Crew Fatigue cause of train wreck

There hasn't been "16 hours on" for more than 30, maybe even 40, years. Current FRA hours of service maximum is 12 hours, and they recently modified the "hours of rest" requirements too.

Hot Water, good to know it was changed.  I was reading some stories, probably dated by now, but says engineer just gets off train told to get 8 hours rest and report back to take train xyz out.  So left impression that engineers only had 8 actual hours to sleep from time off engine to back on.  So they would be on the road 16 hours more or less.

Sam:

As Jack notes, 12 hours has been the rule for quite a few years.  The rest changes he mentions went into effect in July 2009.  Without getting into all the technicality of the rule, train and engine employees must now have a minimum of 10 uninterrupted hours of rest before they may be recalled to duty. 

Under the former rules, the crew caller could notify an off duty crewman that he was to report for work at the conclusion of his or her 8 hours of rest pretty much at any time during that 8 hour period.  In other words, you got home, ate something and went to bed and 2 hours later the crew caller calls and tells you to report as soon as your rest time is up.  The new rules mean that the crew callers are not supposed to get in touch with you until the 10 hour rest period has expired.  How well this is adhered to, I'll leave to the fellows who are actually in T&E service to answer.

Curt

It's still that way at most power companys . You get an 8 hour rest period and time starts when you leave the building . So you get home, take a shower, grab a bite, hit the bed and maybe get 4 or 5 hours of sleep and the phone rings . This is after working 24 hours straight or more! My longest day at work ( If you could call it that) was 42 hours during hurricane Hugo. But they did feel sorry for us and told us to go home for 10 hours and report back at the end of the 10 hours. I worked for 2 weeks 24 on and 8 off.
Because it's not their job a lot of folks just don't know what goes on behind the scenes . That's why truckers have required down time now and train crews but it's because of accidents that things get changed.

There is no industry in America that is dangerous enough to have a written safety manual with rules and regulations on how work is to be preformed that the people in that industry and the authors of those manuals won't tell you it was written in blood.

Those rules were made because someone was seriously injured or killed.
Unfortunately those rules are there to protect people from themselves or from a good intentioned supervisor who couldn't get anybody else.

Shame it has to be that way but it is.

David