"No employes other than covered by this schedule and train dispatchers will be permitted to handle train orders at telegraph or telephone offices where an operator is employed and is available or can be promptly located, except in an emergency, in which case the telegrapher will be paid for the call." (Emphasis ours.)

we wish to emphasize that the only rule covering train orders applies to stations where telegraphers are employed.

Carrier suggests this entire case hinges about the rights of Maintenance of Way Employes to use the telephone in requesting necessary train order protection for the following day. In each of these cases, there was no telegrapher employed at the location, and it followed the practice that has been in effect on this property some fifty years, and still is in effect. No case has ever been appealed to the Third Division, NRAB, on this property involving this proposition, and the full issue before the Board in this case is whether or not the track foreman can use the telephone at a point where a telegrapher is not employed, for the purpose of having train order placed to protect his work.

The Carrier has no intention of changing the working conditions without agreement and has never been faced with the necessity of arguing about the transmittal of information regarding track orders to the next telegraph office.

Carrier respectfully requests a denial of this case, since it violates no part of the agreement.

OPINION OF BOARD: The issue is whether the Agreement was violated when a Track Foreman telephoned information from a blind siding to the nearest telegraph office and thus enabled the nearest telegrapher to prepare and transmit messages concerning issuance of Form Y Orders or slow orders. Telegraphers argue that the information supplied by the Track Foreman was a communication of record; therefore, its transmittal was work exclusively reserved to Telegraphers.

The Track Foreman did not transmit a communication of record within the contemplation of the Agreement. All he did was to convey information peculiarly within his knowledge upon receipt of which the telegrapher drafted and transmitted the necessary communications of record to afford protection for the work gang. No telegrapher could prepare such communications without first receiving information from the Track Foreman. We will deny the Claim.

FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:

That the parties waived oral hearing;

That the Carrier and the Employes involved in this dispute are respectively Carrier and Employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act, as approved June 21, 1934;

That this Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and

That the Carrier did not violate the Agreement.

AWARD