This is out of a column in "Trains" magazine, for which the current month is not available on line. But I'll quote the salient points of the article dealing with potential changes to railroad employees operating hours.

"A prime example of the Federal Railroad Administration's thinking is the request to Congress to do away with the 12 hour law for on-duty time, substiituting a more flexible plan based on the science of sleep and fatigue. FRA offficials point out that the current law is too rigid, and actually allows for unsafe practices such as working odd hours all week long-- days and nights, and in between. They want rules that would protect against fatigue while continuing research into how to prevent fatigue. Not every railroad woiuld necessarily have the same rule under the plan.

As of late August, members of Congress, the railroads, and the unions were looking at a compromise proposal based on a Hiouse bill rather than the FRA proposal. Nonetheless, the bill would be a big improvement, unless you are one of those railroaders who wants to work every possible hour and get rich.

The preliminary plan., still subject to change, would maintain the 12 hour limit but mandate 10 hours of uninterrupted rest after every run, meaning a crew could not even get a phone call until the end of 10 hours. Under the current rules, a crew can go back on duty after 8 hours of rest (10 hours if the crew worked the full 12 hours) and can be called at any time during the rest period.

Under the proposed compromise, if a crew goes off duty while still on the road and is forced to sit in a locomotive or ride to a hotel for an hour or more,--called limbo time--then the crew must get at least 14 hours of uninterrupted rest. Even more of a shock for the guys who want to run up duty time (and income), total duty time and limbo time would be limited to 276 hours a month. under current rules, it is theoretically possible to work 432 hours in a month"

Gosh Burk, We read the same periodicals. Are you a subscriber or a newsstand buyer?
Scale modeler? Trucks? Model railroading? Both?

I have some old copies of Trains and Railroad dating from the mid '70s.
rx