https://www.progressiverailroading.com/union_pacific/news/FRA-raises-safety-concerns-about-UPs-rolling-stock--70149?fbclid=IwAR1idHA6E585fL13VvOeB21_Wqh60mfulUIFExoTqF9kRl0nWfQbnhF1qwM
6 replies (most recent on top)
DO NOT sign any daily card, unless YOU the mechanic were given enough time to do a proper inspection! You don't want your name attached to an engine that causes oh let's say a forest fire or the decimation of a town after it derails and hurts people. Do what you were hired to do, take notes of all interactions with local management, and don't give in to them! You don't want to be the one answering questions of why you signed a daily card when something clearly wasn't done.
I am a machinist and at my location we feel the FRA has been attacking us just as much as UP managers. The have forced management to give us Maps coaching, they hide in the bushes and play the gotcha game, we don’t want to see them around or talk to them. I think twice about signing a daily inspection because they have written us up for signing a card and the unit not having a 20lb reduction even though the handbrakes are tied. The FRA is not my friend!!!
FRA said Flat spots and thin rims on wheels , How many drop pits have been shut down? How many wheel true machines idled ? 6 years ago the locomotive where running on thin rims . I can only imagine what the average wheel gauge is now . Underated Locomotives stalled trains and unsafe running gear spells catastrophic failure
Most of the egregious safety issues the FRA finds are trash on the floor or cars missing stickers. The FRA is nothing but a joke full of political incompetence!! They should find real defects…
Vena doesn’t care about the rolling stock, He cares about the stock price which increased when he took over and has since drop down to the level when he came on board. We have so much less volume he won’t be making the profits that we used to and he has a lot more debt to handle
They've been raising concerns since PSR took hold, and still have yet to see anything done about it. There's another article where Vena is supposedly asking for the data on the bad equipment. Why would Vena be asking for that? Why now? He could've done that on his first day as CEO. I guess it was a better idea to lay people off, instead letting people fix the bad equipment. I think Vena is looking for someone to blame for the bad equipment, so he doesn't have to admit PSR has failed to his investors.