Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen

Santa Fe appeals from a judgment denying a petition to vacate three arbitration awards which sustained the claims of certain of its employees for an extra day’s pay and confirming such awards. The arbitration proceedings were conducted pursuant to an agreement to arbitrate disputes arising from the interpretation and application of a collective bargaining agreement between Santa Fe’s Coast Lines Division and the Brotherhood as the bargaining agent for the employees concerned.

The claimant-employees are “yardmen” belonging to “yard crews” employed by Santa Fe along its system. Working with a yard or switching engine, these crews either move freight and passenger ears to a point where, as a train, they are picked up by “road crews” and taken to other destinations, or they break down strings of cars brought in by road crews and move them to designated points in the local area. Incident to the above duties, of course, is the coupling and uncoupling of cars, although (as presently to be noted) such was formerly not the ease. Since the advent of the air brake as the standard means of braking trains, the coupling function is commonly referred to in the jargon of railroad men as “tying…