Vermont Activity and Sightings

Fritz wrote:Hello,
If they did run yesterday, they didn't leave any cars in Newport (for either their customers or the WACR). I don't know if they received cars from the WACR yesterday, although nothing was in the yard to go north yesterday morning. The WACR went south this morning with a single empty covered hopper that they pulled from Poulin Grain.
Best,
Fritz

It's quite sad to see the yards so empty, I never thought I would miss Ed Burkhardt 's railway, or Iron Road for that matter, at least there was a little traffic to haul...

Checking the dwell times on cars it seems that traffic that comes across on job 1 sits in Farnham yard for days on end before it can be brought to newport. Some times the connection goes ok, but more often then not they don't get it switched out in time, or the crews drag their butts so they don't have time to make a run to newport. It's becoming appearant to me that this is one of the major issues. Lazy crews and unreliable cmq power don't help things either. Once cars arrive in newport they are moved expeditiously south... with both vrs and Necr doing very well at keeping loads moving. The hang up is cmq and farnham. Hopefully they get there act together soon so buisness can have a chance to grow.....

I'm aware that VRS provides
Very Reliable Service,

given that they've taken over local switching for another carrier's clients. Knowing that it took a week for them to get two junk loco's down to Brunswick just to find out they didn't work, CMQ's current situation appears to be:

Continuous
Motive
Quandaries

That's a good one, here's mine...

C-ompletely
M-ismanaged
Q-uagmire

csx2039 wrote:Checking the dwell times on cars it seems that traffic that comes across on job 1 sits in Farnham yard for days on end before it can be brought to newport. Some times the connection goes ok, but more often then not they don't get it switched out in time, or the crews drag their butts so they don't have time to make a run to newport. It's becoming appearant to me that this is one of the major issues. Lazy crews and unreliable cmq power don't help things either. Once cars arrive in newport they are moved expeditiously south... with both vrs and Necr doing very well at keeping loads moving. The hang up is cmq and farnham. Hopefully they get there act together soon so buisness can have a chance to grow.....

What examples do you have of the Farnham crews dragging their butts in order to not make the run to Newport? It seems to me that is something that CMQ management would want to have brought to their attention.

FarnhamHogger wrote:

csx2039 wrote:Checking the dwell times on cars it seems that traffic that comes across on job 1 sits in Farnham yard for days on end before it can be brought to newport. Some times the connection goes ok, but more often then not they don't get it switched out in time, or the crews drag their butts so they don't have time to make a run to newport. It's becoming appearant to me that this is one of the major issues. Lazy crews and unreliable cmq power don't help things either. Once cars arrive in newport they are moved expeditiously south... with both vrs and Necr doing very well at keeping loads moving. The hang up is cmq and farnham. Hopefully they get there act together soon so buisness can have a chance to grow.....

What examples do you have of the Farnham crews dragging their butts in order to not make the run to Newport? It seems to me that is something that CMQ management would want to have brought to their attention.

Well they sat in newport for 2 hours the other night so they could grab some grub, and that's not the first time, then if I heard correctly they outlawed in cowansville, then they were not able to make it the next day when there was traffic, then they have been spotted a number of times doing 13-14 miles an hour taking 5-6 hours going one way, again outlawing in Richford or Cowansville on return trip. Then they dont have enough time to make it the next day, snowball effect. The track speed is almost all 25. Running time farnham to newport should be less then three hours... not all but some don't like coming to vt and their bending the rules to work in there favor, all the while customers suffer... the union is so strong they will do as they wish and management can't do a damn thing... a few fellas have been fired up there, give it a week they are right back to work... bullshit. Management needs to start downloading the engine to see what the hell thier crews are doing. But then again it probably wouldn't make much difference. Some of those crews don't give a crap weather the traffic moves or not... shame. Cmq/ farnham... the weakest link.

csx2039 wrote:

FarnhamHogger wrote:

csx2039 wrote:Checking the dwell times on cars it seems that traffic that comes across on job 1 sits in Farnham yard for days on end before it can be brought to newport. Some times the connection goes ok, but more often then not they don't get it switched out in time, or the crews drag their butts so they don't have time to make a run to newport. It's becoming appearant to me that this is one of the major issues. Lazy crews and unreliable cmq power don't help things either. Once cars arrive in newport they are moved expeditiously south... with both vrs and Necr doing very well at keeping loads moving. The hang up is cmq and farnham. Hopefully they get there act together soon so buisness can have a chance to grow.....

What examples do you have of the Farnham crews dragging their butts in order to not make the run to Newport? It seems to me that is something that CMQ management would want to have brought to their attention.

Well they sat in newport for 2 hours the other night so they could grab some grub, and that's not the first time, then if I heard correctly they outlawed in cowansville, then they were not able to make it the next day when there was traffic, then they have been spotted a number of times doing 13-14 miles an hour taking 5-6 hours going one way, again outlawing in Richford or Cowansville on return trip. Then they dont have enough time to make it the next day, snowball effect. The track speed is almost all 25. Running time farnham to newport should be less then three hours... not all but some don't like coming to vt and their bending the rules to work in there favor, all the while customers suffer... the union is so strong they will do as they wish and management can't do a damn thing... a few fellas have been fired up there, give it a week they are right back to work... bullshit. Management needs to start downloading the engine to see what the hell thier crews are doing. But then again it probably wouldn't make much difference. Some of those crews don't give a crap weather the traffic moves or not... shame. Cmq/ farnham... the weakest link.

And you work for the RR and have experience operating trains? Or you work for the RR as a manager of some kind and have experience? What is your expertise again? Is it train sightings?

I also can tell you I've seen CMQ cars sit at WRJ for a few days. Also, sometimes when cars sit at yards it is with good reason, such as a customer request. While I'm not saying that is this case here, I'm just saying you don't know anything about railroading outside of watching trains go by when you happen to see them. Especially when you say the crews don't give a crap 'weather' the traffic moves or not... for the most part the weather isn't a big deterrent (yes I made a funny just now)

Ok

I'm just saying you don't know anything about railroading outside of watching trains go by when you happen to see them. Especially when you say the crews don't give a crap [/quote]

I'm glad you could clarify that for me... I guess I really don't know anything after all

I think the facts, to back up statements to the contrary of yours, can be found everywhere except your posts.

Completely
Mismanaged
Quagmire

is a bit of a stretch when you consider the situation outside of your little corner of the world. The US side of the operation (B&A, Jobs 1 &2) run with a regularity that is admirable. And traffic has grown, most notably in the form of haulage from Pan Am to Irving and vice-versa. Service might suck in VT, cars might sit in VT for days, crews might screw off in VT, but its such a small portion that condemning the entire company just isn't possible. So I guess the question is really, why do you keep smearing the name of an operation that is showing growth (like a large percentage of the fiber/paper business off Irving that was formerly being routed ST)?

Your assertions that CM&Q's locomotive fleet is flawed is also a little strange, especially when you compare them to MM&A. I don't work in the shop, but I think it would be pretty hard to maintain a motive power fleet more poorly than MM&A. When you're using silicone to to repair heads you've got a pretty sloppy operation, and I find it impossible to believe that sort of shoddy work continued under the new banner. They've also done a lot of fleet evaluation and sent the poor performers back for better stuff. Thats why the GP20s are gone.

Fortress is an investment group. They took on CM&Q and had to pull it from the ashes (literally) of MM&A. They put a lot of money into the property in the last year, and its obvious they have more work to do. But speeds have already improved in a lot of places. Customers, in Maine, get service when they need it, and they have grown traffic in both the haulage from ST and through traffic off Irving. Give them time and watch them tick, they do seem to know what they are doing.

KSmitty wrote:I think the facts, to back up statements to the contrary of yours, can be found everywhere except your posts.

Completely
Mismanaged
Quagmire

is a bit of a stretch when you consider the situation outside of your little corner of the world. The US side of the operation (B&A, Jobs 1 &2) run with a regularity that is admirable. And traffic has grown, most notably in the form of haulage from Pan Am to Irving and vice-versa. Service might suck in VT, cars might sit in VT for days, crews might screw off in VT, but its such a small portion that condemning the entire company just isn't possible. So I guess the question is really, why do you keep smearing the name of an operation that is showing growth (like a large percentage of the fiber/paper business off Irving that was formerly being routed ST)?

Your assertions that CM&Q's locomotive fleet is flawed is also a little strange, especially when you compare them to MM&A. I don't work in the shop, but I think it would be pretty hard to maintain a motive power fleet more poorly than MM&A. When you're using silicone to to repair heads you've got a pretty sloppy operation, and I find it impossible to believe that sort of shoddy work continued under the new banner. They've also done a lot of fleet evaluation and sent the poor performers back for better stuff. Thats why the GP20s are gone.

Fortress is an investment group. They took on CM&Q and had to pull it from the ashes (literally) of MM&A. They put a lot of money into the property in the last year, and its obvious they have more work to do. But speeds have already improved in a lot of places. Customers, in Maine, get service when they need it, and they have grown traffic in both the haulage from ST and through traffic off Irving. Give them time and watch them tick, they do seem to know what they are doing.

They are having power problems, that is a fact. Is a chain only as good as its weakest link? I thought so. Things may be great in maine, that's awesome. I'm not being sarcastic, it really is good. We can only hope some of that spreads to vermont, and as you have just said it has not...

csx2039 wrote:Well they sat in newport for 2 hours the other night so they could grab some grub, and that's not the first time, then if I heard correctly they outlawed in cowansville, then they were not able to make it the next day when there was traffic, then they have been spotted a number of times doing 13-14 miles an hour taking 5-6 hours going one way, again outlawing in Richford or Cowansville on return trip. Then they dont have enough time to make it the next day, snowball effect. The track speed is almost all 25. Running time farnham to newport should be less then three hours... not all but some don't like coming to vt and their bending the rules to work in there favor, all the while customers suffer... the union is so strong they will do as they wish and management can't do a damn thing... a few fellas have been fired up there, give it a week they are right back to work... bullshit. Management needs to start downloading the engine to see what the hell thier crews are doing. But then again it probably wouldn't make much difference. Some of those crews don't give a crap weather the traffic moves or not... shame. Cmq/ farnham... the weakest link.

I'm not going to try and defend the crews involved but, since you really haven't given any details other than hearsay and speculation, there are lots of things that may be wrong with what you've concluded.

Did the crew going to eat cause the 2 hour delay or were the crew going to eat because they knew that they were to be delayed for 2 hours? Customs issues used to cause known delays in Newport quite often back in the day.

The running time of less than 3 hours could only be achieved running light engine and without slow orders or stopping to service customers en-route. Don't CMQ still have customers to switch in Cowansville and Richford? The maximum track speed may now be 25 MPH in some places but certainly not all 63 miles of the run from Farnham to Newport. Given all the ties being installed on the Canadian side there must be numerous slow orders. A train operating through a slow order may not be able to get back up to maximum track speed for quite some time afterward depending on grades or tonnage. Were the crew in or leaving a slow order or going up a hill when your radar gun tracked them at 13-14 MPH ?

I find it unfortunate to read your posts here speculating that CMQ crews don't care or that some of them should be losing their livelihoods, unless you know facts that you haven't shared here.

Heresay and speculation? I did give you facts, you just didn't like them. Customs was not holding them that night. Track speed is all 25 south of the border. Check your daily DOB, they were going down hill on both occasions. The truth is the truth it's just that some people don't like hearing it cause it makes them uncomfortable. This still doesn't change the fact.

csx2039 wrote:Heresay and speculation? I did give you facts, you just didn't like them. Customs was not holding them that night. Track speed is all 25 south of the border. Check your daily DOB, they were going down hill on both occasions. The truth is the truth it's just that some people don't like hearing it cause it makes them uncomfortable. This still doesn't change the fact.

It's not that I don't like your "facts" or that they make me uncomfortable, it's that you haven't provided any details to substantiate them. You've made some serious accusations about the CMQ crews, all I'm asking is that you provide some specifics.
When you say that the crew was not held by customs I would like to know how you would know that, were you privy to some information on this?
When you write about crews being outlawed at various locations do you have the specifics of the trips?
How are you obtaining the CMQ DOB?
How did you ascertain that their train movements were at speeds of 13-14 MPH?
You stated that "Management needs to start downloading the engine to see what the hell thier crews are doing." Are you aware that they are required to do this at regular intervals by Transport Canada? So, if crews were doing what you're accusing them of, CMQ officials would be well aware of it.
You've accused these people of "bending the rules to work in there favor" of being "lazy" and seem disappointed that dismissed employees have been reinstated. I'm not trying to change your opinion, I'm trying to understand it.

CMQ went south to Newport today early, left Farnham at 0900 and arrived back at 1729. They have been stopping in Cowansville and Richford to switch customers, and don't make the full trip unless there is traffic (they did today). WACR came north today as well with cars but it looks like they missed each other by only a few hours and didn't make the drop & swap.