North Eastern Roundhouse Ramblings (January 2003)

Happy New Year

Welcome to the first full calendar year of NERR operations. This month's Ramblings will focus on some of the new innovations coming soon to NERR. Also, be sure to circle your calendar for the weekend of February 7-9/03. The exciting details are below. Thanks to Jeremy Levish (aka. Taz) for his article contribution, featured below. Plus we announce the details of a great contest for all current NERR engineers. Don't forget, you're always welcome to contribute an article or drop us a line at eic@vnerr.com, the Employee Communications email address.

Cedric Nagy
Director of Employee Communications
North Eastern Railroad

NETS Is Coming

Scheduled to debut in February 2003 is the NETS - North Eastern Timeslip System. A new addition to the NERR experience. Engineer Applications will be processed automatically and instantly assigned to the Callboard without any intervention from the Admin.

Timeslips will also be processed immediately, however HRD & RFE still have access to your data and will be automatically notified of discrepancies to the system.

Although not fully implemented yet, there will be a divisional breakdown separating the Callboard into 4 Divisions. Future plans include having 4 separate division that may possibly have intermural type competitions for the fun of it. It is possible that the actual Divisional breakdown may not take place for a year, depending on the work involved to make a sub seb site for each division and the acceptance of it by NERR's engineer staff. Many people are worried that they would be stuck in a division forever. This is not to be the case.

Inter division transfers will be possible, simply by requesting it. Part of the idea for the Divisions is that an engineer would become proud of his/her division along with the members of it and attempt to make that division the top one of NERR, by working hard at runs and making new ones, just the same way everyone does for NERR as a whole. Which by the way, NERR as a whole is considered the HQ division.

With the NETS in place all new engineers will start in the HQ division, then transfer to the division of their choice. Of course there will be some rules on the frequency of transferring divisions, but that is all still on the drawing board and up for discussion from ALL.

NETS will have a separate Statistics page for each engineer to include a small bio if chosen, along with all Timeslips tallied and stats such as "Favourite route, engine, work order, etc." and a virtual salary will be implemented. The salary amounts totalled will then be transferred to your BVI account if/when VAStockmarket opens up. But regardless of VASM's situation another way to spend your V$ will be coming into play with the NETS system.

In the future, the technology may be made available to other Virtual Railroads. More details will be provided in the next issue of Ramblings.

Did I mention I love this stuff ;)

Bob
OD/NE

Welcome New Members!

Since the beginning of December, 86 engineers have been added to the roster. These railfans come from across the United States, Scotland, England, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, India, The Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Russia and Canada. We hope to see you all in the forums.

Divisions Are Coming

We’ve already sent out a request for engineers to pick the division that they are interested in belonging to. Please email Bob Artim, NERR’s Operations Director (od@vnerr.com), with your preference immediately. Engineers who do not will be randomly assigned a division. Divisions are NW, NE, SW, SE. To see which routes each division covers, visit http://www.vnerr.com/divs/routes.htm .

Meet The Staff

The weekend of February 7, 8 and 9 marks the first NERR get-together. Three staff members have already confirmed their intentions to attend the meet, along with a member of the feasibility team. Other staff members have indicated that they may pass through as well. This is your opportunity to see some of the faces behind NERR (and buy us a beer or two, too!). The event will take place in Ottawa, Ontario, during the Winterlude festivities, the highlight of which is the 7 km. long skating rink. So cash in those unused frequent flyer miles, VIA Preference points, or free weekend hotel nights and do everything that you can to attend.

For more information, to confirm your attendance, or for help with travel arrangements, e-mail Employee Communications at eic@vnerr.com .

Refer A Friend Contest

Jim Vaughan, NERR’s Director of Workforce Development, has put together an article for novices to the VR hobby. Direct your friends and family to http://www.vnerr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1578 so that they can learn the basics about how a VR operates. Then have them join you as an engineer at NERR, putting your ID# in the "references" field of the initial sign up form. We’ll keep track of everyone’s references. The engineer with the most references at the end of March will have a chance to win some neat NERR gear.

Training Academy Grows

Due to the success of NERR’s training program, engineers registering for future classes may find that some of their classmates will come from other Virtual Railroads. ACR has already signed onto the extended program for classes beginning in March. For more information about NERR’s certification program, (which will be required to progress to certain ranks in the new ranking system) or to sign up for the next class, visit http://www.vnerr.com/training/cert-testing-main.htm .

A Day in the Life
Article Submitted by Jeremy Levish

Hey all! You may be wondering exactly who this guy "Taz" really is and (in some cases) where some of this information that I'm posting comes from. Well, let me explain ...I was born...or was that hatched?...No, no, no...Er, let me start over...

I had wanted to post a pointer to one of the RailRoad related activities that I do in real life. I'm a volunteer, or docent, at the California State RailRoad Museum and am part of the RailRoad operations end of the museum, referred to as the Sacramento Southern RailRoad (Yes, there was a real Sacramento Southern RailRoad; Our logo: http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/ssrr.gif ...Take a look here for some history http://www.csrmf.org/doc.asp?id=341 . I am a qualified Steam/Diesel Fireman, Brakeman, Maintenance of Way worker/foreman, and I'm currently working on becoming an Engineer.

The California State RailRoad Museum owns some 17 miles of track between the Downtown Sacramento area (near the old Southern Pacific depot and shops - Aerial picture: http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/SPSacramento_Shops.jpg ) on the Northern end, to the town of Hood (actually Hood/Franklin road) on the Southern end. Currently, only the Northern most 3.5 miles of the track is runable and maintained. Of this, only the first 3 miles sees any regular usage. That usage is a regularly scheduled excursion train, a reserved "School Train" for students visiting the museum on field trips, an occasional special (last one we ran was for Operation Lifesaver), a "Training Train" for the RailRoad Technologies class at Sacramento City College, and some freight (lumber/Medium Density Fiberboard loads) to an on-line customer. The excursion train runs every weekend from the beginning of April to beginning of October, a few weekends in October for the "Halloween Haunt", and Santa trains during the Thanksgiving weekend and the two weekends before Christmas. We generally use a steam engine to pull the excursion trains, but we have used different pieces of equipment from time to time. Some of the equipment is rather interesting and/or unique...like an A-B-A set of F units (Santa Fe F7A 347C and F3B 347B http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/sf-347.jpg plus Western Pacific 913 http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/WP913_400.jpg ) or a Southern Pacific Daylight painted E9 with a couple of Daylight cars (Here's a picture of the E9 with a train of Daylight cars: http://www.csrmf.org/images/eet-special-trns.jpg and/or http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/SP_6051-1.jpg ). You also may have seen this picture http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/All_Dressed_Up somewhere before. For more information about the California State RailRoad Museum in both the Sacramento and Jamestown locations, the URL is http://www.csrmf.org . Follow some of the Sacramento links (especially the "Train Rides" section) for a better description and some pictures of some of the things we've done and continue to do...

Anyway, I had wanted to share a couple of pictures of the steam engine that we currently use (which aren't on the CSRM website) and a little of its history. This is a picture of the "Granite Rock 10" http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/RailRoad/GR_10_Old_Sacramento.jpg . This is an oil fired (oil burning) 0-6-0T engine built for the U.S. Army, as their number 5001, by Porter Locomotive Works in October of 1942. Porter, as well as several of the other "small" builders built a lot of these engines for use in World War II. They were built in both a coal fired version (the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer has, or had, a coal fired example that they were looking to restore cosmetically) as well as the oil fired version seen here. Although built to the tighter European clearance specifications, the engine was never shipped overseas and was never equipped (so far as we have been able to tell) with European style buffers or couplers. This particular engine saw military service in California at the Tracy Army Depot before being sold to the Granite Rock Corporation. Granite Rock used the engine in their Watsonville quarry site, south of San Jose, until 1963 or 1964 when it was put on display in front of the quarry. The locomotive was officially donated to the museum in 1995 and restored to operation in 1997. We have been using the engine ever since...Prior to 1997, we used a hand-fired, coal burning, Union Pacific 0-6-0, the 4466 http://www.csrmf.org/images/3-trn-rides.jpg , but that's another story for another day.

On this particular day, I'm the Fireman, although you'd never know it from this picture. I'm on the other side of the cab. We've just taken on 250 gallons of fuel oil and are headed to the water plug to top off the water. It's July 10th, at about 9:45 AM. The temperature in Sacramento was around 75 degrees headed for the low 100s. Cab temperature was already around 85 degrees headed towards 120 or more!

Here are a couple of pictures taken a bit earlier in the morning shortly after I lit the engine off. I'm busy being a good fireman, wiping and inspecting the rods and valve gear, looking from cracks, breaks, or other defects http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/NERR/J2.gif and http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/NERR/J6.gif . I've just finished greasing and oiling up the locomotive. Now, it's just time to keep busy and to run down the locomotive check list (tri cocks, water glasses http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/NERR/J3.gif , cab/gauge/head lights http://www.geocities.com/jlevish/NERR/J5.gif , first aid/burn kits, fireman's and engineer's water injectors, air pumps, brake gauges, couplers, air hoses, wash-out plugs, staybolts, sand, brakes and brake rigging)...Clean and polish "everything shiny"...BS with the ground crew (RFE, Asst. RFE, engine helper and/or student fireman) and the occasional passer by...Keep the smoke down and wait for the pressure to come up...Damn, I love doing this!

The Rambling Interview

This month, it’s my turn to step up to the plate. It’s not really an interview, but I’ll answer some of the questions that I’ve asked other staff members in the past in this spot.

Q. Let's start out with some of the basic stats. What's your full name, age, and place of birth?

My name is Cedric Michael Christopher Nagy, but I use my middles names so rarely that you won’t even find them on my passport or driver’s licence. My friends call me Ceds for short. My birthday is 8 February 1983, so that’ll make me 20 next month. I was born in Strasbourg, France, but have lived in Canada since I was three.

Q. Have you any railroad-related formal higher education? Either way, tell us a little about what you've studied.

I’m currently attending one of Canada’s top Tourism Management university programs in Guelph, Ontario. It’s a four year Bachelor of Commerce degree which covers among other things hospitality, restaurants, airlines, cruises, and, yes, railways.

Q. Tell us about your family.

Mom and dad divorced shortly before we moved back to Canada. Mom now lives in Madrid, Spain, with my stepdad and dogs, yet I see her more than Dad who lives about 45 minutes away.

Q. What's the first thing you say when you wake up?

Blarhghsdf aer awkejrhwe coffee.

Q. Apart from studying, what do you do with your life?

Education is quite expensive in Canada compared with Europe, and I’m paying for most of it myself. During the school year I work part time. Last year I was an information clerk at the University’s natural Arboretum and this year I’m at a fast food franchise. Last summer, I worked full time (and a bunch of overtime) at Toronto’s Marriott Eaton Centre in the restaurant department (room service, bar, patio server, fine dining, etc.). Lots of variety and a great way to meet people from all over the world.

Aside from railroads, aviation is a big hobby of mine and I spend a lot of time over on the boards at www.Flyertalk.com ... required reading for anyone who travels a lot. I’m also a beta tester for Corel’s WordPerfect Office suite and am currently typing this in the first beta for WordPerfect 11.

Q. What has attracted you to this hobby?

I’ve been fascinated by the tourism industry ever since I could first talk. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a bus driver, pilot, restaurant owner, and event planner, each of which falls under the tourism umbrella. It’s by association, I guess, that I developed an interest for trains.

Q. What's on your mousepad?

Lots of coffee stains. Oh, and the Gateway computer logo.
Q. How much time do you devote in the average week to NERR.

Each issue of Ramblings takes about 25 hours to prepare. This includes updating the mailing list, gathering article ideas, working with the interviewee, and writing the articles themselves. This usually takes place over the period of a week. The rest of the month, I just hang out in the forums, attend the staff planning chats, and of course drive trains. So probably about an hour a day.

Q. What sacrifices have you made in order to devote the amount of time that you do to NERR?

My involvement with NERR usually means that I have less time to go to the bars and clubs with my friends and roommates. Of course, doing so requires money, which I’m pretty short on this year, so there’s a positive side to it as well.

Industry News

Atlantic Coastal announced on December 15^th that they will be offering a full commuter schedule on the NEC. The routes appear to be targeting the customers of North East Rail.

North Eastern Roundhouse Ramblings (NERR) is published monthly by Employee Communications. Contact eic@vnerr.com with any inquiries.