Does Anyone Remember the "Railroad Featherbedding" Fight?

The SP/SSW was in a hurry to buy the "Cotton Rock" from the Rock Island because the State of Ark. required a super large number of people to run a freight train. 

The problem with "feather bedding" was much more extensive than that.

And well into the 1960's

In Ohio both yard jobs and road jobs required five crew members into the 1970s:  engineer, fireman, and brakeman in the cab of the engine and the conductor and second brakeman in the caboose. 

Yes, and what have we achieved? A lot less people paying into the tax, and retirement structures. Replacing with corporate greed. You guys from your forum pictures, look to be near my age, and I'm 68 now. Memory ain't too good anymore, but I do remember my stepfather bringing home a good pay check from the railroad to feed us, and put clothes on our back, not to mention getting us an education. The only thing he asked of me was to cut the grass, help around the house, and serve my country when I got old enough, be a decent person, and not to take any BS off anybody. I remember the Louisville Courier Journal running a full page add about the "Railroad Feather Bedding". I remembered my mom being in tears when she handed him the paper to read, Mt. Aetna didn't have **it on the old man, as he got hot all over, more than anywhere else. You know guys one thing that I have learned from a young kid thru Viet Nam, and 40 years in Heavy Industry, and that is there is always some "SOAB" measuring his corn with another man's half bushel.  

Now that we see that one person can operate a train with only occasional fatal accidents, it is probably time to do the same with airliners.  The added safety of extra crewmembers has a price, and it is often higher than the price of the lives that could be lost with a mistake.

There are few railroads now, few independents....many, many thought rocks. went

bankrupt and merged, and merged again, and got taken over by the government.

Competition rolling on taxpayer funded roadbed took much of their business.  The

railroads have to pay taxes on their infrastructure.  With unneeded labor, it is a wonder as many lasted as long as they did.  Our model trains are largely now made in

countries with cheaper labor....if they are not affordable, they will not sell.  Do I like

it...no...cabooses are gone.  But as stated on another thread, EVERTBODY is looking

for a better price. 

Was going to mention the one man oil tank train last summer in the small Canadian town which I can't pronounce that killed 47, I think it was. But you have summed up the big picture better here. Trains are only a mile or so long with a few thousand horsepower. 

On a side note: Just read the other day that the richest 85 people have more money than the 3.5 billion at the bottom. 

Piggybacking on Bad Order Hal's post, "featherbedding" led to a surprising locomotive deployment. Burlington 4-8-4's and Illinois Central Mountains were leased by the Grand Trunk Western in Jan 1957. This was a result of the Canadian Pacific deciding to take on the firemen on diesels issue, which resulted in the firemens' brotherhood striking, which shifted much of CPR's business to the CNR, which resulted in the Canadian National calling on their subsidiary GTW to send some of their 4-8-4's to Canada to pick up the slack, which resulted in the leasing of the above power. In order to get the GTW 4-8-4's through the Sarnia Tunnel, their stacks had to be removed! The IC 4-8-2's were shot, but the Burlington engines worked for something short of 1 month.

My natural sympathies are with Brandy, but realities of jobs changing does come into play and what I think the 'featherbedding' argument really comes down to is that there was greed on both sides, and also distrust. Going back into the early days of railroads, the people running them refused to implement safety features like air brakes and the knuckle coupler, arguing they were too expensive, it took 20 years to get both implemented, by federal law (and low and behold, what did management find out? That by using those two tools, they could make a lot more money, beancounters were just as stupid back then as today).  When diesels and other innovations made required labor needed to run a train less, instead of working with the unions to come up with a plan to re-align conditions, and through attrition and/or buyouts bring labor down to sufficient levels, often unilaterally said "see ya"....and the unions, rather than negotiating, got their backs up and demanded what they had, and no one won. 

A lot of the times, rules don't change with the times, both NJ Transit and LIRR workers were operating under long haul rail rules for a long time (last time I checked, was still true in the late 80's), where what is today a routine commuter run by the 19th century rules they were using were considered long haul. A friend of mine in grad school worked for MTA as an engineer, and he said the shops had rules like that, like 'fixed rate' rules for doing something, where if the worker finished the job early, they weren't supposed to work on anything else until that time was done (so if rebuilding a traction motor according to the book was supposed to take 15 hours, and he finished in 10, those other 5 hours he would be idled)..the argument was that that time represented how long it should take and discouraged cutting corners, but what my friend said the reality was that those rules were based on the equipment and tools of a hundred years ago..but no one had the will to try and negotiate these things (this was C 20 years ago, I don't know if those rules have been changed).  There is a lot of blame to go around, but as Brandy points out, when you start talking about human beings like they are a brake pad or a horse destined for the glue factory, it doesn't exactly lead to good will......

When I started with Canadian National in 1965,  5 man crews were  normal but we still had lots of switching jobs with long hours. The fireman could spell off the engineer and would also give a hand  lining the odd switch when doing switching on the head end when the tail end crew was 100 cars back. Anyway it wasn't long after that  most fireman    worked as second engineers on passenger trains and eventually became spare board engineers until they stood for a regular job, Most or all of them would be retired now. . They did have a few lean years though. And yes there were a few fireman  that wouldn't do a darn thing. (except take up the good seat) I'm thinking  F units... I hated  the middle seat..