PART TO DISPUTE
Ida Klaus, Referee

 (Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
 (
 (Seaboard, Coast Line Railroad Company

 Award Number 23962
 Docket Nber SG-23971

 STATT:tT OF CLAIM: "Claim of the General Cttee of the Brotherhood of

(a) Carrier violates the current Signalmen's Agreement particularly Rules 24 and 25.

 (b) Carrier should now be required to compensate T. A. Razrano ten hours at the Signalman's rate of pay, a total of $92.70, for December 1T, 19"9.
(c) Carrier should also be required to compensate T. A. Razzano $4.25 noon meal anti. $5.95 evening meal, a total of $10.20 actual expenses incurred December 17, 1979."

 (General Chairman file: 24-25 1-80 T. A. Razzano. Carrier file: 15-24(80-2)H)

 OPINION OF BOARD: These claims are for compensation for ten hours lost, and
 for meal expenses incurred, by the Claimant on December 17,
 1979, in connection with his attendance at an investigation of charges issued
 against him.

 By notice of December 10, 1979, the Claimant was charged with an infraction committed while assigned to the Jacksonville District and he was directed to report for investigation to that Division. At the time of the investigation, he had been voluntarily reassigned to Fayetteville, North Carolina, - a distance of 460 miles from Jacksonville. The charges against him were subsequently sustained. See Third Division Award 23960.

 The claims are brought under Rules 24 and 25 of the Agreement which provide allowances for compensation and reimbursement for expenses to employes in these circumstances:

 "Rule 24 - Attending Court

 (a) An employee, at the request of management, attending court, inquests, or appearing as witnesses for the railroad ...

 Rule 2 - Expenses

 (a) Ehnployes sent away from home station or territory ... ."


        The Carrier contends that these rules are inapplicable to an employe

who attends an investigation of matters aged against him. It reads Bale 24
 as covering only employee who appear as witnesses for the Carrier; and Rule 25,
 as applicable only to employes performing "service" away from their headquarters
 point.

 The Carrier finds sums for its interpretation in consistent HIRAB awards and in the fact that over its entire system employee are not paid for attending investigations where they are charged and then adjudged guilty. It notes only one exception, involving a signal employe., which it considers to have been an error.

 The Organization relies on the literal language and structure of each of the rules. It contends that the particular words used are clear and unambiguous an, are plainly applicable to these claims without regard to how other words in other agreements may have been interpreted. It sees no warrant in the particular language of these rules for drawing a distinction on the basis of the role played by the employe in the investigation or the reason for which he may be sent away from his home station.

 After careful review of the entire record and analysis of the arguments made, the Hoard concludes that the claims must be denied.

 This Hoard does not read the language of the rules in question to be so clear and, unambiguous as to preclude reliance on other awards rendered by this Third Division with respect to similar claims made under other agreemexits. In Award 21320, with Referee John H. Dorsey, we stated:

        "In the absence of a specific provision in an agreement that a charged party shall be paid for attendance at a discipline investigation hearing, it is the practice in the railroad industry that the employe is not contractually entitled to pay for time in attendance at the hearing. The confronting Agreement contains no such specific provision; and further,, the record before the Board contains no evidence of probative value that on the property here involved payment to a charged party has been historically and customarily paid."


As there is no specific provision in Rules 24and 25 that a charged party shall be paid for attendance at an investigation, an. in the absence of evidence of a practice of doing so on this property, we find that the Carrier acted properly in denying these claims. While we recognize the travel hard ship to the Claimant in attending the ;nvestiga tion, -we as not rini '-n it. any com pelling equitable basis for special consideration.

        The claim will be denied.

                    Award Number 23962 Page 3

                    Docket Number SG-239`3.


        FnM: 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 byes 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 Agreement was not violated.


                      A W A R D


        Claim denied.


                        NATIONAL RAILROAD AWUS24ENT BOARD

                        By Order of Third Division


ATTEST: Acting Executive Secretary
 National Railroad Adjustment Board

 r
 By ,,,ac.c_.ac._C~t, ·jc 2~ot ~G_ _ _
    T'ie Brasch - Administrative Assistant


Dated at Chicago,, Illinois, this 16th day of August 198'2.

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