NS Helper Crew loses his cool with Allegheny Dispatcher
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ย. 2022
- THERE'S A MOUNTAIN UP HERE!
Happy early Turkey day! Here's a funny recording you probably heard an excerpt from in the Lac Megantic remaster documentary. Here's most of that recording in it's raw glory. I do apologize for any inaccuracies in the notes, just sharing this gem of a recording in case no one else has. I own the photo but not the music nor the recording itself!
Edit: IT HAPPENED AGAIN! 11/22/23 a 200+ car loaded coal train was told to tie down at 241.0 (1 mile west of HSC) cause the crew expired. Train nearly ran away with brakes on... Need I say more?
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![Y90's Altoona Derailment [Dispatcher Display Annimation and Audio Recordings]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/j83csnh5UKk/mqdefault.jpg)
![Y90's Altoona Derailment [Dispatcher Display Annimation and Audio Recordings]](/img/tr.png)
Should have the donate thing to the people who run the audio feed to make this video possible... Which is me. Nice to hear the whole audio of this and not the last half just before the helper flipped on the dispatcher.
Oh man now I feel like an arsehole for forgetting to link the feed. I was gonna split it in parts but I ended up re-editing it 5 times before deciding "what the hell" and upload almost the entire raw clip both before and after with "got lots of stories" being the perfect ending. Thanks for what you do to keep that feed running. I'll provide a link to it ASAP
Fixed it. Sorry for being an idiot and not putting it in earlier
Thank you, I appreciate it. Nice work on the captions, etc.
@@NS6677 No problem and thanks!
Great work to both of you! I don't know if I should laugh or be terrified. Good thing those operators know what they're doin! And excellent reference to Lac Megantic BTW! Cumberland out! 👍
"Theres a mountain up here!!" should be framed in the NS office
I have it in my office, along with the Picard Facepalm.
I was the conductor on 20T that day that said "and do it in 17 minutes too" at 0:59. We were sitting at the Brickyard waiting for traffic ahead to clear before we could drop down into Altoona. That day was just an absolute disaster and that dispatcher didn't help things. The engineer on C05 retired not long after this all went down. It was like his swan song
Man and I thought our dispatchers at CP were retarded.
Who was the engineer on CO5?
Thank God I didn't have that moron for a dispatcher on Toledo West.
Oh boy what was it like hearing this all live? We're you and your engineer laughing or just thinking "WTF?" Figured the C05 engineer retired, guy went out with a bang! Seems the dispatcher learned very little since this after my last visit to the Altoona area few months ago.
Well having the Altoona road foreman ride with you while all this was going down was very interesting. All you can do is shake your head and make disparaging comments on the radio
"I don't understand but I understand" is the most concise description of modern Class 1 railroading I've ever heard, and boy, I've had that feeling in a different industry a whole bunch.
Fully agree. One of my favorite parts of the video
That sounded like Justin from RY who said that.
That describes my line of work perfectly and it's in an office haha. Like that line.
I think its the best description for most industries in general.
I'm new here... what's class one railroading? 😅
This is what happens now that Dispatchers are often no longer required to ride over the territory they will be dispatching. Knowing the physical characteristics of the line and taking a test to show that you know them are important.
Still baffles me especially considering how steep the grade is up there in the Altoona area not to mention that SHARP turn called Horseshoe Curve.
You'd think at a bare minimum they'd look at a contour map.... Then again I doubt they'd know how to read one.
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren Once some people get killed they’ll review the policy. The deaths are cheaper than proper staffing and training.
Yeah trainmasters on the passenger rail that I’m on don’t have to be qualified either 🤦♂️
@@pemithepitty6442 Sad.
Funniest thing I've ever heard over scanner feed was a couple years back on BNSF's Steven's Pass. An empty oil can was approaching Skykomish, the last siding before the 2.2% climb starts, and called dispatcher saying they lost power from their second unit. Dispatcher tells them to give the climb a go anyways, they might be light enough to climb with only two units. You would never guess, but they stalled almost immediately after getting out of town. After a bit of toiling with a remote maintenance crew, dispatcher realized he had a priority stack coming up behind and had to have the stalled oil cans roll back down the grade into Skykomish siding. Once there, they went right back to trying (and failing) to get the second unit to boot back up. The poor conductor was being told to try all sorts of different things to get it to boot back up until an hour or so later a maintenance guy finally arrived on-site. He looked at the unit for about 5 minutes before he calls the dispatcher and says "Hey uhh, I think I found your problem... this thing's got no gas in it" 🤣
That story I think just gave me brain damage, that's physically painfully stupid. Amazing story.
@@Sigil_Firebrand is this being mean or nice???
@@DogeSFS
It’s being nice. He’s just reacting to the stupid mishap of the dispatcher
I’ve driven by there many many times, and I’m glad to hear a story from around here. Also that’s hilarious
He's darn right that thing has no gas in it. Last time I check they run on diesel!
Everything is possible when you drive a desk.
A little dissapointed at no point the conversation became:
Dispatcher: Can you guys connect the head end of the train to the back end?
Helper Crew: How about I connect the end of my boot with your ass?!
That would of been the icing on the cake XD
It would have been great! But In GCOR rules it states there can be no “bad language” used over the radio.
The dispatchers head end is obviously already connected to his back end.
@@MikeBrown-ii3pt You're not wrong there XD
Wasn't Brett in that train crash on the radio channel the one from y90
I've been a railroader for over 27 years and trust me sometimes the depth of stupidity here is fathomless.
Some of the dispatchers have no idea what's going on but that's because of poor training and the railroad is more worried about profits than safety.
Kraig Barner is in charge in Atlanta .. Anyone call him on this ...Been going on for years ....
U can't do a dispatchers job and vice versa. Go do something that takes skill like flying a plane ❤
Same with trucking.
"Norfolk Southern what's your function"
"Being incompetent and angering our crew"
The best part was when the C05 crew went off on that dispatcher and the dispatcher had no response.
Yeah he knew he screwed up. The way he cut off W9G's call with "Roger" clearly shows C05 rattled him good XD
Dispatch got glassed😂😂😂😂
There was no coming back lol
Wow. And here I thought CSX was the only ones that had dispatchers who couldn't run a train around a Christmas Tree.
Crew is partly at fault. NS rules hold that crews that are close on time need to, at least an hour in advance, warn dispatch of this so dispatch can have a replacement crew on standby. This crew, apparently didn't do that.
@@KibuFox or they said it but the dispatcher didn't hear it or ignored them
Explain just how you know he didn't Gove an hour notice . The dispatch shit in his own nest. There is suppose to be a chief dispatcher that's supposed to keep up with all that. Thanks s his job. !y guess is he took a smoke break.
@@rc391995 ...because it couldn't possibly have taken place prior to when this recording was started. If it's not on TH-cam, it never happened! 🤣
Nope UP and BN have some dispatchers that could get lost in a straight hallway with no doors.
I can’t say I’ve heard any incompetence on the New Castle Sub (CSX western PA/eastern OH), I heard Q138 (now I138) radio they were clear of “Center Yard” then proceeded to yell “DROP THE HAMMER LARRY! YEEEEEHAAAAAWWW!” at which point you just heard a K5HL start blasting close by. Another time, K676 (now B773) and K183 (now B158) had combined into one train and had to be split in New Castle. I recall the conductor saying “I gotta turn one train back into two trains….like a shitty magic trick.”
Lmao that's a good one XD
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren yes indeed.
Danm I never got to hear any crew talk like that even tho I live in florida and sometimes my day turns on his scanner for the crew talk
And I don't get to here what you guys here
One day sooner or later I will
A co worker of mine had a funny line in situations like this. He would just say " I hate working for somebody dumber than me".
LOL. One of the best parts of this is listening to the crews rip the dispatcher apart in their Pittsburgh accent.
lol
C05 got me at "WHOEVER TRAINED YOU DIDNT DO A GOOD JOB AT ALL!!"
Yep. The music at the beginning basically described that the whole situation. The dispatchers planning their was. " DISGRACEFUL, DISGUSTING, DESPICABLE ".
Not really despicable. Just degenerative
“That makes stupid look smart !” That line is sure to get me in trouble when I use it .
That C05 guy sounds like someone i'd wanna learn from. He knows how to call people out. LOL
Funniest thing I have a remember hearing on a scanner was a local train crew talking, the conductor and engineer were talking about snakes and seeing them while walking the train, five minutes later the radio go silent for a second and then I hear an “OH SH*T THATS A BIG A** SNAKE” from the conductor the engineer started laughing and he radioed “are you ok” and the conductor replied “holy moly that scared me”
I laughed for a while.
I heard a similar incident on Pennsylvania Northeastern. Brakeman said almost the same thing only it was a friggin big wasp nest on a tanker and we all know those flying rats will sting you for the smallest thing. Hate those things!
Happened to me just last week. Tying down a train to go put the power up and turn around and looks to be a cable on the ground....except its not a cable its a snake
I'm a paramedic and I wish I could talk to my dispatcher like this when they do something stupid. I applaud the crews for standing up to this dumbass.
you can once, then you'll be an engineer (and not an ems), and you can talk like that all the time
Where do you work that you interact with a dispatcher that much? Where I worked, everything was done through MDT. Where I live, virtually everything is done through MDT except for initial dispatches which obviously also comes through MDT.
Killerbees177...
I was called in the wee hours of the morning once we returned to quarters and asked not to use the phrase 'we're in service and headed to the barn!' as we were leaving the hospital.
Apparently one of the county commissioners had heard all of the sirens early that night (was a large incident) and had stayed awake to listen to scanner land. He thought it was very unprofessional of me to refer to our particular station's apparatus bay as 'the barn'.
I suggested that he join, get out of bed in the middle of the night, and he could talk to dispatch any way he wanted ---
I have 42 years in public safety services, founded and chaired a fire/ rescue explorer post, ran over 300 hrs some months, and travelled nine states servicing industrial and institutional furnaces, boilers, chillers, controls, etc.
My wife joined EMS and fire to spend more time with me.
Backed out of it quite a bit now.
Let the young'uns handle the grunt work.
I wouldn’t mind seeing (or hearing) more stuff like this. This is also a cool way to see how railroads work.
Same. But this video is more about how railroads should not work
@@chriskratz5033 true. lol.
Agree 100%, even if most of the radio traffic isn't as dramatic as the clip presented here. Not being in the industry, hearing RR communications would give me a better idea of how these companies operate.
I do wish I had one of those audio archive devices for my scanner cause I've heard even funnier and crazier stuff on feeds Broadcastify doesn't pick up. Maybe I'll do more in the future
"OH WHERE DO THEY GET THESE PEOPLE" had me dying
The “hopes someone nails her” part got me laughing 😂😂🤣🤣
And by a hornet . lol
Probably talking about Ms.Cindy Sanborn, former saviour of CSX and now, of Norfolk Southern.
I had one from Omaha when I worked for the RGR in Colorado. She asked me “What you be doin with a passenger train up there?”
I responded “The same thing we do five times a day every week!”
She had to go get help and then hung up before I could repeat. My engineer pulled the throttle wide and said “I heard you repeat it!”
I want to say that Royal Gorge is dispatched out of Pueblo now.
Honestly, part of me thinks they ask those questions for the tapes.
@@tcp3059
That was back in 2006.
@@729MendicantTide
She was actually just clueless as to what was happening.
@@ryandavis7593 Right, I was just informing that RGR had been put under Pueblo Dispatch. I could see why Omaha wouldn't have had a clue.
Like we all say, “you can’t make this stuff up”. happens every day on the railroad. dispatchers and managers turn our rails into a 3ring circus daily. So I just jump through their hoops, till I turn into a pumpkin after 12hrs
Every Class 1 railroad ever was summed up in this 1 comment alone XD
I am a conductor at CSX and tomorrow I am heading to the yard office one last time to turn in all my work gear and finalize my resignation from the job. This video really exposes the truth of what happens to us train crews especially on the mainline. My regular route was the Selkirk East district or most commonly known as the “B&A” which runs between Selkirk, NY to Boston, MA. In western Massachusetts the line goes over the Berkshire mountains which is about a 1.5% grade on both ends of them and I had an incident similar to this video happen where we were still 50 miles away from our home terminal and short on time due to a collision with a vehicle in Springfield and they stopped us at the signal to wait for 2 east bounds but one of them had to drop cars in the intermediate yard just beyond the signal that we were stopped at but the location that we were stopped at was at the very bottom of the 1.5% grade and they expected me to tie it down with what I remember was roughly 10-15 minutes left to work and due to the size of my train I would’ve had to tie down 40 hand brakes and keep in mine this was in the winter time where the walking conditions along the right of way and on the car platforms had snow and ice so I would not have been able to tie the train down in time but this all could’ve been prevented if the dispatcher ran us on the other track since it’s double track over the mountains and both east bounds wouldn’t have had any issues getting by us but instead they told the train with the drop to bypass the drop and take the cars to Springfield which is about another 50 miles east of there so that way were able to just pull the train right to the nearest Amtrak station about 2 miles ahead where the grade flattens out and had to wait multiple hours for a recrew to show up. What makes it even worse is that we should’ve gotten recrewed after the crossing incident but the company doesn’t tell anyone that even if there are no injuries/deaths of any incident like that you still have the right to refuse the rest of the trip and you are to be given 72 hours off for “critical incident” even though the car we collided with was unoccupied. This video and the incident I have mentioned are prime examples of the harsh realities that occur with all class 1 railroads. If you are thinking about working for the railroad especially if it’s a class 1, please do your research before applying because similar situations like this will happen and I promise you the job will have a large effect on you psychologically. The railroad may have been a dream job for me but unfortunately due the current circumstances I am now proud to finally be turning my life back around and running away from it.
It's all thanks to PSR for destroying the industry! If I ever do get a job working for the railroad, I'm hoping it'll be a yard switchman position, granted they're probably few and far between. I don't want to be a conductor, because of all the crap you guys have to go through. For me, money isn't everything. But in this economy, you need all the money you can get. I currently work as a package handler at FedEx. I get paid $18.70 an hour sorting boxes on a conveyor belt and pushing them into chutes for 8 hours a day. I'd like to turn that into sorting freight cars into sidings and bowl tracks making double what I make now, but I guarantee I'll get furloughed or laid off at somepoint, and have to crawl back to the warehouse.
Why is working at a smaller railroad no option for you?
@@XxAdminChllaxX Because the money isn't there.
I am so glad I didn’t take that job with NS when I was offered. I’d drag that dispatcher through the radio and make him tie it down himself.
This video kind of puts into perspective just how complex the rail networks are in this country and what it really takes to keep the supply chain running. Nothing but respect for all railroad workers. I'm sure the irregular hours and time away from home isn't easy.
15min just to get off the train, yup that’s an accurate estimation for a conductor.
The part where "oh god where do they get these people really made me laugh
Where do they get these people making unprofessional comments on the radio?
@@bosshog8844 you mean the guy who had done the job for 30 years? The guy who knows what he is doing and is tired of dealing with the idiots making decisions like this that cause crews to be stuck for hours on end? You have zero clue what you are talking about.
@@bosshog8844 maybe the dispatcher should have a clue u tool
@@bosshog8844.... IF, you're referring to the train crews... they've forgotten more about railroading than you'll probably Ever know!!
And people wonder why railroad workers are constantly frustrated with managements' constant cost-cutting efforts...
The funniest thing I’ve ever heard over the scanner was when my friends and I were chasing the Soo 1003 photo charter. We were waiting at Horicon, Wisconsin, and as they were pulling up to the depot, the conductor said “aw I forgot about the junction switch” and immediately after, someone did a spot on impression of Homer Simpson’s “D’OH”, followed by an “oh well” from the conductor. Best part is that a bunch of us had already started filming so we got it on film lmfao. I might end up posting that clip, idk yet.
Please do post it, I would love to see it.
I'm confused, did they run through the switch?
I used to be one of these employees like the dispatcher these guys ragged on, but if you don’t know the territory, and have no experience in the field, you have to ask questions especially dumb questions so you don’t make huge mistakes. Unfortunately that comes at the expense of looking like a fool but that’s how you grow as an employee and learn the job. I’ve seen a bunch of smart new hires stay stagnant because they were afraid of being criticized and either move up the ladder extremely slow, or stay in the same entry level position their whole career. I worked for the railroad too ten years ago and these guys on the train and the track laborers are tough proud guys. They know not many people can do the work they do or live the railroad life. They do not hesitate to bark back and call you out which can seem intimidating to a lot of people. I was hazed relentlessly until I learned the job. It sucked, but being accepted into the group was one of the proudest days of my life. It was a great experience.
I agree with you. It's tough all the way around. The dispatcher likely isn't "stupid". He was hired and he's trying. He's a victim of poor management. The crew is correctly describing a messed up situation, however, I doubt the dispatcher was happy either. I work in the construction field and I changed several years ago from treating newbies like ____ and ridiculing their "incompetence" to evolving into less a knee jerk reacting person and more of a thoughful one that TRIES to empathize and see the big picture. It's helped me stop the flippant comments and it's made for happier new hires and they learn faster too. Nobody likes to be stressed out and talked down to. The dispatcher is probably a good guy. No need to make him feel like a piece of garbage (which I'm certain he probably felt afterwards). BAD UPPER MANAGEMENT trickles down. No sense in pointing bozookas towards an ant hill. Kind of ironic in way because that's pretty "stupid" too.
@@alexlindsey6446 100% the construction environment is very demanding too. I happier new hire will get over that learning curve much faster than a miserable one. Plus is todays job market it’s all about employee retention. Kudos to you Alex, what you just said shows your a very smart man.
@@danhoyland142 Thanks
“I hope some hornet nails her.” That line made me laugh way harder than it should have. 😂
“I don’t… understand, but I understand.”
I felt that.
Every single line that CO5 says just makes me laugh.
Friend of mine was the engineer once on a “slop freight” running east out of Birmingham. There was a tunnel restriction on that line and high cube woodchip hoppers would NOT clear the tunnel. The trainmaster ordered him to take the chip cars behind him anyway. “They’ll clear the tunnel!”
They did in fact make it through the tunnel….but were two feet shorter on the other side. I could literally write a book on all the stupid shit I’ve seen railroad management do in the last 20 years alone.
Do it! I'd pay for that book in a heart beat
I’ve got five pages alone (literally, they’re on my computer) that involve a single NS trainmaster who couldn’t be fired (he was black) and did stuff that anyone else would’ve been fired for, day one.
At UP we had a dispatcher whose initials were HMT. When we saw those initials on our track warrant, we already knew we were going to hold the main track.
Dude's initials is literally the entire acronym.
8:00--As other posters here guessed, I too thought the Queen Bee they were referring to was Cindy Sanborn, Chief Operations Officer of NS; brought in because of her PSR "expertise"..... What we're hearing is an overtaxed, disgruntled NS workforce who saw alot of their colleagues shown the door, aka, "Fired", thanks to PSR.
Someone please correct me, but I am under the impression that dispatchers are REQUIRED to ride the rails they dispatch for, for area familiarization as part of their qualifications package. It's okay for a dispatcher to be a thousand miles away, that is the way of business done under corporate Class 1's. But to not know the territory you are dispatching for, in this case, a mountain railroad, is inexcusable.
Great video and audio!!!!!
I haven't had or heard of a dispatcher doing a ride along for at least 10 years. It's " not in the budget."
Yes, he's referencing Sanborn. She was due to tour Conway in a few days and was to meet with local union officials. Since NS moved all their dispatchers to Atlanta, no one comes up to ride the territory anymore. I don't know how they qualify dispatchers but it isn't good enough
@@NSHorseheadSD70 Appreciate that info very much!
How far you think they can take him in 12 hours . I guarantee they won't pay him but once to do a ride . Hell fire they forced me to be conductor on portions of the RR I'd never even seen before . said I'd been at round long enough that I could put it together . Shit ! They will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat.
I remember hearing a BNSF Stockton Sub (California Central Valley) dispatcher ask one of his trains "Where'd you get 10,000 frickin' tons from?!" This particular dispatcher was kinda notorious. Another line I heard was, (I believe talking to a train that was going slower than he was expecting) "And when were you planning on telling me this?" According to some crews, he even got the nickname the "Stockton Strangler" for his bad dispatching.
The worst DS on the Fresno sub was SKR (referred to as scar). This bitch cost UP millions over the course of her career by killing trains and deliberately delaying trains to punish crews she didn’t like. The day she died was a beacon of light and cause for celebration for many crews she tortured.
Well I can tell you at NS, as a conductor. Our limit is 12 hours. And tbh, a lot of these dumbass decisions and questions aren’t thought up by the dispatchers, but by the chief dispatchers. I know a lot of people this may sound like gibberish but, I understood every word, despite this not being my territory. Railroad is its own language
I understood every word too ......Aircraft dispatcher USAF 1966-1970.
Funniest rail scanner action was on Conrail in Walbridge Ohio a couple years before the split. A train was being made up that went up to Detroit. The crew went out and got onto the GE Dash-8W, and within seconds had the cab door open, and was calling someone, complaining that there was "Crap all over the floor, and if you think we are going to accept this unit, and smell this all the way up there, you've lost your f'ing mind!". The dispatcher said, "There isn't any other power available, so I don't know what to tell you!". The crew said they weren't taking it and got off the Loco, and I thought that was it, but a few minutes later, on another channel, the crew was screaming at some poor guy, who was pleading with them to take the loco the way it was, but they refused. Finally, they sent someone down from Dearborn to clean the unit up. As that was finally happening, two guys were on another channel complaining that the crew were "pussies", for not staying on the train. Suddenly, the train crew said, "We are filing a grievance on this, and you better watch out "Xxxxxx", you might have an accident. Hopefully, it won't put you in the hospital for two long!". The dispatcher stammered like a machine gun, and finally got, "I-I-I-aint scscscared of you!". The crew and whoever the dispatcher was talking to started laughing at him, and when it was finally over with the dispatcher sounded like he was going to cry. About an hour later, the train Jeff for Detroit and almost immediately the trailing unit started having problems. They just shut it down, and crawled to Detroit, begging for any power available for as long as I could hear them. The next day, someone else was talking about how disgusting that unit was, and the crew was right not to take it.
Glad to see it’s not just 1st responders that get into it with dispatch lol
Not a railroader but I have witnessed similar situations at a major airline. It's just life in a large corporation. In the early to mid 90s there were a lot of air crashes due to maintenance irregularities & lax oversight by the NTSB & FAA. At American there was a major layoff at the Tulsa maintenance base in the midst of major rework projects. Result: A lot of the mechanics were worked long hours without relief, made to work what is called 7 day coverage (complicated process of having a crew available 7 days a week). Things got so bad that the FAA had to set limits on the number of hours that an individual could work in a weeks time. Management had hell keeping track of the time sheets of the different crews. Some of the air crashes due to faulty maintenance: DC-9 crash in the Florida Everglades ( supervisor didn't understand the difference between a depleted & an out of date O-2 canister- - - not just one but a whole box of them), Alaska airline MD-80 crash off the coast of California due to a manager forcing mechanics to pencil whip maintenance records on the horizontal stab resulting in a failed jack screw that controls the stabilizer. DC-10 crash at Sioux city Iowa that resulted from a re-used #1 compressor hub that should have been destroyed after a specified number of cycles (one cycle being a takeoff & landing). I got tangled up in a supervisor instigated pencil whip case involving the mid frame of an MD-80 engine component that held one of the engine's main bearings. The FAA, at that time, had arranged for a neutral organization so that a mechanic could disclose information that kept the informant confidential. The organization was NASA. Supervisor got fired (fired not suspended) and another 3 that were peripheral to the situation were awarded weeks off without pay. I am retired and kept all the paperwork for a keepsake. I got my name on some official NASA paperwork. Hang in there guys, I know it is hard to strike under the RLA but you gotta keep trying to straighten things out. If you don't lives & property are at stake. And it becomes double difficult when politics get into the picture. Those bean counters, managers & corporate idiots have no idea of the process they are managing. My grandfather retired from Frisco back in the 50s, he got us on a few train trips back before everything went cargo. Thanks for the video, entertaining & informative.
The funniest thing I ever heard was on the KCS 3rd Subdivision in the little town of Spiro, OK. A KCS grain was stopped on the siding waiting for a UP/KCS Coal train. Once that coal train got to the rear end of the grain, the UP engineer said, "Woooooooow you guys just barely made it!" They had a few laughs about that and so did I. Next think you know, the UP engineer says, "Now dont roll back on us now!" That had to be the funniest thing I've ever heard.
I’ve heard this dispatcher before. It’s gotten slightly better, but it’s not just him. Although recently a gypsum train was at Gray waiting for a signal to cross. It would’ve taken him 10 minutes max to clear, but this guy made made him wait for Amtrak to clear which was 30 min away. Crew was not happy and said “We only have 8 hrs so that means you’ll be having us tie it down before we’re done.” He got no reply😂
a dispatcher recently stopped amail train with60 miles of open main beside them while Amtrak was 20 miles from their station. When questioned why he had stopped a mail train he said "This is what they want".
Stupidest I have heard is a 3 Mile train had an issue and was forced to stop. When attempting to get enough air pressure to legally move they couldn't. This was in November... on the prairies of Canada. it had gotten so cold the train could not move because the tail end of the train couldn't get the brakes to release. So the train sat for 2 1/2 days trying to get enough air. I guess someone realized this wasn't going to work and got the train cut up in order to get the freight moving... Seems that whoever makes these choices forgets that it gets cold during the winters lol.
I was a cop for 10yrs....when we had a new dispatcher working the old guys would absolutely savage them if they screwed up....I always felt bad for the rookies....
Just trying to shed some light on what happened here. I am retired from the rail industry, having started as a Clerk and retiring as VP Transportation. Between the positions, I worked as a Tower Operator, Station Agent, Train Dispatcher, Chief Train Dispatcher, Manager of Operating Rules, Superintendent, and General Manager. I also briefly worked as a Conductor and certified Engineer. Of all the jobs I had, Train Dispatching was by far the most difficult. I was fortunate to go into dispatching after having worked in the tower. Today, the towers are mostly gone, and there is no other jobs that can serve the same purpose in training to become a Dispatcher. The Federal Railroad Administration became involved in mandating a certification process and drug & alcohol testing after the 1987 Chase, Maryland collision that killed 16 people. The collision was caused by an Engineer and Brakeman that were smoking pot in the cab of the engine. Certification of Conductors soon followed, and we are now finally getting around to certifying Train Dispatchers. The certification process for these crafts involves mandatory classroom training, on the job training and physical characteristics training. Up until now, Train Dispatchers have been trained mostly by sitting with a Train Dispatcher, watching how things are done and some rules training. Physical characteristics can sometimes be omitted depending on the railroad. The new Train Dispatching certification process will set specific number of hours of training each discipling, including physical characteristics depending on the railroad. I would go even further and involve other crafts in the training process. There should be a process where representatives from the Conductors and Engineers have the opportunity to share their specific knowledge, as well as the Engineering and Mechanical Departments. The better the training, the better the employee. I have no idea how the Allegheny Dispatcher was trained or how much time he has had on the job. Stopping a train in heavy grade territory is a questionable practice with all sorts of inherently dangerous outcomes. You need only to look at what happened in Lac-Mégantic to appreciate the need of securing equipment on a grade. The NS crew in this video that was instructed to secure their train with handbrakes on around 30 cars. The crew had only minutes to accomplish the task before exceeding their Hours of Service which would have resulted in a violation of Federal law. The train crew would not be held accountable for the violation, just the management of the railroad. The violation would most likely result in a substantial fine levied against the railroad because the violation was intentional. Like I said, just trying to shed some light.....
Interesting post from you. Makes sense given that management has failed to do it.
I’d love to see more of these scanner videos! It’s a lot like VASAviation and other atc channels
I outta start saving recordings or putting some sort of recorder on my scanner, I've heard stuff even crazier than this in person even on feeds not covered by Broadcastify
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren that’d be amazing; what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever heard?
@@jimmyisawkward I can think of 2. One was a dispatcher who got confused after a track guy said "Conrail 8098 all east of me" when waiting for a track authority and the dispatcher thought it was an unpainted CR unit, not the Heritage unit and he had to ask the crew if it was a heritage unit (obviously the answe was yes it was just a heritage unit). The other was a Pennsyltucky crew dropping the N word when reporting a trespasser... yes you read that right.
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren yikes!
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren Really good thing to do if you have a portable handheld recorder (think the Zoom H4N; I use a TASCAM DR07 for the same thing), a Y splitter (plug your headphones in to monitor), and an aux cable.
My favorite prank to hear was engineers or conductors calling new yardmasters to complain their slug was out of fuel (or to complain that it appears someone put sand in it!).
That's like in aviation you send the ranking FNG to the hangar for a can of prop wash. 🤣
As a former Trainmaster on this territory the issue with incompetent dispatchers is the result of centralized dispatching implemented in 2014. Dispatchers used to be located near their territories and had to go out and ride trains and learn the territory at least once a year. Now they’re all at HQ In Atlanta and don’t know the physical characteristics of their territory let alone how long it takes to perform certain task. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard them ask to tie trains down on the mountain…
winner!
Then maybe we need to have Pennsylvania’s legislators get involved. Flat landers have no business talking to mountain folk. Their ignorance is going to kill someone.
@@bkane573 facts
@@bkane573 don't they have gps on a tracking board of lines with auto braking if two beacons get to smashing up?
@@galehess6676 ....Those words are in English, but don't mean anything to me. I'm not a railroader or a Foamer.
"Say What?!?"
That had me rolling. Wasn't expecting Kevin Hart to pop up... and yet, there he was.
I couldn't help myself XD
The sad part is this happens more often then you would think on every railroad! I had a night simular to this and I was forced to take sensitivity classes because I mad the dispatcher cry. The only reason I was pulled out of service because when the pulled recordings and downloaded tapes they found us to be correct and realized she was about to kill two crews.... And she still had a job!
That is very much messed up, man.
"Made the dispatcher cry" people like that are not cut out for this industry. If you can't take a ball busting ESPECIALLY IF YOU MAKE AN IDIOTIC DESCISION AND GET CALLED OUT ON IT! Then go back to the college "safe spaces" friggin sensitivity classes my rear end. I'd just flat out quit if I had to take one of those stupid things, I nearly wanted to blow my brains out watching such woke training videos when I started work at a BJ's wholesale club. Meanwhile at the short line I work we screw with each other often including this one fireman that calls me the "TH-cam railroader" But I just shrug it off and get on with my day.
Did you mean to say 'the only reason I WASN'T pulled out of service...'?
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren The thing is, different people react to stressful situations in different ways, but I absolutely agree. If you can’t handle working in a high stress environment, then railroad dispatch isn’t for you. Imagine if that person was working Air Traffic Control where they could get lots of passengers killed for making a mistake.
@@Logan912 Gosh now you're making me think of incidents like the US Air 1493 incident at LAX but that's my point exactly. Railroading is a stressful job and if you can't take the heat, get out.
"Hoping a hornet nails her", pfft lmao.
Also I guarantee those people at the desks have never looked at Google Maps/Street View before.
I don't blame that engineer raising his voice like that, I would've done the same if I was in his shoes
Everything on their screens looks flat. There’s your problem.
@@billmoran3812 I mean in their off time from working as a dispatcher. Always good to research
Train crews have to be specially trained and qualified just to run one route, yet dispatchers are expected to know every nuance of every route, across state lines? This sound like cheapskate management more than stupid dispatchers, trying to squeeze as much work out of as few people as possible.
It is 2023. In a second you can get a topographical overlay on a satellite image detained enough for you to see a human for image place in earth.
If the dispatcher cared, they could do their job without ever having left their mothers basement past the age of 5.
Clearly, the dispatcher doesn’t care.
Funniest thing I heard (many moons ago): There was a southbound CSX train waiting in the hole at Tunnel Hill, Georgia for a northbound. This is on the Western & Atlantic (W&A) subdivision which runs from Atlanta to Chattanooga. After a while, they asked the dispatcher where this other train was at. Dispatcher said he wasn’t sure, but he’d find out.
A few minutes later, the dispatcher comes back and says “I found him. He’s on the Fitzgerald Sub south of Manchester, Georgia. What he’s doing there or how he got there I have no clue”.
Mind that the Fitzgerald Sub is the Manchester to Waycross, GA. mainline, and Manchester is somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 miles south of Tunnel Hill.
I miss the Conrail days and Alto Tower where the guys knew and understood the situation.
It’s the same story literally everywhere. Dispatchers used to have to take rides for a period of time to learn the territory they would be dispatching or they were hired from the ground for that specific territory. Now they just hire some kid with a college degree that doesn’t know anything about trains or the territory they are dispatching. It’s not 100% their fault it’s the Class 1s training program setting them up for failure, the best dispatchers are the ones that know it and joke around with us. To answer why that crew wouldn’t come out to get on that train it’s because depending on which direction you are going, you can only go so far in the opposite direction to change out otherwise it’s considered “off-district”. At least where I work. These agreed to change out points are there so they can’t send the outbound crew 30 miles in the opposite direction to get on their train. This is whole thing is gold though, lol. Always good for laughs out there
I am a PTI driver for NS in Columbus Ohio. I have heard worse in the six months of me working there
I can imagine! I've heard my fair share of gems in person too like a Pennsyltucky 39G crew dropping the N word on the feed when reporting a trespasser... yes you read that right. Or a dispatcher that didn't know if 8098 was an unpatched CR unit or a "Heritage unit"
I was going past the end of a siding one time and noticed the signal for the siding was dark (I was on the main). I called to let the dispatcher know and she immediately had an attitude and asked “How would you know?”
“Why wouldn’t I know?”
“Because you’re on the main.”
“Because the tracks are only about 15 feet apart and I got my good eye open too!”
This is what happens when you have non- railroad people trying to run a railroad. My son wanted to go to work for NS until it talked to current employees. Sad situation for a once proud industry.
Tell your son to look for local shortlines/Regionals. I work on one myself, little regrets.
It's not just there, It's everywhere. A little less dramatic but Walmart's upper maintenance management wants to make calls on the best way to repair equipment and can't even replace a light bulb in a ceiling fan light fixture. When these kind of folks put in for a job, if they look good on paper they hire them. Not to mention the one's that hire them don't know crap about the job either.
The truest meaning of the circus was getting too big for the tent. Work for the railroad. This doesn't surprise me
22,000 ft train should be terribly illegal. Don't matter how many empties you have. Feels incredibly unsafe to run such a train
This would never have happened back when Alto and AR (and MG when it was open temporarily or full-time before 1978) were controlling the Hill and the DS was close by and knew what was going on.
Exactly
As a former conductor for Norfolk Southern, i can indeed confirm that all of management is incompetent. 😂😂😂
I didn't laugh, i watched the entire video in stunned silence.
As a railroader it didn’t surprise me at all. I had a real winner out of Omaha when I was at the RGR in Canon City Colorado.
See my post.
"Where do they get these people?!" Gotta admit that one was pretty good too 😂
straight off the street is the answer. That office is a revolving door.
I was hanging out with 2 of my friends who work for NS and they were dying when they heard this 😂
I wished Snoop Dog was here. Maybe he could tell us what the Allegheny Dispatcher was smoking
When I move you move!
I think he was buying from Sleazy P. Martini.
Or at least we could get the Allegheny Dispatcher to share what he was smoking.
That's some of the weirdest radio contact with a dispatcher and train crew that I have ever heard from a lead on track orders
I once saw a train in Tolono, IL (NS Lafayette District,) drop their load of ethanol tanks just to run back east and to put together a grain train from one of the local Grain Elevator's. The conversation between the crew and Dispatch was interesting, because the crew used the same train symbol that was on the Ethanol train that they dropped in a siding. The crew ended up swapping trains with a westbound train that was heading for Decatur, IL because they almost ran out of time.
As someone who works grade territory, tieing down on the mountain, is doable, but not doable in 17 minutes. Additionally telling a train, that couldnt make it otherwise, to take it somewhere without the helper power it desperately needs to go to said place, is quite stupid to suggest. This dispatcher will learn from this.
Don't bet on it. Hes been like this for at least three years.
" This dispatcher will learn from this. ", No no I do not think so. Stupid can't fix stupid. Only duct tape can fix stupid". and they R all out of that.
Funniest one I heard was an SP dispatcher talking about Amtrak "It's a crying shame that we have to stop an ENTIRE railroad for one ***STINKING*** passenger train!"
I’m a trucker and thankful my main dispatch was a trucker for 30 years. Not some idiot that has never done the job!!
Good thing the 12R and C05 crews were smart enough to call the dispatcher out rather than blindly follow orders. Would've been a mess had they tied the train down and it had turned into a runaway down the mountain. Even PTC couldn't stop that!
I bet it would have messed up the “Curve” pretty badly.
The train was below the curve
Maybe this dispatcher was thrown into this job ,I was in the workforce for fifty years anytime I saw somebody struggling I tried to help them with my experience ,these guys knew what to do ,to just belittle someone was not the way I rolled !
The guy has been dispatching 3 yrs.
This. This is EXACTLY why railroad workers are going on strike!
Thanks for sharing this with the audience and I've never heard anything like this before on the Railroad,now I've heard some interesting communications on the Atlanta Division in Georgia but nothing like this,sometimes there is a misunderstandings or miscommunication between the dispatch and the railcrews when it comes to what the plan is when they are a few miles from NS Inman Yard inbound,some crews are off duty and needs a ride to the hotel and other crews have to return back to Birmingham,Alabama or Chattanooga,Tennessee.
It's like trucking dispatchers and train dispatchers are cut from the same cloth.
Noticed that the dispatcher just kept quiet after the helper crew told him off. Guess he knows (dispatcher) that he was wrong
I’m sure he knows he screwed up. Sounds like he was oblivious to the terrain. I don’t know that he is to blame or his training is to blame. I suspect the training. I def think the guys on the radio were out of line and unprofessional. They took advantage of his lack of understanding to belittle a guy trying to do his job.
@@guins99 ,I agree comments on radio were disgusting ...Where was Trainmaster to write them up for comments ?
Some RR people think they are big shits on trains and cause trouble. ..
Kraig Barner needs to get to Altoona and straighten out this mess ...
@@guins99 No they didn't the Dispatcher could have caused a disaster if the crew listened to him, that's why they called him out.
Everything the crew said was true though, clearly he was trained poorly and wasn't good at doing his job.
Oh man what a mess lol, so they have a guy dispatching from Atlanta of all places? Guess that explains some things lol, yeah I'd rather not have another Lac-Megantic disaster where I live anytime soon. It's nice to get a look into how things work around here at least
In fairness, a lot of railroads (BNSF and UP, at least) have centralized dispatching centers. UP's dispatch center is at their headquarters in Omaha, NE, and BNSF's likewise at their HQ in Fort Forth, TX. At those two railroads, at least, the dispatchers are supposed to periodically take a trip on their assigned territory so they at least have some idea what it looks like outside of a dispatch computer.
@@RadioactiveSherbet One of the (in my view) best German train YT channels is a guy who's working for DB's long-distance passenger train dispatch in Frankfurt[*], I believe as a shift leader. Now, this guy came up the ladder via engineer, engineer trainer, local dispatcher back when we had those ... and he's still a train fan, making TH-cam movies whenever he can find time (including while going to/from his shift (le lives in another city), or on vacation). And he very often explains things about trains in his videos, such as (for example) the various kinds of brakes, what the standardized texts on the train cars mean, how to distinguish various ICE models, and so on.
But my main point was, the people controlling *all* German long-distance passenger trains (probably with the exception of Flixtrain, I don't know how those are handled) *all* sit in Frankfurt. And those are a hell of a lot of trains.
I don't know how they handle freight trains, but I expect it's very similar.
[*]For example, "hey, that train broke down. Where's the next replacement train (there are a number of those around), how fast can we get it to a relevant station to continue that run?" Or "hey, that track just got blocked (by a broken down train, a collision on a grade crossing, a nearby fire, whatever), how can we route all those trains around the problem?"
CSX dispatch is in Jacksonville, Florida.
@@RadioactiveSherbet They have these things called "cameras" that the railroad could use to allow the dispatcher to see what's going on. The Homestead, Pennsylvania CSX bridge over the Monongahela River has to have 20 cameras on it!
The funniest thing I have heard is an NJT worker saying how bad the equipment is followed by some guy whistling I’ve been working on the railroad
Sadly, incidents like this are not uncommon anymore. You have people running the railroad that have no practical experience. They don’t know anything about what it takes to run a train.
Yep I've heard my fair share of incidents similar to this
they used to advert hiring job fairs around hburg so i can imagine...
Everyone talking about the incompetence of this dispatcher but I'm stunned by the fact that according to the notes at 5:29, that apparently NS has run nearly 400 freight car manifests. That is insane!
That PSR for you
I was on a CSXT Y (yard) job that works a branchline a while ago, We came back with close to 100 cars and was about 1.3 miles long. A freaking Y Job.
They tried to run one out of Cincinnati several years ago 13 miles long. Couldn't get the brakes to pump off.
@@rc391995 Heh, I am supposed to get qualified LT to Cinci soon
@@rc391995 No they didn’t. Good lord.
I can see now why the labor union wants to go on strike
mmhm
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren Norfolk Southern's management doesn't appear to care alot about the engineers and conductors that work for NS
@@Elliottblancher You just noticed? It's sadly not just an NS thing. Other class 1s namely BNSF are just as bad if not worse
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren Or the Union Pacific, Union Pacific is rated as the Worst company to work for in America
Edit: The worst railroad company to work for in the Usa
@@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren I can voucher for BNSF being the worst railway in the U.S second worst to C.P and yeah there fuckin management is so bad 30,000 people walked off the job.
I was with my grandma ( in Pomona yard in Greensboro, NC watching some trains) and she overheard on my scanner that one locomotive was having mechanical issues and no mechanic on call. It involved putting water in one of the loco and the dispatcher told the engineer or conductor not to poor the water in for fear of getting burned. Edit: it involved the locos radiator
This is just scary but oddly funny but still unsettling. Bro wanted to tie power down on a mountain 💀 not gonna work
Skill issue
Happy Thanksgiving Thunderbolt!
One day I was riding the McKinney avenue transit authority in Dallas and I heard on the motorman's radio about some metal near the tracks. Then the motorman on my trolley reported about clothes on the track(which I saw) and reported about a guy standing in the middle of the tracks(and road since it was on a street running portion).what a crazy day that was.
I know a guy that was a motorman there oh the stories I have heard...
@@kb9vgr I only know 3 of the operators names. But they're friendly. Also the car I was on was an ex Brussels PCC (7169/Emma). I think the most common thing that they probably report on the radio is the bad drivers in downtown Dallas.
@@kb9vgr also I saw an Amazon driver drive on the trolley only area on the North end of the route
On the Coopersville & Marne, a new brakeman would say" Ok,7014! Go ahead and back up"
This sounds like the dispatchers at Tyson Foods for their company trucks.
Behold, the sheer state of heavy rail in America, a legacy of greed and incompetence.
_"Just makes stupid look smart"_ should be these freight roads' damn slogan!
That's PSR for ya
NS Croxton yard in New Jersey always puts on a show on the scanner every night around 18:30
Ah yes that yard. Heard a lot bout the yardmaster there
I’m a truck driver and we have the same problem with dispatchers 89% of them are as dumb as a box of rocks. No clue what goes on and how things work out in the field or outside the office
Must be an industry standard for most dispatchers to be cross eyed office gremlins that don't know what the outside is like XD
Lmao this cluster is why I went to a yard job…I switch my cars for 8 hours and go home. No phone calls and none of this stupidity. Happily been in the yard now so long I’m not road qualified on any territory any more.
I wouldn't mind that kind of job especially if it was in yards like Abrams which is across the river from me
The difference between me and that dispatcher is that I can admit I'd suck at it.
Pretty sure anyone who isn't a dispatcher would suck at it lol
I only just now finished the video lol, to answer your question, the e funniest thing I heard when I was working for the local shortline was actually when train crew radioed me and my crew. "Job 1 to Carmen" "Go ahead" "Hey can you look at our train and uh confirm something for us" (insert me looking up at their train from my truck) "Uh, Job 1 are you seeing a man running and jumping the top of the cars" "10-4, (insert GM name) what do you want us to do?" "Fuck it just keep going" "Roger." Keep in mind they were running about 20 mph switching in the yards lol
Very interesting info re: Lac Megantic. I'm not in the train buff community so it was new to me. I drive by The Curve all the time tho and have been there. Very interesting video!! Interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes.
I don’t understand but I understand is the most Trainmaster thing I have ever heard