Home Terminals

A lot of trainmen in freight service mention they work out of a home terminal. Is there such a thing on the LIRR? Does the LIRR try to position an employee on a train within a close proximity to their home on Long Island? Or do they have to commute to a common point? Is it common for the LIRR to transfer an employee to work from one end of the island to the other? I guess what I am asking is if there is a lot of commuting time involved for employees to get to their trains.

All jobs have a home terminal, but it has nothing to do with their proximity to an employee's actual place where he lives.

It is simply the "terminal" whether Westside Yard or Speonk that the employee reports/starts his run. If I am correct, the company has to pay you the time back to where you started if in the course of your day there are problems and you're told to go somewhere else.

For a Yardmaster, it was where we owned our job and if we were ordered to cover somewhere else it was overtime.

We used to have home terminal seniority, but that was before I started to work for the RR in 1973. What we have now is contractual agreements that we have to be paid back to the terminal we started out of on any given day. Most people on the rairoad "own A job" out of a particular terminal. These jobs are picked in seniority order twice a year when we have a "general pick". They are listed in numerical order in our crew books, and we are assigned to particular trains on each job. The majority of jobs finish in the terminal they started out of. The way it works is, whatever terminal i start out of, I have to be payed back to. So if I started in say Port washington, and when I got to NY there was a service disruption, or a shortage of crews, if I was sent out east on another branch, they would have to pay me back to port washington. I would claim the next train out of the eastern terminal, and then the connecting train out of NY back to port wash. As you can imagine, this could lead to a lot of overtime, so the supervisors usually try to keep you on or near your home terminal.We also have an "Extra list" these are people who dont own a job out of any terminal, they cover the jobs in the crew book for people who are off for various reasons. (Vacation, off sick, etc.) They are subject to the same rule, wherever they start out of, they get payed back to. They have to put a request in by 10:30 of the day before, and are assigned in seniority order the jobs that are available for the following day. W also have more trainmen then jobs available right now, so our younger trainmen are called "subject to bid". They also get called out in senority order to cover jobs for people who are off. Before I worked for the railroad terminal senority prevented someone from trimming into another terminal. I dont know how it worked, it was before my time.

That was put much better than I , but still no meal period for you .... tie up! ... (LOL)

As an example, MANY years ago, Amagansett was a terminal for a lot of trains. As a result, many railroad men wound up living in Amagansett, either permanently or renting or living in boarding houses.

This was common amongst LIRR men at most terminals. As you advanced in seniority and got to keep your run unchallenged by others, you'd settle down in the area of your teminal out of convenience.

Dave

Dave,

Those days are indeed long past. Again, I wasn't a Trainmen or a Hogger, but the days of a rock solid job are long over.

There are revisions upon revisions with job starting points, hours, meals, amount of trains and especially ... home terminals being changed sometimes two and three times a year. Not to mention all of the ones being abolished.

Boy, that's from a railroad long since gone by the wayside.

Anyhow, If you alter an employee's run and he started in say Westside and he finished for whatever reason in KO, then he should be payed back to his point of where he started ... Lincoln freed the slaves. That's why they're called "penalty" time slips.