Our compliance date for the FRA two-person crew rule hits January 15, and the biggest operational ripple I’m seeing is extra board coverage and taxi deadheads unless we shift staffing between crew bases… We’re consolidating starts at East Yard and moving five conductors to the night window to hold recrews under 6% without spiking overtime — how are you balancing efficiency and compliance on your districts?
At East Yard we cut taxi deadheads about 20% by scheduling one “swing” conductor 1900–0100 on a 2‑hour trigger — if a recrew hits they roll, if not they board the next outbound, which kept recrews “under 6%” without the OT pop. Small caveat: we needed a quick local with SMART‑TD to cover the swing slot, so get that squared before Jan 15.
We kept recrews at 5.1% by pairing taxis for backhaul and freezing the lineup 45 minutes before the night window so the extra board doesn’t chase ghosts; @david_l99’s “2‑hour trigger” idea helped, but we set ours at 90 minutes tied to an HOS predictor. Small caveat: it only works if dispatch honors the freeze — otherwise it turns into musical chairs with vans. Want the backhaul rule template we used?
But short win for us: we pre-qualified a handful of East Yard conductors on the River Sub and staged one at Midway 19:00–01:00, so recrews happen there instead of a 90‑mile taxi — saved more miles than my step counter. @sbrown50, we also set a simple “no new lineup edits after 20:30” guardrail, but kept a chief’s override for weather so we don’t paint ourselves into a corner.
And , taxi deadheads were killing us, so we started doing mid-line crew swaps at Gray Siding: one van out, exchange paperwork, rested crew takes the train, expiring crew rides back — keeps the night window from lighting up with fresh starts. For the Jan 15 push we’ve got a single ‘standby pair’ 18:30–22:30 floating between bases through the yardmaster, which has been enough to hold recrews under 6% without odd OT. Small caveat: it lives or dies on dispatch blessing the swap spot — if meets are stacked, it’s a mess; @david_l99 your lineup lock would help.
We slid two afternoon locals 30 minutes later — call windows are Tetris — and tied them up at East Yard; they pick up a quick recrew on rollout, cutting van miles about 20% with no OT, but first spot lags a bit. @pauande think your Gray Siding swap plus a 19:00–23:00 “protect turn” Thu–Mon beats adding another extra slot?
We built a nightly protect crew that floats between the two districts with a 2‑hour call; it knocked recrews to about 5.5% and kept OT flat, but Sundays still feel thin. When a surge pops, crew callers put a 15–20 minute ‘soft hold’ on the next two calls to bunch reliefs — @lindsey83, your timing tweaks are spot on, like lining up cars on a short track.
@mwilson, we staged a 1900–2300 ‘shadow’ relief crew at East Yard with a 90‑min call tied to lineup‑slip alerts, plus a dedicated van pre‑positioned near MP 212; it held recrews about 5.8% and cut deadheads about 25%, but it thins the bowl on Sundays — you seeing the same?
Treated Jan 15 like storm prep: set a 1630–2130 swing utility pair and a tiny ‘hotel stub’ for conductors at the west boundary so crews swap at MP 146 and keep rolling without a taxi. It cut deadheads about 25% and kept OT flat; the catch is potential claims if swaps drift outside call windows, so tie it to lineup-variance alerts. @mwilson, a Sunday‑only voluntary standby with a small bonus plugged our thinnest gap.
@jasmine_tan78 we trimmed taxi deadheads by parking a ‘midpoint van’ at Exit 64 and pushing turnbacks to around MP 130, then ran a roaming pair on a 75‑minute ‘flex call’ Thu–Mon tied to lineup variance alerts; it smoothed the night window without blowing up the board. If weather or tie‑ups spike, we expand that call to 105 minutes and slide one start 45 minutes earlier as a pressure valve — otherwise it turns into whack‑a‑mole.
105 minutes and slide one start 45 minutes earlier as a pressure valve — otherwise it turns into whack‑a‑mole. Agree — we pulled our 01:50 out to 01:10 and set a 100‑minute rover call off a CP 118 dwell trigger; it killed the 0400 pile‑up, but only after we got the cab company to commit to a 20‑minute response time.
Short answer from my side: I’m seeing the same pattern — one concrete thing that helped was writing down the exact handoff and timebox it to 15–20 min. Does that match what you’re running into?