[PRCo] Re: PRC Interurban Pass Points

[John Swindler]

>Fred Schneider replied:
>
>This was previously discussed on this list.  We have West Penn crew 
>schedules. We were told by Art Ellis that PRC did the same thing.  Reason?  
>Because two round trips on a 2.5 hour one-way run does not equal 8 hours, 
>it equals 10 hours.


That's only a problem when the car barn/garage is at the end of the line.  
In many cases, the schedule writer is working with 1.7 or 2.3 round trips by 
chosing whether to make the relief on an inbound or outbound leg of a trip.


>So you don't make two entire round trips.  And neither does the guy from 
>the other barn.   You swap cars at some siding which will give each of you 
>an eight hour day.


Now I see what you were trying to say.  So this would apply only for West 
Penn operators starting from Greensburg or Uniontown??  Connellsville is the 
approx. midpoint, so a good schedule writer should be able to make things 
come out with min. overtime.


>It's cheaper than paying time and half for overtime.  Same
reasons you had street reliefs when you drove buses on those long routes in 
Chicago.  fws
>


Many of our runs were street reliefs, but not for reason you cite.  They 
were street reliefs because they didn't pass North Park Garage.  (Same thing 
happened in Pittsburgh in early 60s with closing of Glenwood.  On Sundays, 
South Hills motormen would use an inbound car to make street relief for 56 
car. (I never actually saw how 65 was handled??))

Back to Chicago: We used 92 Foster bus to make street reliefs for Broadway, 
Clark, Sheridan Rd., Western, etc.  And the schedule writers would 'play' 
with scheduling the relief either inbound or outbound to help minimize 
overtime.

Also, nothing wrong with paying overtime.  Helps reduce the labor force and 
thus save on fringe benefits.  Two round trips on Western Ave. would only 
work about 6.5 hours (but pay 8.0 min.), while some three trip runs would 
pay 9.5 or more hours.  I think we had some that paid over 10 hours, but not 
many.  Most runs were 8.0-8.6 hours pay.

Another method is to operate on different routes.  We had runs that would 
work two trips on Lincoln, then make a peak hour Sheridan Rd. trip.

I've heard schedule writing as being described as "an Art" (pun intended)

John



>John Swindler wrote:
>
> > >Fred Schneider mentioned:
> > >
> > >
> > >I had asked Ed Lybarger what he knew (from timetables) about regular
> > meet points on the interurban lines........  What we still need in this
> > equation were the motorman's relief points  It is logical to assume 
>motorman
> > marked on and off at Washington, Charleroi and Tunnel (Castle Shannon
> > earlier) but we know that, like West Penn, they also made reliefs at 
>sidings
> > in route.
>-- Trailing quotes stripped by Listar --
>
>


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