Cy's Two

By Cy Martin

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I have been hoping for years that our company would put the General Orders and General Notices on half-page format, pre-punched with notebook-holes in them. It would be a real boon if the people who are responsible for complying with them could have their own individual copys to carry in their rulebook binders for ready reference.

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I'd never say we have too many General Order, but the last time I looked, there were more than 112 of them. Most of those orders are to cancel a previous one. One employee said it is a form of "mind pollution."

The fact that it has been this way for so long, indicates the high intelligence of the average operating employee who has had to contend with such a system and the failure of railroad upper managements to recognize the problem. I'm not picking on Omaha; I understend it is the same on most railroads.

The situation was bad enough under the old Uniform Code of Operating Rules, when we at least started over with a new General Order Book on the first of every year. Even then I remember years when we had as many as 80 General Orders. The way it is now, the number of General Orders could theoretically approach infinity.

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For some reasons, railroads love system timetables. I suspect it is to make it easier for the big wigs to stay vaguely familiar with their whole railroad.

Did you ever think that a timetable might convey bragging rights? Just think, when the big brass from different carriers get together, they can pull out their respective timetables and compare them. Can't you just hear them? "Mine's bigger than yours ... 'taint neither ... tis too - more pages..."

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Word is out that some employees on the system have received levels or been cited for investigation over incorrect track warrants and bulletins.

The word we hear is that warrants with error are issued by the dispatcher. If the crew doesn't find the error, they are cited or asked to sign for an UPGRADE Level.

However, when the crew finds an error made by the dispatcher, it is shrugged off.

Cy is a locomotive engineer at Fort Worth

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