[PRCo] Scheduling

[Fred W. Schneider III]

I think we are placing too much emphasis on one aspect of running the
railroad over another aspect.  There needs to be some balance between
schedule keeping and making customers happy.

1.  Passengers are important.  If we don't have passengers, we don't
need drivers or motorman or engineman or mechanics or office clerks.  If
we can wait for customer, because there is enough slack in the schedule,
by all means do so.   

2.  While it is important to wait for a passenger and show a little
extra courtesy ... all ways of making them want to come back ... we also
need to run on time.  We cannot be constantly waiting for people because
it encourages people to be late and it discourages those who are on time
at the stop.  If the schedule shows the bus will arrive at the stop at
3:17 and it repeatedly arrives anywhere from 3:12 to 3:25 and once in a
while as late as 3:40, I'm not going to wait for the bus.  I'll buy an
automobile. 

3.  If we have a single track railroad with passing sidings, schedule
keeping is absolutely essential.  If my car is off by 3 minutes, the
opposing car may be off by 7 minutes.  And the customer is off in his
car.  (Most schedules had enough cushion, however.)  

4.  While signals are great, if we get accustomed to meeting the same
car at siding A day after day and today it is early and meets us at
another siding, there is a damn good chance for a corn field meet,
signals or no signals. A man with 30 years service is apt not to even
look at a signal that he never before needed to observe.  (I have a
hunch that is what happened that caused 13 people to be killed and 30
some badly injured in the LVT 1003 / C14 accident in 1942 ... perhaps
the motorman never before had to wait at Brush Siding for a box motor
and never bothered to look at a signal.  But we'll never know, he
removed himself from the gene pool.  So running on time can be
tantamount to running safely. 

You might like an interesting example of breaking the rules to serve a
customer.  I was riding a Pennsy schedule from Harrisburg into
Philadelphia in 1969 and was surprised that we stopped at Irishtown road
crossing in eastern Lancaster County to drop an Amish lad.  Because all
the trainmen knew me as a Strasburg Rail Road employee (and a state
employee) at that time (I was actually riding on a Strasburg pass that
night), I could get away with a discrete inquiry about the stop.  Turns
out the last Lancaster to Intercourse bus left Lancaster at 5 PM ... and
this man left Harrisburg at 5:20 on the train.  He would have had to
walk home 8 miles from Lancaster.  The trainman dropped him at Irishtown
several nights each week.  What was the official policy of the
railroad?  DO NOT STOP ... NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.  Was there an
unofficial policy?  YES.  IF YOU DON'T HAVE A FREIGHT TRAIN BREATHING
DOWN YOUR BUTT, MAKE THE STOP IN THE INTEREST OF KEEPING SOMEONE HAPPY. 
CREWS WERE ACTUALLY TOLD THIS OFF THE RECORD. The total elapsed time for
the stop was less than 2 minutes, and there was enough padding in the
timetable to make it up. Those Silverliners had hellish acceleration. 

Another example of keeping the schedule in spite of passengers ... and
the engineman shall remain nameless.  (I've mentioned this on another
list, so, Harold or Edson, bear with me if you're listening).  I was up
in the cab the night it happened.  It was a Friday afternoon ... the
4:20 departure from Harrisburg ... 37 minutes were allowed to get out
out of Lancaster, 37 miles away.  There were three intermediate stops. 
Most of the mileposts are not 5,280 feet apart ... I think there are
only two pairs between Philly and Harrisburg that are exact ... there
are 107 of them squeezed in 103 miles.  But as we came out of
Harrisburg, the engineman checked the speedometer against his watch on
two valid mileposts.  "How's it reading?"  "Four fast."  We stopped at
Middletown to drop two or three people.  Now this engineman knew which
days he would have a fair number of people at stations ... he knew the
pattern like the back of his hand ... and this was a Friday afternoon
with a lot of college kids from E-town and F&M that would be getting
on.  He stopped at Elizabethtown ... about a half dozen off, perhaps ten
college kids on.  Then a stop at Mount Joy to drop one or two people. 
When we came up on the distant signal for CORK interlocking in
Lancaster, the clock was reading 107 miles per hour.  (Speed limit was
75 and he was actually plowing along at 103.) These were Jersey Arrows
... married pairs were designed to do 100.  He stopped at Lancaster,
having run off 37 miles in 33 minutes with three intermediate stops and
at an average speed of 67 miles per hour.  At 4:57, he was moving out of
Lancaster ... right on the money, after having dropped about 30 and
picking up roughly 40.  By the way, management had high regard for this
engineman because he knew when and where he could break the rules to
keep the railroad fluid, and trains on time.  Sometimes I think
management even told him when the road foreman of engines was out with a
radar gun ... he always knew.  (By the way, he came back home running
the Broadway Limited.) (One of these days I'll just have to go knock on
his door..)