10 hour rest?

I heard that conductors and engineers must have 10 hours of rest between shifts and can no longer work 7 days in a row. Does anyone know when this is supposed to happen?

nothing is official for the LIRR yet. they are still under the waiver.

If and when anything gets published the rules to look for are CFR 49-228-401

Isn't the current rest period before they can call you 8 hours?

No more 7 days a week? wow glad I got out of there.
That will cut salaries, and reduce pensions.
If that happens those who can might as well retire now, because they will start losing money on their pensions.
I am not up on this, being retired, but the requirement was 8 hours rest between shifts, unless one worked 12 hours or more, then it was 10 hours.
This also allowed the possibility of working two shifts in the same day, or what we caled doubling.
For example midnight to 8 in the morning, 8 hours rest, then back to work after 4 in the afternoon. I never did that, to me that was just too much.
Only exception might have been a snow storm or other major service disruption, were the RR needed people to come back to work.

Its still max 11:59 worked with 8 hours rest/12:00 worked/10 hours rest, but thats supposed to be changing in about a year or so, to what we don't know yet (as far as I know)

Doubling out SUCKS. Don't forget, the 8 hours rest starts when you get off duty, and if your home terminal, soon after you pull in. That doesn't allow for travel time home, relaxing, getting changed, getting into bed, and actually falling asleep. then you only need 8 hours rest. That means you have to be BACK and signing up in 8 hours from when you went off duty. And the crew callers have to call you in advance to tell you where to go and when to be there. I have a 3 hour call, some RRs and crafts have shorter calls, other crafts and RRs have longer calls. So that means just 5 hours into my rest, they are calling me again to go back to work. Now, i have to shower, get changed, get ready and travel back to work. All that done in 8 hours. So unless you live in the crew room, (which sometimes its easier to do than traveling back home) that 8 hours "rest" is a bit misleading. It really means 8 hours inbetween working. BIG difference........

The big thing with the proposed changes is UNDISTURBED rest. Meaning the crew callers can't call you for say 8 or 10 hours after you get off duty - Not like after 5 hours in my case (with a 3 hour call). Im all for a set amount of undistrubed rest time, but i don't agree with the manadatory 2 days off after so many days/hours worked or whatever they end up agreeing upon, if that ends up being in the final legislation.

friend of mine on njt who is a signal maintainer sometimes just sleeps in the shop during bad weather, easier then going home to get the inevitable trouble call.

I wish we had these rules when I worked for CSX. I might still work there if they did. One day off a week from noon to noon was pure BS.

I am not sure what country or planet you guys railroad on but these rules for rest have been in effect since July 16 2009. Nation wide all railroads must comply. It was part of the Rail Safety Imrovement Act.The knee jerk reaction for this legislation was created by the Chatsworth CA accident included created the new hours and the federally mandated Positive Train Control installation by 2016. If you are in train, engine and yard service (i.e. conductors and engineers) when you complete a trip the minimum off is 10 hours undisturbed rest. So if you work somewhere that you get a 2hr call to show up for work you get 12 hrs off because of the 10hrs plus the 2hr call. If an employee works 7 consecutive starts in a row, say for example reporting for work 7 days in a row upon completion of the 7th start (trip or yard shift) a minimum 72hrs off is required. If an employee works 6 starts in a row 48 hrs off are required. There are things that apply to this though. 2 starts in one calender day only counts for 1 actual start. Deadheading does not count as a start. If you do not get a start on one calendar day your start count resets to zero. So for example if I tie up on Jan 1st at 2300hrs and have all day off the 2nd and report for work at the ungodly hour of 0200hrs on the 3rd I start all over at 1 start. In all reality these new rules did nothing as far as being rested is concerned. We still have crappy train line ups sometimes and still work terrible hours. I have only been laid off ''RSIA'' 3 or 4 times in the last year and a half we have been doing this. Many times I have worked 2 weeks straight and not hit 7 starts in a row because of catching deadheads or breaking the cycle by sitting on the board long enough to restart my clock.Also we are only allowed to work 276hrs a month. But I have never seen anyone hit that. A lot to take in? You bet. We are used to it now. As far as pay is concerned I dont see much of a difference. As an engineer I can book what they call smart rest. It allow you to book enough rest to get you through a calender day without a start so it starts your start count all over again. As for PTC, we will get into that later and most of us that read railroady type mags have a pretty good idea of the concept.

We are on the planet called the LIRR, a strange forbiding planet east of NYC.
The planet LIRR has a waiver on the 10 hour rule, if one works 11:59 minutes or less, only 8 hours rest is needed on The LIRR. 12:00 or more, 10 hours rest is required.
This waiver is still in effect for now on the LIRR, "where safety is our first concern".

I don't think its a waiver, but rather the new HOS rules are still being developed for Commuter/Passenger operations, and we are still going by the old rules.

From what I was told, some of the commuter RRs had some issues with the amount of rest, undistrubed and call outs for list guys, and the swing times in the middle of the day. There are still some jobs that are scheduled to only get a little more than 8 hours rest inbetween on and off duty, as they have very large 4 or more hour breaks in the middle of the day. Also, the issue of emergency call outs (ASAP's as my RR calls them) was a big deal too. Our operations are a little different than freight ops and MOST times, we aren't in the seat for 12 hours a day and getting stuck with huge hours of limbo time trying to get back home. Also, the built in 4 or more hour breaks are common on some bigger jobs, that work both morning and evening rush hours.

Of course, this is just lockerroom talk as to some of the issues they were facing/complaining about, and I have no real idea how different the rules you freight guys are dealing with now are going to be affecting us when implemented on our end.

That makes sense for commuter operations. I forget you guys break the day up I guess you could say. You arent missing much. It is nice getting the undisturbed rest though. They should have given us the choice to book additional rest. At some location a previous union agreement doesnt allow for it. Some days I liked getting right out and some days I would have liked additional rest. They pretty much crammed it down our throats...

GN 599 wrote:That makes sense for commuter operations. I forget you guys break the day up I guess you could say. You arent missing much. It is nice getting the undisturbed rest though. They should have given us the choice to book additional rest. At some location a previous union agreement doesnt allow for it. Some days I liked getting right out and some days I would have liked additional rest. They pretty much crammed it down our throats...

I know that I had some concerns, and im sure the railroads did as well with the amount of undisturbed rest - if say it was 10 hours undisturbed, and I get a 3 hour call - that would be 13 hours inbetween on and off duty at a minimum - that would make it perfect to be bouncing from 2am sign ups, working say 10 hours, off at noon, earliest you would work again would be 3am. Not bad, staying on the same kind of rotation, early AMs. Now, unless the list is moving, and you get right back out after those 13 hours, the chances are very good that you are going to end up on a horrible rotation of say starting work at 2am - working AM into early PM, getting rest, laying in for a little while, then next time you work, starting work at 3pm and working til 1am - thats the absolute worst. Going from early AM to working PMs/overnights. No matter how you try to get sleep, you are gonna be tired.

While there jobs that sign up at all times of the day, there are bunches that start very early (inbetween 2am and about 6am) for AM rush and middays, while another group that starts in between 2pm and 6pm, for PM rush and late nights. PERSONALLY I would love to have 2 separate lists, one for AM work another for PM work. that would mean you would at least be guaranteed to stay in roughly the same sleep cycle, whichever it might be. IMO would have worked better to combat fatigue, instead of the totally changed HOS regs, but hey.....we aren't the "experts", we just do it for a living.......

The call can be given when you leave ... come back in 10 hours.

GN 599 wrote:I am not sure what country or planet you guys railroad on but these rules for rest have been in effect since July 16 2009. Nation wide all railroads must comply. It was part of the Rail Safety Imrovement Act.The knee jerk reaction for this legislation was created by the Chatsworth CA accident included created the new hours and the federally mandated Positive Train Control installation by 2016. If you are in train, engine and yard service (i.e. conductors and engineers) when you complete a trip the minimum off is 10 hours undisturbed rest. So if you work somewhere that you get a 2hr call to show up for work you get 12 hrs off because of the 10hrs plus the 2hr call. If an employee works 7 consecutive starts in a row, say for example reporting for work 7 days in a row upon completion of the 7th start (trip or yard shift) a minimum 72hrs off is required. If an employee works 6 starts in a row 48 hrs off are required. There are things that apply to this though. 2 starts in one calender day only counts for 1 actual start. Deadheading does not count as a start. If you do not get a start on one calendar day your start count resets to zero. So for example if I tie up on Jan 1st at 2300hrs and have all day off the 2nd and report for work at the ungodly hour of 0200hrs on the 3rd I start all over at 1 start. In all reality these new rules did nothing as far as being rested is concerned. We still have crappy train line ups sometimes and still work terrible hours. I have only been laid off ''RSIA'' 3 or 4 times in the last year and a half we have been doing this. Many times I have worked 2 weeks straight and not hit 7 starts in a row because of catching deadheads or breaking the cycle by sitting on the board long enough to restart my clock.Also we are only allowed to work 276hrs a month. But I have never seen anyone hit that. A lot to take in? You bet. We are used to it now. As far as pay is concerned I dont see much of a difference. As an engineer I can book what they call smart rest. It allow you to book enough rest to get you through a calender day without a start so it starts your start count all over again. As for PTC, we will get into that later and most of us that read railroady type mags have a pretty good idea of the concept.

The planet in which Amtrak operates does not have this FRA requirement. We are still 8 hours and as many days/starts as they can get in between.