Pre-Inaugural Philly-Wilmington-DC Victory Movement

hi55us wrote:such a great article, it must of been the best train to drive, non-stop philly-Wilmington-Baltimore-Washington knowing that NOTHING is gonna get in your way. Unfortunately he didn't get to do it w/ the acela (or even an eletric loco) where he could really open it up.

Still, hearing "You have the entire railroad" must've been a nice thing to hear... On the NEC..

hi55us wrote:such a great article, it must of been the best train to drive, non-stop philly-Wilmington-Baltimore-Washington knowing that NOTHING is gonna get in your way. Unfortunately he didn't get to do it w/ the acela (or even an eletric loco) where he could really open it up.

Mr. HI, simply because a train has been "given the railroad", does not exempt such from being operated in accordance with the Book of Rules and applicable Special Instructions.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:

hi55us wrote:such a great article, it must of been the best train to drive, non-stop philly-Wilmington-Baltimore-Washington knowing that NOTHING is gonna get in your way. Unfortunately he didn't get to do it w/ the acela (or even an eletric loco) where he could really open it up.

Mr. HI, simply because a train has been "given the railroad", does not exempt such from being operated in accordance with the Book of Rules and applicable Special Instructions.

No, but either way you'll still have a much more relaxed (per se) trip than usual. One train behind you, one train infront of you with several clear blocks on either end.

Noel Weaver wrote:I don't usually bring back old topics but there was an article on the BLE website Monday about the Amtrak engineer who
ran the Obama special from Philadelphia to Washington and it is one of the best human interest stories that I have read
in some time. Some of you have already been sent an e-mail about this but I decided to share it with everybody on here.
Please no politics, none are intended by my remarks nor by the story. Just a nice story to ready, hope you enjoy reading it
as much as I did.
Noel Weaver

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=25318

It seems he drove the train wearing a suit and hat - does Amtrak not have uniform regulations for engineers, or were they waived in this case?

(here in Norway, for Royal trains, there is a regulation that the train driver and assistant must be in full uniform, with white gloves and white cap covers)

I might be wrong but I don't think there is any uniform for engineers in the US, there might be a traditionalist who wears the overalls and bib though which has always been synonymous with railroaders in the US.

So basically on Amtrak, the onboard crew (conductors, dining car crew, ticketers etc) need to wear uniforms, whereas the engineer can be dressed however (s)he likes?

So basically on Amtrak, the onboard crew (conductors, dining car crew, ticketers etc) need to wear uniforms, whereas the engineer can be dressed however (s)he likes?

Exactly. It gets even more crazy with the train support staff. There was an infamous Mid-Atlantic division tower operator who would show up for third shift jobs in pajamas.

Well, it could've been worse, he could've shown up naked

Amtrak as well as at least some of the commuter railroads approached the BLE about engineers wearing uniforms and the
union said nothing doing. It never went beyond that.
I know in my passenger days, I had to crawl under equipment to reset something or to remove debris or fix something, no
way would I have done that if I had to worry about getting a uniform dirty.
With respect to this train, you can bet that the equipment from one end of the train to the other end was checked, double
checked and checked some more before it was allowed to operate. On a special train like this one the company would hand
pick the entire crew, it falls under the catagory of an official train, and often engine crews on a train like that would be
requested to wear very good clothes. In the unlikely event that something did happen it is not likely that the engineer would
leave the engineer's seat, they would have all sorts of people on that move to take care of any problems that could come up.
Noel Weaver