Jericho

Keep in mind so far, Transit has been fine with the reduced service on the C and F. It would not be a surprised that service will be further cut over the summer when the new pick starts and therefore less jobs needed to fill due to lower ridership/Covid.

It's a separate exam you take before the road practical. It's pretty much the culmination of all the quizzes you will get. But don't sweat it. My classmate just didn't seem to have the time or inclination to study. Always came to class tired because he had kids IIRC.

Don’t let them lie to you. I’m one of 9 Promotionals who didn’t go back . They all went back to title no problem. They wouldn’t tell any of us that when we were sworn in but everyone who wanted to go back went back . At least 5 went back to title . Sat a Livingston for a couple days and had to pay some Processing fee but they let them go back. The people who cannot go back are probationaries. A classmate of my ended up failing the final exam and could not go back to buses since he had less than one year in title. Also, there have been T/O's who messed up and were allowed to be demoted to their previous title which is something people from the streets cannot do.

You can actually download a PDF of it on this very website.

Word of advice for those coming in. Service Delivery/Schoolcar has a strict policy on calling out as you may learn from your first week. They expect you to be in class everyday so it is highly advisable that you only call out if you are sick and can provide doctor's lines or a family event/emergency such as giving birth or injury/sick. It has to be substantiated. In the meantime, save the phone number for the IVR and start banking holidays (at least 14 days in advance) and the overtime you accrue during yard/road posting, YX, etc. When you're out on the road after passing the road practical, you can start requesting a day off via the IVR. Do it 20 days in advance at midnight (more like 2355) to have the highest chance of getting it, You want to call out as little as possible while on probation.

Sorry for the late reply. Hopefully the link works; Trailing point switch Imagine your train is on the left track heading towards the trees. You will notice the switch is actually set for the track on the lower right. The wheels on the left side of your train will go between the rails and thus "split the switch".

Whoever has Alesso, good luck keeping up with him.

To those of you in the upcoming classes. 1. In the yard, always expect a low home or home signal before a switch. 2. Read your "iron" and make sure the switch is set in your favor for the wheels on your train to traverse on safely. This will be important to do for your first yard practical and beyond. Do not go past if they are red and split a switch, please.

Yes, that'd be PS 248, on the third floor near the end of the hallway. Presumably the first day is Zoom because the union hall would be too tight for comfort and you're basically spending the day listening to union reps and their vendors give their spiel.

Yea, I had talked with my C/R beforehand on what we're doing in the Bronx (Delta) as we had to go express to 205 for a GO which is not normal for a midnight job. Had to open the doors to the left at Tremont and Kingsbridge, but to the right at Fordham because for some reason they decided to put the 10 car marker past the railing on the left side of the train. Anyway my C/R apparently forgot and tried to open on the right at Tremont. R68's are notorious for not having a working intercom so I basically held the left door enabler button down until she realized she had to switch sides.

Yea, commute matters more in the end especially if you take the subway to report. Just to add, in the B division you will now spend a week in CBTC training especially as it looks to be going live soon on the Queens Boulevard line. Plus, they always need as many qualified T/O to cover the Lima. R42 has been retired so that's probably a week of training cut. Might still have you qualify for the R32 if they stick around though. Just want to note for the board admin, that with the recent contract T/O (Yard) which schoolcar T/O will fall under, are being paid about $36 right now. I know, because I got the raise and the retro pay while in schoolcar.

Much of the cut in services at the time was because too many T/O and especially conductors booked sick, went out due to suspected COVID-19 for two weeks, etc. There simply weren't enough of us to run the trains anyway.

I think you said you are currently a conductor, right? Enjoy it while you can, because being a T/O is definitely a different ballgame.

From what I learned. Next induction will be 30 T/O split into classes of 5 students. As for how many they plan to get in. Maybe as high as 200, but don't quote me on this one.

I should add since there were people in my induction who did it. If the report time is 0700, do not think that if you're in the building by 0700 you are ok. You must be in the room stated by 0700. You cannot get there at 0701. So give yourself some time to make sure you're not late. Schoolcar does not play with lateness.

Normally when you pass the medical. You will then wait to be called in to see Ms. Rivera who will review your employment history you painstakingly filled out. When everything is in order, she will swear you in, and you receive the rulebook (forgot if you get the induction and track book too or you get it in schoolcar). Then you go and get fingerprinted and let Rivera know you're finished and you can then go home. Part of the things she gives you will include a couple pages detailing your report date, time, and location, what clothes you must wear (no polos) as well as the website where you can order your free pair of boots. Be on time and wear those boots.

They didn't put up the results for the Spring 2020 pick, but from the Fall 2019 pick, it might be about 200 train operators. I'm basing this off of who gets to pick a job on the call sheets so it might be much less than that. So I don't know if they'll hire this much and even then, the amount of weekend jobs for XX to fill in has fell due to changes in the schedule for the D and N. Edit: I was about to say I forgot the A division, but it doesn't really look like anything changed on their end.

This is probably more pertinent to people with high list numbers, but to give you an idea of the chances of you being called in, there are currently 2197 B division T/O and 1464 A division T/O on the pick sheets for a total of 3661 T/O. You only did more than one drug test if it's been longer than 6 months.

Should've been this way before the pandemic. Most of the time was wasted on making sure people filled their prior employment history correctly.

Many of us have been out since late May by road posting with schoolcar TSS. The rest that came later posted with train operators.

The August class had to go back to schoolcar for a two day "enhancement training". We just reviewed bulletins and had a road op day. Most of the August class are on the road now.

They're not mailing our pay stub anymore so I'm not surprised by this.

Yes, but you have a bit of a headstart as a conductor. There are plenty of rote memorization to do; signal definitions, Restricted Speed and Extreme Caution, differences between the car models, procedures in preparing a train for yard moves/service, flagging, etc, Take the time to study because it can be the difference between failing the signal tests and yard practicals and just breezing through it. Mind you, each TSS instructor teach the signal definitions their own way, so maybe hold off on that, but it wouldn't hurt to read the rulebook again on the other things in there about train operation.

I have come to find that longer routes like the and the are actually not bad at all. Just doing two trips on those lines is better than doing multiple trips on the others especially lines like the and the where they make you do four or five trips and you have only enough time to just walk to the other end and head back to Church or Rockaway Parkway. In the end, it depends on your own preference. As for OT question, I'll echo what others have said where you gotta find out for yourself, but best jobs to do are the ones where you do less work and still get paid just as much as other jobs. 😁

The red signals on time are usually in places where you are getting close to another train in front of you at a station, approaching a home signal and therefore a switch that may not be set for you, or a curve that the train cannot pass too fast. Their main objective is safety over speed, but even then as mentioned before, there are timers that are not calibrated properly. They are design to clear as the train is about to pass the signal, and while this is fine for two shot timers (yellow with lunar white/S/D), the one shot timers (red with lunar white/speed limit) with the stop arm up becomes a precarious thing to do as it may cause the train to go BIE, so people usually let it clear ahead of them.