We did a little work. The mechanic had to come out right away this morning and fix the laser receiver on the other machine. After that got done the dispatcher wouldn't give us the track so my foreman played our trump card. He told the dispatcher the track wasn't safe and he took 6 miles of it out of service. We don't play that card very often, because once you do there are going to be phone calls and emails going all the way up to the chief engineer, but once in a while you gotta put the dispatcher in his place. We got done what we needed to get done. But my foreman probably just got himself into a pissing match with the dispatcher and in the long run that's a fight we usually can't win. After all, it's the company's business to run trains and the trains don't run when we're working on the tracks.
I'll be back around for some late night fun someday but probably not too soon. This job has my stress level through the roof right now. I should be sleeping now instead of dinking around on the forum, but screw it. Gotta check up on everybody here, right?