Based on recent posts on indeed and various other BNSF propaganda websites, BNSF is now starting to show its hand. With BNSF corporate members joining various state advisory boards, and with the FRA giving waivers and signing off on trains/cars being able to go longer distances without being inspected, BNSF has taken steps to have maintenance of way build tracks and projects to bypass mechanical facilities all together as a way to prevent mechanical personnel from identifying defects on cars or locomotives. Look no further than the Wilmer Wye project that looks to bypass Northtown, Minnesota mechanical facility; the creation of an International Rail Port in San Angelo, Tx operated by short line/ contracted labor to by pass Temple and Tulsa mechanical facilities, and of course the BIG project that on its face is appearing to bypass Barstow mechanical facilities. On its face, it looks as though BNSF has created a system in the name of “capital investment,” but appears to be a way to cut out major mechanical maintenance and safety, through the creation of a system that prevents mechanical personnel from performing inspections and maintenance on locomotives and cars. BNSF spin machine will say less defects, less reported incidents, and less safety issues reported, but by design they are cutting out the people who report them. Hence why BNSF created a system where, according to the BNSF homepage, only foreman can anonymously report safety issues to the FRA, while forgetting to mention, as the break their arms patting themselves on the back, that foreman are company officers paid to take shortcuts for the company, ie, they don’t report or repair anything. They in fact, defer defects, cut corners, and target employees for doing their job of reporting defects through various ops testing harassment measures, so their bonuses go up for not reporting. Even dispatchers are utilizing wayside readers and machine vision to have carmen check specific cars only, crews to look at break issues, and FRA waivers to run trains by mechanical facilities without inspections due to inspections performed by cameras at borders like that of eagle pass, or the famous line of “crews sign the cards on locomotives when they get on and take over trains, so it must be good.” Long story short, lay-offs are not over and shop closures are coming, best get your affairs in order. If the NTSB and FRA will not step in to curb these practices, many will be out of a job before Christmas, 1600 minus whatever the furlough count is at now. Better get ready, peak season will only benefit corporate this year, mechanical is going to be pushed out the loop to run trains in a more dangerous and unsafe manner.
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Temple has been doing it all year, they utilize the yard to by pass the shop, ie “yard turning” all high horsepower. Through utilization of mainline fuel pads and the specific instruction from management to yard turn all high horsepower and to not allow it in to the mechanical facility for inspection and repair, BNSF in Temple has specially cut all union craft in Temple outside of minimal intermediate fleet repairs. It’s a blue print for other mechanical facilities. A person only has to look at the shop counts, GE locomotive repairs, and the amount of locomotives/trains that have been yard turned, it’s not hard to figure out what’s on the horizon
Indeed.com even states specifically based on a post put out by BNSF, that the Wilmer Wye project was meant to “connect two subdivisions, while bypassing down town all together,” which means if you look on a map, what it connects, and the fact northtown in in down town, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that based on a track map, it was designed to bypass the mechanical facility. If you look at how Temple workforce has been cut in half and restructured since the beginning of the year, with no high horsepower being shopped or serviced in Temple or Tulsa, and that hundreds of high horsepower units were sent to San Angelo for “mod” work, yet BNSF is the major Class 1 railroad pushing and developing the international rail port in San Angelo,Tx. Furthermore in an attempt to cut out UP in eagle pass and the issues of UP causing major delays for BNSF trains in Eagle pass, the ability to bring freight through Presidio, Tx at the international rail bridge tariff free, directly to an international rail port in San Angelo through contracts with Texas Pacifico and Southern Lamesa, again it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what BNSF is doing. Then the Barstow International Gateway project, located outside of the mechanical shop in Barstow, where BNSF created not only a contract labor project, but also in a place that was already short handed, in a state with the highest individual tax bracket outside of NJ and NY, and a place that invites and pushes for contract non union, and foreign labor, mixed with the denying of environmental wavers or clamping down on diesel trains, writing is on the wall for union machinists and union electricians working for BNSF in California. Automation and electric trucks are what are being pushed there, meaning rail is shrinking in a state where BNSF just spent billions on a intermodal facility and was left holding the bag for Yellow trucking debt when yellow filed bankruptcy, while in the same breath losing contracts with UPS and FedEx. It may take a little while, the cr-p BNSF is and has been pushing as company is evident, if you say it isn’t, you are in denial or sipping the corporate kool aid
Names are in the post
Need names of all these bypass projects so the unionists can watch this