No Amtrak crews have joined Keolis

From Today's Chat:

Keolis made offers to the current conductors and engineers. As of now, only one of those have decided to join the Keolis team, however, the new train crews will be qualified and will give you the same good service you have come to expect on VRE.

Wow, well that really sucks for VRE.

Hopefully that trend doesn't carry over to whomever takes over for CSX on the MARC.

HokieNav wrote:Hopefully that trend doesn't carry over to whomever takes over for CSX on the MARC.

Amtrak may be a possible bidder for the "B&O" (CSX) side of the MARC operations. Stay tuned.

Is MARC currently using CSX engineers on the Brunswick?

Davis

strench707 wrote:Is MARC currently using CSX engineers on the Brunswick?

Davis

Yeah, all trains crews and station staff on the Brunswick and Camden Lines are CSX employees.

amtrakhogger wrote:

HokieNav wrote:Hopefully that trend doesn't carry over to whomever takes over for CSX on the MARC.

Amtrak may be a possible bidder for the "B&O" (CSX) side of the MARC operations. Stay tuned.

I've always thought of Amtrak as the most likely to take over. It would prob be more efficient and cheaper for MARC to use the same contractor for all 3 lines, and I doubt MARC will use Keolis or Veolia seeing the relationship they have with Amtrak (they share multiple stations, Amtrak maintains MARC coaches and electric locomotives, Amtrak owns the NEC etc.).

Question about this, surely CSX doesn't hire many passenger train conductors for any other purpose than running the B&0 MARC lines. (do they run any other commuter lines?) So, were some of those guys former Amtrakers anyhow, who were hired away at some point to work those lines? Not that being a passenger conductor is some huge leap in skills from being a freight conductor...still I imagine it attracts a different kind of person.

The CSXT employees who staff the MARC trains are from the same pool of employees who work the freight service on the same territory. They are usually very senior men, since passenger work is almost always preferred to freight. Prior to 1983, all of the passenger services on the NEC were staffed by Conrail employees who shared common seniority with the freight service employees in their territories. Likewise, Metra in Chichago still pays UP to staff the former CNW commuter services and BNSF to staff the former CB&Q commuter services.

The Amtrak employees who currently work the VRE service enjoy nationwide seniority, which is a very valuable right. It is hard to imagine someone trading that for a five year contract with nowhere to go but the street if things don't work out.

MJRuef wrote:The Amtrak employees who currently work the VRE service enjoy nationwide seniority, which is a very valuable right. It is hard to imagine someone trading that for a five year contract with nowhere to go but the street if things don't work out.

Let's assume Keolis looses the VRE contract renewal 5 or 10 years in the future, and VRE contracts with someone else. Who do you think the someone else will want to hire? Even Amtrak will want to rehire the train crews familiar with the corridors. Just like Keolis wanted the Amtrak crews. So, even if things don't work out, they still will for the crews. VRE may even get the same seniority deal for their crews in the future as they got now.

dt_rt40 wrote:Question about this, surely CSX doesn't hire many passenger train conductors for any other purpose than running the B&0 MARC lines. (do they run any other commuter lines?) So, were some of those guys former Amtrakers anyhow, who were hired away at some point to work those lines? Not that being a passenger conductor is some huge leap in skills from being a freight conductor...still I imagine it attracts a different kind of person.

The train conductors I know on both the Camden and Brunwick Lines have, to my knowledge, always been with CSX. The Brunswick Line crew mostly have thick Western MD accents, so I doubt they've been around that much.

dt_rt40 wrote:
Question about this, surely CSX doesn't hire many passenger train conductors for any other purpose than running the B&0 MARC lines. (do they run any other commuter lines?) So, were some of those guys former Amtrakers anyhow, who were hired away at some point to work those lines? Not that being a passenger conductor is some huge leap in skills from being a freight conductor...still I imagine it attracts a different kind of person.

There is no separate group of engineers or conductors for MARC service on CSX. The MARC train crews on the CSX lines bid on their assignments just like any other CSX regular job and they are awarded by seniority. Obviously the other jobs available are on freight. My understanding is that the MARC jobs pay well, obviously have Saturday and Sunday off, and crews always get home at night, so are bid on and awarded to engineeers and conductors with fairly high seniority. My experience on the Camden Line is that the conductors and trainmen are generally polite and courteous, so apparently the individuals who don't like dealing with the public bid on freight jobs.

At one time the Camden Line and the Brunswick line would have been assigned to different crew seniority districts, so would have been staffed by different employees. I don't know if that is true today, but since Camden line jobs work out of Baltimore and Brunswick LIne jobs out of Brunswick, they will tend to attract diferent bidders anyway depending on where the individual employees live.

When regular crews are not available, engineers or conductors would be called off the extra board, so may not have run in passenger service for some time. When riding the Amtrak or the CSX lines I sometimes convince myself the engineer is off the extra board because they are not as familiar with making the local MARC station stops and really creep slowly into stations to make sure they don't overrun them.

dt_rt40 wrote:Question about this, surely CSX doesn't hire many passenger train conductors for any other purpose than running the B&0 MARC lines. (do they run any other commuter lines?)

TO my knowledge, this is the only commuter service that CSX operates (which is why they're so keen to get out of it).

I know the one individual who has signed with Keolis. He is in a great position to switch and will probably have automatic highest seniority over all new crew hired (speaking of which, VRE says Keolis has hired enough crew for all trains, but so far only that one from Amtrak). It's almost like those who were at least considering joining the new service are those who have always been with VRE (therefore hardly working with Amtrak), extraboards who want a more regular schedule, and those who are nearing retirement and want to be able to choose their routes and not get into long hauls again. And of course there are those who are furloughed and are longing to get back to work regardless of who it's for. Those are all just observations and assumptions, but food for thought. But really....did anyone think they were going to bring over even 1/4 of the Amtrak crew members??

polybalt wrote:

dt_rt40 wrote:


At one time the Camden Line and the Brunswick line would have been assigned to different crew seniority districts, so would have been staffed by different employees. I don't know if that is true today, but since Camden line jobs work out of Baltimore and Brunswick LIne jobs out of Brunswick, they will tend to attract diferent bidders anyway depending on where the individual employees live.

Same seniority district. In fact, the BCEC is huge, and includes the entire BA divsion. There are however "east" and "west" passenger boards, one for the Camden and one for the Brunswick side.

As far as seniority, there are folks with as little as 4 or 5 years who are passenger qualified and are holding passenger extralist turns. The biggest draws to working passenger is you don't spend the night in the hotel, and you get two tickets per day because you're taking a train in, and taking one out. Payola. Having said that, the only way I'd work as a passenger A/C or CO is for the cool uniform. I have no intention on becoming either, but engineer is possibility. Might be another 10 years, but I'd be the youngest one on the list.

SurlyKnuckle wrote: As far as seniority, there are folks with as little as 4 or 5 years who are passenger qualified and are holding passenger extralist turns. The biggest draws to working passenger is you don't spend the night in the hotel, and you get two tickets per day because you're taking a train in, and taking one out. Payola. Having said that, the only way I'd work as a passenger A/C or CO is for the cool uniform. I have no intention on becoming either, but engineer is possibility. Might be another 10 years, but I'd be the youngest one on the list.

Thanks for everyone's replies. This is an interesting arrangement. Wouldn't it have to be a matter of public record, of how much MARC is paying CSX to run those lines? I wonder if CSX doesn't want "out" not so much because they are losing money, but the staffing issues of their more senior staff preferring not to work their own bread and butter...the freight trains. Who knows. It makes me think of that awkwardly worded disclaimer MARC uses about how the freight RRs are under no legal obligation to offer their lines for commuter service. I'm sure there's a long history of tit for tat and at some point in the past the state helped the B&O with imminent domain issues, or whatnot.