A work window is not a shift

Anyone pricing track work knows it. The bid carries crew and flagging as a factor on window hours, because the windows don't exist yet. Once granted they're short and at night, each a full shift with a minimum call, and nobody has the days to rebuild them by hand.

One case on our Try page: granted work windows for a tie and rail renewal. Yesper rebuilt them into crew shifts and flagging calls. Flagging came to 805 hours, 27% over the bid allowance, because most calls run shorter than the railroad's minimum billing.

The extra hours show up in the estimate instead of on the railroad's invoices through the winter, in time to ask whether short windows can share a call. Same for the rest of the Try page: a tie replacement estimate, the salvage credit when track is lifted, a work plan for a culvert.

Try it yourself →