Prototype Railroading: West Pool

For most of the summer, I have been on the Glendive Conductors' Extra Board.  This has given me some variety in the jobs I have worked, and has paid pretty well over the summer.  While on the extra board, I worked just about every job in Glendive, although the most frequent by far was the Glendive to Forsyth run.  Recently, I was first out on the extra board, and it was looking like another all night run, so I decided to leave the extra board.  I had been planning on doing so for the winter anyway, and going to the Glendive West Pool, because it is a warmer job.  On the extra board, you can be called for the yard jobs, and the yard in the winter is a cold place.  Most of those jobs spend most of the shift outdoors, and trudging around in the snow, in subzero temperatures is something I like to avoid as much as possible.

The extra board had a few advantages.  The variety was something I liked.  Rather than working the same job all the time, I could be called for any conductor job, provided there was a vacancy.  While I most often made the trip to Forsyth, I also worked on the helpers, in the yard, and on several dog catch trips.  It was nice to have a little variety once in a while.  Another nice thing about the extra board is the guaranteed income.  Because the extra board is in place to cover vacancies created when other people are on vacation, lay off, or when a job has no one assigned permanently to it, there is a guaranteed pay rate.  If you do not work enough on the extra board to make a minimum set amount of money each month, the railroad will pay the difference.  However if you work enough to make the minimum or more, the railroad does not pay anything extra.  This is designed so that if someone marks to the extra board, and then never gets called, due to no vacancies, they still get a pay check, provided they were available the whole time, and did not lay off or go on vacation.  Of course, as busy as we have been lately, the likelihood of marking to an extra board and never getting called is pretty small!  Guaranteed pay and variety in the work sounds nice, but there is one major disadvantage to the extra board.  It is nearly impossible to predict when the railroad will call for work.  Sometimes you get in one day, and there are ten people in front of you on the board, and you still somehow get called right when you are rested, ten hours later.  Other times there is only two people ahead of you, and you get a dead day at home before they call.  There really is no reliable way to predict when you will be called, because only the vacancies on pool runs actually show up.  If there is a vacancy in the yard, it usually will not show up, and if they decide to call a dog catch, that never shows up.  You really cannot go too far from home, and you cannot ever leave the phone, after you are rested, if you are on the extra board.

The West Pool operates a little differently than the extra board.  Each pool turn is assigned a number, and each person to a specific turn.  When I marked up to the west pool, I put myself on a turn that was on the way to Forsyth.  That meant I had to wait for that turn to return to Glendive and get rested before I would go to work.  So I got a day off, just waiting for my turn to come back to town.  The West Pool only operates between Glendive and Forsyth, so I know I will be doing that from now on, until I mark back to the extra board, in the spring.  Occasionally, when there are no rested crews on the extra board, they will call people from the west pool for extra work.  These are assignments that would normally be given to the extra board, and are completely optional (funny story: when I was in training, I got a call for extra work, as the utility engineer, in the yard.  Apparently the crew caller did not realize I was not even a qualified conductor yet!).  With the rare exception of an extra work call, people on the west pool make the trip to Forsyth.  One of the major advantages to working the west pool is the ability to predict, with some limited accuracy, when you will be going to work.  Of course, I thought I would go to work yesterday around lunch time, and here I am, still at home.  The reliability of the predictions depends on how often they update the lineups, but at least you can make an educated guess.  However, the west pool does not (usually) get guarantee pay.  It is a regular job, so you earn what you work.  If you do not go to work, you do not get paid.  Of course, on the west pool, I feel like I can lay of now and again, when I need to, and not lose a day of guarantee pay, the way I would on the extra board.  This actually worked out nicely for me recently, when I did not get called during the day, as I had expected, and by the time night came, I was rather tired.  If I had been on the extra board, I would have just gone to work, fought sleep, and been a zombie, just so I would not lose that day of guarantee.  Since I was on the west pool, and guarantee was not a concern, I laid off fatigued just long enough to get some sleep, and then went back to on the board.

The best jobs in Glendive are either the Helper Pool or the yard jobs, depending on your preference.  The helper pool is a fairly easy run, pushing eastbound coal trains to Fryburg, ND, and then returning home.  The nice thing is that it is easy, and you come home after every trip.  The yard jobs are nice because they all operate on a regular schedule.  When you are permanently assigned to a yard job, as opposed to getting if by working on the extra board, the railroad does not call before every shift.  You simply show up to work at the designated time.  The utility jobs all work five days, and gets two off.  They are eight hour shifts, which start at 7:00am, 3:00pm, and 11:00pm.  The switch crew works three days a week, and then has four off, working 12 hour shifts starting at 7:00am.  Those jobs would be nice to have, but I will need a bit more seniority before I can hold those!  For now, I guess it will be west pool for the winter, or as long as I do not get bumped.