier this year.

So are the name changes to avoid confusion?

[TrainWatcher]

In related news, I noticed new signals on the SB and NB running track near Monroe. Are they trying to start running trains BOTH ways on BOTH lines?

[CharlieX90]

In related news, I noticed new signals on the SB and NB running track near Monroe. Are they trying to start running trains BOTH ways on BOTH lines?

They've been running both ways for a while now. Just need a Track A up to i think JD. Bi directionals are in place at CP Mill and D11.

[J T]

What I find funny is that people who have nothing to do with that railroad have a problem with it.

[Big Frank]

What I find funny is that people who have nothing to do with that railroad have a problem with it.

Like...we seriously need a like button here

[CSX_CO]

Why the SAM HILL would Conrail after all of these years, change the name of CP's.

Because they can? As long as they are the ones signing my paycheck, and it doesn't bounce, they're entitled to do what they want with 'their' company. When its my name on the side of the engine, then *I* can do what I want to.

Practice Safe CSX