Re: Of bulletins, bumps and Sadie Hawkins

Hi,

When I was gainfully employed and worked the right side of the cab on a class 1 RR in the Pacific NW, an engineer could bid vacation vacancies, to get a "live bump", to get the live bump you would have to be off your regular job/assignment for at least 30 consecutive days, I had 5 weeks vacation and a lot of other engineers also did so you could bid in one of the temporary vacancies and get your live bump, or you could go from temporary vacancy to temporary vacancy as long as you had the seniority to hold the job, but you could always get bumped off the temporary. Jobs were not re-bulletined for daylight saving time.

We also had some distant terminal jobs that were bid in for 1 year at a time from June 30 of one year to the next year,you couldn't bid temporary jobs outside of this terminal but you could bid in other vacation vacancies within the terminal. This would give a young guy a chance to hold a regular job for a while. Before this set up the junior engineer in the district would get forced on the job for a few weeks at a time and usually when he wanted to be released he would get forced back on the job he was trying to get away from.

Smitty

SMITTY GOIN' LOCO
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER, RETIRED
Last run July 24, 1992

Sometimes I sit and wonder how come I am not in a mental institution then I take a good look around at everyone else and realize, maybe I already am!!!