Will Train Engineers Strike?
Wednesday, September 14th, 2022 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioI don't think I've mentioned it yet in this blog, but for year's I've said that the holy trinity of field recording (for me) is thunder, crickets, and distant train horns.
You've read a lot about how tricky it is to get a good thunder or cricket recording around here, but I do get lucky from time to time.
You know there can only be thunder if a storm is nearby. You know, there will only be crickets in the late summer, and at night.
But I do not have any playlist, or even a single-track mashup of excellent, haunting, melodious, distant train horns to my name, because... you do NOT know, when you will hear them!
--<>--
I'm talking about the crossing signal, or what engineers sometimes call the Q signal... the pattern of horn honks that every train makes as it approaches a crossing.
WAIT!.. I have an old recording of it from 1994!..
Nothing sounds more romantic, and more haunting, than a nice long crossing signal being sounded by the air horn of a train at just the right distance... far enough away for it to echo in the night... but close enough to cut through the silence and dominate the soundscape... with a bit of wheel clatter along the rails, as it goes.
But the romance of trains goes well beyond just the distant horns, and while most train lovers are just nice, regular people... unfortunately, there is one type of train lover that... goes a bit too far?
They are known as, foamers, and they like to... touch... themselves... in a certain way... very near to the train tracks... as trains are going by.
I would not make something like that up!
But these folks do tend to accidentally die, from time to time. As do your garden variety suicidal people, who reason that walking in front of a train is a pretty quick, definitely fatal way to check out.
Transients... once called hobos, are also still a thing... and still do hitch rides on frieght trains when they can.
And then we have graffiti artists, who sneak into train yards and turn stationary train cars into canvases for their elaborate, artistic tags... which you'll see plenty of on any passing freight train, as you're stuck in your car at a crossing, waiting for it to pass.
The whole world of trains is a mysterious plane of train yards, and track runs snaking through miles of wilderness between and behind cities, away from roads, away from view, and populated by all kinds of shadow people... and... aliens?.. who knows?
So much of that world is just... wild and dark!
Tracks don't require lighting. The train's wheels just follow the rails. And freight trains themselves have no lights at all... except for one or two at the front of the engine.
And since the dawn of freight trains, when train robbers were also a thing, freight companies have used all of these wild and weird reasons to keep their schedules extremely private, and unpredictable.
Today, there may be other reasons to keep the schedules seemingly random, and secret, like the natural vagaries of market demand for goods and... like neighborhood Karens complaining about the noise of trains.
But the hard fact is... nobody knows, or CAN know... when or where any freight train is rolling... or how long that train is... or what's on it... until it's just THERE!
--<>--
This is why I don't have any really good recordings of train horns (except for the one embedded from 1994, recorded on cassette tape)... though for years I've been trying to think up a way to capture them... preferably in the winter, when it's the most silent, and when the cold air allows for better acoustics.
The best I can do, with the S8 is... maybe build a perch for it out my window... and set it up with Team Viewer, so that I can remotely turn it on and off from inside.
And then either just record randomly and hope to catch something... or sit with one ear open all the time and try to figure out when they might be more likely to be going through at night (when local noise is also at a minimum).
I may give all that a try this winter. It would be nice to have a collection of distant Q signals, and train roll!.. and I could mix them in to other recordings!
But If I do try... it's always gonna be a fishing expedition... 99% dead air, and 1% train horns.
We'll see.
------------{=0=}------------
But the reason why the locomotive engineer unions may be striking through the weekend and beyond... is a direct result of these insanely complex, unpredictable schedules!
The main thing these unions are demanding, is time off! And not even paid time off, but simply unpaid time off!
Engineers are essentially, "on call" twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Each man is guaranteed like 20 hours undisturbed rest, every so often, but that's it!
Other than that, if you're an engineer, you could be called any time of day or night to hustle your ass down to the yard and hop into the driver's seat of a freight train that could be over a mile long (max these days is actually four miles) and pilot that baby to the other side of the country!
--<>--
Engineers have no better idea of the cryptic frieght schedules than you or I do. They just go when they're told, to where they're told, and have to trust that the corportate big wigs have made sure they won't crash into another train from another freight company, out there in the dark wilderness of the rails.
To be sure, such crashes... never happen! I can't remember ever hearing of one in living memory.
So, somebody up there knows what's going on with all the trains, but not the engineers!
This makes it nearly impossible for them to schedule doctor's appointments, or even tell their wives and children when they'll be home next, or for how long. And if they dare call in sick... it's a violation that puts their employment in jeopardy.
So... I do very much sympathize with the unions on this... even if it means I may have a hard time finding cat food if the strike lasts too long.
In a perfect world, federal regulation would mandate that the freight companies just hire more men, so that they have enough to handle the demands, while allowing every engineer some real, predictable time off!
--<>--
I mean... that is, if the schedules really have to be as random and secret as they are!..
Maybe the vagaries of the supply chain do introduce a level of unpredictability that can't be avoided, but... do they really have to be so secretive about it?
I mean... does anybody really care if a guy goes to jerk it next to the tracks, or a bum hops a ride, or even if some depressed ex husband jumps onto the tracks once or twice a year?
We don't... and we like the graffiti art on the box cars!
I don't think transparency would kill these freight companies!
I suppose you could try to make some national security argument... like... if the terrorists had the train schedules we'd be in big trouble, or something?... but even that feels far fetched and flimsy.
There are free apps that allow anybody to track every single flight in American airspace!
There are free apps that allow anybody to track every single satellite orbiting the earth!
We can track all the traffic on the roads. And we can, to a large extent, listen in on police radio communications.
So why... really... do the trains have to be such an unpredictable secret?
I think it's just part of the lore and the tradition of the rail universe... and freight corporations being sneaky because all corporations like to be sneaky.
------------{=0=}------------
In the final analysis, however, I am biased... because I want to be able to record cool train horns from my back yard.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
You've read a lot about how tricky it is to get a good thunder or cricket recording around here, but I do get lucky from time to time.
You know there can only be thunder if a storm is nearby. You know, there will only be crickets in the late summer, and at night.
But I do not have any playlist, or even a single-track mashup of excellent, haunting, melodious, distant train horns to my name, because... you do NOT know, when you will hear them!
I'm talking about the crossing signal, or what engineers sometimes call the Q signal... the pattern of horn honks that every train makes as it approaches a crossing.
WAIT!.. I have an old recording of it from 1994!..
Nothing sounds more romantic, and more haunting, than a nice long crossing signal being sounded by the air horn of a train at just the right distance... far enough away for it to echo in the night... but close enough to cut through the silence and dominate the soundscape... with a bit of wheel clatter along the rails, as it goes.
But the romance of trains goes well beyond just the distant horns, and while most train lovers are just nice, regular people... unfortunately, there is one type of train lover that... goes a bit too far?
They are known as, foamers, and they like to... touch... themselves... in a certain way... very near to the train tracks... as trains are going by.
I would not make something like that up!
But these folks do tend to accidentally die, from time to time. As do your garden variety suicidal people, who reason that walking in front of a train is a pretty quick, definitely fatal way to check out.
Transients... once called hobos, are also still a thing... and still do hitch rides on frieght trains when they can.
And then we have graffiti artists, who sneak into train yards and turn stationary train cars into canvases for their elaborate, artistic tags... which you'll see plenty of on any passing freight train, as you're stuck in your car at a crossing, waiting for it to pass.
The whole world of trains is a mysterious plane of train yards, and track runs snaking through miles of wilderness between and behind cities, away from roads, away from view, and populated by all kinds of shadow people... and... aliens?.. who knows?
So much of that world is just... wild and dark!
Tracks don't require lighting. The train's wheels just follow the rails. And freight trains themselves have no lights at all... except for one or two at the front of the engine.
And since the dawn of freight trains, when train robbers were also a thing, freight companies have used all of these wild and weird reasons to keep their schedules extremely private, and unpredictable.
Today, there may be other reasons to keep the schedules seemingly random, and secret, like the natural vagaries of market demand for goods and... like neighborhood Karens complaining about the noise of trains.
But the hard fact is... nobody knows, or CAN know... when or where any freight train is rolling... or how long that train is... or what's on it... until it's just THERE!
This is why I don't have any really good recordings of train horns (except for the one embedded from 1994, recorded on cassette tape)... though for years I've been trying to think up a way to capture them... preferably in the winter, when it's the most silent, and when the cold air allows for better acoustics.
The best I can do, with the S8 is... maybe build a perch for it out my window... and set it up with Team Viewer, so that I can remotely turn it on and off from inside.
And then either just record randomly and hope to catch something... or sit with one ear open all the time and try to figure out when they might be more likely to be going through at night (when local noise is also at a minimum).
I may give all that a try this winter. It would be nice to have a collection of distant Q signals, and train roll!.. and I could mix them in to other recordings!
But If I do try... it's always gonna be a fishing expedition... 99% dead air, and 1% train horns.
We'll see.
But the reason why the locomotive engineer unions may be striking through the weekend and beyond... is a direct result of these insanely complex, unpredictable schedules!
The main thing these unions are demanding, is time off! And not even paid time off, but simply unpaid time off!
Engineers are essentially, "on call" twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Each man is guaranteed like 20 hours undisturbed rest, every so often, but that's it!
Other than that, if you're an engineer, you could be called any time of day or night to hustle your ass down to the yard and hop into the driver's seat of a freight train that could be over a mile long (max these days is actually four miles) and pilot that baby to the other side of the country!
Engineers have no better idea of the cryptic frieght schedules than you or I do. They just go when they're told, to where they're told, and have to trust that the corportate big wigs have made sure they won't crash into another train from another freight company, out there in the dark wilderness of the rails.
To be sure, such crashes... never happen! I can't remember ever hearing of one in living memory.
So, somebody up there knows what's going on with all the trains, but not the engineers!
This makes it nearly impossible for them to schedule doctor's appointments, or even tell their wives and children when they'll be home next, or for how long. And if they dare call in sick... it's a violation that puts their employment in jeopardy.
So... I do very much sympathize with the unions on this... even if it means I may have a hard time finding cat food if the strike lasts too long.
In a perfect world, federal regulation would mandate that the freight companies just hire more men, so that they have enough to handle the demands, while allowing every engineer some real, predictable time off!
I mean... that is, if the schedules really have to be as random and secret as they are!..
Maybe the vagaries of the supply chain do introduce a level of unpredictability that can't be avoided, but... do they really have to be so secretive about it?
I mean... does anybody really care if a guy goes to jerk it next to the tracks, or a bum hops a ride, or even if some depressed ex husband jumps onto the tracks once or twice a year?
We don't... and we like the graffiti art on the box cars!
I don't think transparency would kill these freight companies!
I suppose you could try to make some national security argument... like... if the terrorists had the train schedules we'd be in big trouble, or something?... but even that feels far fetched and flimsy.
There are free apps that allow anybody to track every single flight in American airspace!
There are free apps that allow anybody to track every single satellite orbiting the earth!
We can track all the traffic on the roads. And we can, to a large extent, listen in on police radio communications.
So why... really... do the trains have to be such an unpredictable secret?
I think it's just part of the lore and the tradition of the rail universe... and freight corporations being sneaky because all corporations like to be sneaky.
In the final analysis, however, I am biased... because I want to be able to record cool train horns from my back yard.
°¦}
