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No More Naps on the Railroad, Says New CSX Boss
"We had a rule that said you could take a nap while you worked. We don't have that now,” CSX said
Link to tweet
No More Naps on the Railroad, Says New CSX Boss
Hunter Harrison breaks with longstanding practice of paying workers for 45-minute naps; safety vs efficiency
A northbound CSX Corp. mixed freight train travels down Main Street in La Grange, Ky. The railway has eliminated a nap break for railroaders. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG
By Paul Ziobro
http://twitter.com/pziobro
Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
July 14, 2017 5:30 a.m. ET
CSX Corp.’s new boss has nixed naptime. ... Hunter Harrison joined the railway as chief executive in March, promising to quickly jolt the company’s culture and implement tighter schedules, faster trains and less downtime. ... One casualty of the new plan: napping breaks, which train conductors and engineers are allowed to take for up to 45 minutes under a strict protocol when trains were stopped. Now, any on-the-job shut-eye is forbidden. ... “We had a rule that said you could take a nap while you worked,” the 72-year-old railway veteran said in a recent interview. “We don’t have that now.”
The change, instituted in a half-page bulletin in April, eliminated more than two decades of allowable naps on CSX trains. It also put CSX at odds with its U.S. rivals. BNSF Railway Co., Kansas City Southern Corp., Norfolk Southern Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. , allow napping under certain conditions, as do hundreds of other smaller railways.
....
Napping gives railroaders a chance to catch up on sleep during frequent delays hauling freight. During long routes, trains may be waiting in “sidings” for another to pass from the opposite direction. With dozens of miles between sidings and long trains traveling about 25 miles an hour, delays can easily last more than an hour. Track repairs, derailments and congestion can also lead to long waits.
Fatigue is an issue too in an operation that runs 24/7 and with engineers called into work in the middle of the night. Federal laws regulate railroad shifts, including a maximum of 12 hours worked in a 24-hour period and 10 hours off before work. Still, the National Transportation Safety Board says nearly 20% of investigations of railway accidents between 2001 and 2012 identified fatigue as a cause or contributing factor.
....
—David George-Cosh contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
Hunter Harrison breaks with longstanding practice of paying workers for 45-minute naps; safety vs efficiency
A northbound CSX Corp. mixed freight train travels down Main Street in La Grange, Ky. The railway has eliminated a nap break for railroaders. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG
By Paul Ziobro
http://twitter.com/pziobro
Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
July 14, 2017 5:30 a.m. ET
CSX Corp.’s new boss has nixed naptime. ... Hunter Harrison joined the railway as chief executive in March, promising to quickly jolt the company’s culture and implement tighter schedules, faster trains and less downtime. ... One casualty of the new plan: napping breaks, which train conductors and engineers are allowed to take for up to 45 minutes under a strict protocol when trains were stopped. Now, any on-the-job shut-eye is forbidden. ... “We had a rule that said you could take a nap while you worked,” the 72-year-old railway veteran said in a recent interview. “We don’t have that now.”
The change, instituted in a half-page bulletin in April, eliminated more than two decades of allowable naps on CSX trains. It also put CSX at odds with its U.S. rivals. BNSF Railway Co., Kansas City Southern Corp., Norfolk Southern Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. , allow napping under certain conditions, as do hundreds of other smaller railways.
....
Napping gives railroaders a chance to catch up on sleep during frequent delays hauling freight. During long routes, trains may be waiting in “sidings” for another to pass from the opposite direction. With dozens of miles between sidings and long trains traveling about 25 miles an hour, delays can easily last more than an hour. Track repairs, derailments and congestion can also lead to long waits.
Fatigue is an issue too in an operation that runs 24/7 and with engineers called into work in the middle of the night. Federal laws regulate railroad shifts, including a maximum of 12 hours worked in a 24-hour period and 10 hours off before work. Still, the National Transportation Safety Board says nearly 20% of investigations of railway accidents between 2001 and 2012 identified fatigue as a cause or contributing factor.
....
—David George-Cosh contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
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