What is and how does a Railroad Extra Board work?

Question

heres what i know! all class 1 railroads have extra boards, some short lines have them also. extra board workers fill in for sick workers, extra work that comes up and vacations. they start at the top and work there way down. heres what i need to know, do you as an extra board worker allways have the same starting point ? meaning you start at the office and then they have to get you to the train and back from the train ? and when you get to the office does the clock start on your 12 hours of service. next how many days in a row can they work you ? and after so many days do you get a day off , or can they work you every day give you your rest call you back again and so on for the whole year of 365 days in a row. and if they have to give you a day off, what is a day off ? 12 hours, 24 hours, or like 36 hours? and if you do have to work 9, 12, 15, 21 days in a row does your pay go up to time and a half after so many days ? thanks for your help.

Answer 1

extra boards exist to allow the people in regularly scheduled jobs time off and to run extra crews when traffic levels fluctuate.

You will always go to work at your starting point, if you are called to go another location you will be transported.

You may be given the opton of driving your own rig if you choose and they will pay you mileage but you are never required to drive to another location.

Unless . . . . . . you are forced to another terminal bacause of seniority and this does happen.

The hours of service are as follows: you can work up to 12 hours at a time, no more, that is the federal maximum, after that you will be given a rest period of a minimum of 8 hours.

Basically that's it, they can do this endlessly, you can work 8 or 10 shifts a week without a break.

There are local "rest rules" on quite a few railroads but they are union agreements and go beyond the federal rest rule.

It's not all doom and gloom, you will have some days off but they will not be scheduled, if you need structure and love a tight schedule you will probably not make it, if you are spontaneous and dont mind doing things ont he spur of the moment, you will be ook. It takes a different sort of insanity to make it in world of railroading. It tends to attract people that dont fit easily into any sort of mold, nutcases and wierdos do well here.

You wont own your life, your cell phone will be your new best friend.

Answer 2

yes, generally the extra board works as you describe.  there may be some slight differences between companies and unions, but for the most part, an extra board person is "on call" during certain designated periods, and can work whatever jobs are in need of filling.

as an amtrak ticket clerk, here are some details of how it worked when i was on it.

1st, there is a difference between extra board and guaranteed extra board.  GEB was guaranteed a 40hr paycheque, whereas an EB was not.  the pay week started on Wednesday, and ran thru Tuesday.  If extra boards/gebs have multiple people on it, then the calls rotated based on when you finished your last job, you would be put in call order for the next job (note this is NOT the seniority system that is used for most job-related things in railroads) - this was known as first in-first out calling.  

we had to be available by phone/beeper/etc from 7a-9a and from 6p-8p (the calling period).  if a call came from crew caller, you got assigned your job.  if a call never came, then you got the day off.  thus, EB may or may not get 40 hr/wk, they could work less if there was no work.  a GEB would get 40hr/wk pay, whether they worked or stayed home, so it was usually in the rr's interest to call you anyway, even if no work was available, you would go in and help out or do office stuff or clean floors/walls/bathrooms, or other menial stuff.

some extra boards only covered 1 station (ie chicago union station), and other extra boards could cover multiple stations (ie 1 EB was for glenview il, naperville il, joliet il, homewood il, and hammond in; another EB was for galesburg il, normal il, champaign il, springfield il, and carbondale il).  

say for example, when i was on chicago union extra board, i would only work chicago union station, but i could work any shift that they called for.  when i worked the suburban extra board, i could work any of the 5 stations and any of the shifts, and i had to get myself to each of the stations on my own as my commute.   when i worked the downstate extra board, you had a LOT more driving, carbondale was a good 5hrs away from my home up by normal...there was some pay for mileage and time of travel, and usually i would work carbondale a whole week at a time, to cover for a vacation, rather than just being called out of the blue to run down for a sick day.

as far as working xx days in a row, it depends on when your paycycle is.  for example, if i started work on wed that week, and worked wed,thu,fri,sat,sun, i would reach my 40 hrs and automatically be off mon and tue.  the next week, i may not get a call on wed so then i could be off another day, maybe even off thu too.  then if you work fri,sat,sun,mon,tue - you could still be called wed bcs it starts a new paycycle, and you could work wed, thu,fri,sat,sun.  so you might have to work up to 10 days in a row, but that would be the max, bcs then your 40hrs would be attained.  of course, then if there was overtime you could work another day, but only then would overtime pay kick in, ie say if you worked 11 days in a row split over the wed paycycle start, you would only get 1 day of ot pay, and 80 hrs regular pay.

there was an additional rule, that you had to have 8 hrs rest between shifts (if you insist on it, they have to give it to you...you can work with less time off if you are a sucker and want to give in to them).  thus, for example, when i had to work hammond in 230p-1030p, i automatically could NOT work glenview il 530a-130p (only 7 hrs), so even if i was the only to call for extra board, they would have to call the some other person at regular or overtime pay to cover the job.  not to say that they didnt try to make me work it sometimes to help them save money, but make sure you stand up for yourself in these cases, bcs the union rules obligate them to give you proper rest, and to also offer the job to other qualified agents at whatever pay was necessary to get the job filled.

extra board has some perks, especially a Guaranteed extra board.  you get the flexibility of traveling (sometimes), keep from getting bored, get to meet a lot more co-workers bcs i got to know all the ticket agents that i covered jobs for, and some jobs paid extra for mileage, food, even tolls and hotels, depending on the station and your location, so good way to make lots of extra money.  down side is that you dont generally get set days off, you have to stay by phone (altho this is much easier today w cell phones, it sucked 15 yrs ago when you actually had to stay around the house waiting for possible calls that sometimes never come).  sometimes you can kind of figure in advance what your days off might be, based on working a week vacation (you automatically assume that person's days off too), or by figuring the rotation of the extra board (altho sometimes this could be thrown off if an extra board refuses a job for sickness or hours of work or whatever).  makes family life difficult, to say the least.

but then, sometimes regularly assigned hrs at a rr are just a guide, you can always get stuck on overtime unexpectedly if a train was delayed, various service problems, customer issues, train derailments, and so on and so forth.  that is just the railroad business in general.

hope this helps.  there are some differences with on-board crews like conductors and engineers, but the general system is the same.

I WOULD RECOMMEND THE PERSON TO REALLY TALK TO ABOUT THESE QUESTIONS IS   *N O T* THE RAILROAD HUMAN RESOURCES, BUT FIND OUT WHO THE UNION REP IS FOR YOUR DISTRICT AND TALK TO UNION REP DIRECTLY.  

The company will tell you whatever they want, to get you to work and not always follow the job calling rules.  the union rep will be the one to ensure that you and others follow the procedure correctly.  

bcs, if the rules are not followed right, you can "timeslip" the company....this is always FUN, bcs you get a days pay for not doing any work.  this works when you SHOULD rightly have been called for a job, but that someone else got called instead.  there are a lot of details to this, but you have to know the rules to know when you can timeslip and when you cant.

Answer 3

Well i've never worked for a short line so i imagine many things are different on them.Here on the UPRR the extra board guys are paid by the mile not the hour.Our basic day is a 130 miles.When you start overtime is based upon how many miles your run is.It's also based on when you hired out(sucks but it's true).For example my regular run is 230 miles.I go on overtime after 10 hours and if i'm not in the terminal after 12 hours i go on tow in which pays at the same rate as overtime.My conductor last night has 10 years seniority so he doesn't get overtime like i do because the train run is too many miles.He only gets that tow in after 12.You asked about when pay starts.It starts at whatever time your told to report for duty.So if they tell you noon ,at 12 your on the clock and at midnight your hours expire. Where i'm at we all go to work at the same starting point except for one local.It's a 149 miles away so what they do is call an extra board guy the day in advance to deadhead there in time to be rested for the regular start time for that job.Our extra board guys are on the board 365 days a year unless they lay off.There's probably other things i'm forgetting but i haven't worked an extra board in over 25 years.Hope that helped you.

Like Rango said your cell phone will be more precious to you than your wife or girlfriend lol

Answer 4

This means you are an "On Call" worker.  I currently have an application in with Union Pacific for a slot out of Milpitas.  

I have already been told that just because I got hired out of Milpitas, does not mean that I will always be working there.

Though, they try to keep the workers coming out of their respecive areas within reason.  Basically it means that if I get hired, I will be expected to report at any location within the Milpitas area within a certain time frame, (in my case 90 minutes).

It does not necessarily mean you are only filling for sick employees, it also menas you are filling for expired employees, meaning they have expired their work times.

Let me explain.  This system sort of works the same way Fire Fighters, Law Enforcement and Security does.  Federal Labor Laws state that you may only work a person a maximum of 12 hours in any given 24 hour cycle.  Meaning for every 12 hours of work, there is an 8 hour rest break before returning to your duties.

As I understand it from many of the Union Pacific Employees in this area, it normally means you will be working for about 2 days straight, then off for a couple of days, then back on again.  Sort of a rinse and repeat process.

But since I am not an engineer, the person(s) best explaining this whole process would probably be Andy F, and Skidderback, whom I am sure will answer your question in more detail very soon.

In any event, do not hesitate to ask your interviewers about this.  Its important, because your home life is going to be greatly effected by your new found career.  Basically, you better have all of your affairs in order before you take this job.

As I understand it, you cannot make promises to anyone any more.