Form 1 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD Award No. 27649
 THIRD DIVISION Docket No. MW-26656
 88-3-85-3-399
 The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in
 addition Referee Edward L. Suntrup when award was rendered.

 (Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes PARTIES TO DISPUTE:

STATEMENT OF CLAIM: "Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:

 (1) The Carrier violated the Agreement when it awarded the trackman's position at Urbana, Ohio a 1984 to a junior employe instead of Mr. D. D. Moore (System Dockets CR-974 and CR-975).

 (2) Because of the aforesaid violation, Claimant D. D. Moore shall be allowed three (3) hours and twenty (20) minutes of travel time each week and mileage allowance (100 miles each week) continuing until he is assigned to the position referred to in Part (1) hereof or until this matter is otherwise resolved."

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

 The carrier or carriers and the employe or employes involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act as approved June 21, 1934.

 This Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.

On May 3, 1984, a Claim was filed by the District Chairman on behalf of the Claimant on grounds that a position which he had bid on at Urbana, Ohio was awarded to a junior employee. According to the record, Bulletin No. 40 was posted and dated April 16, 1984. Bids were up on April 23, 1984. The Claimant alleges that he sent his bid in on April 20, 1984, and that it was postmarked on that date at Muncie, Indiana. The bid was not received by the Carrier, however, until April 25, 1984.

 The above facts are not in dispute. The Claimant argues that he should have been awarded the position since his bid was postmarked prior to April 23, 1984. The Carrier argues that the Claimant was not, and should not be, awarded the position since his bid arrived late, or after April 23, 1984, in its offices. As the Division Engineer put it in his denial of the Claim: ...postmarks do not count."
 Form 1
 Page 2

 Award No. 27649
 Docket No. MW-26656
 88-3-85-3-399

 The Rule of the Agreement which is applicable to this Claim reads as follows, in pertinent part:

 "Rule 3. Section 3: Advertisement and Award
(a) All positions and vacancies will be advertised within thirty (30) days previous to or within twenty (20) days following the dates they occur. The advertisement shall show position title, rate of pay, headquarters, tour of duty, rest days and designated meal period.

 (b) Advertisements will be posted on Monday or Tuesday and shall close at 5:00 P. M. on the following Monday. Advertisement will be posted at the headquarters of the gangs in the subdepartment of employees entitled to consideration in fill time an employee may file his application.

 (c) Application for new position or vacancy advertised under this Rule may only be made by active employees and must be prepared on Form CT-88, with receipt attached thereto, properly filled out, and filed with the official whose name appears on the advertisement, who will detach receipt, sign, and return same to the applicant.

 (d) Awards will be made and bulletin announcing the name of the successful applicant will be posted within seven (7) days after the close of the advertisement.

 This Rule shall not be construed so as to require the placing of employees on their awarded positions when properly qualified employees are not available at the time to fill their places, but physical transfers must be made within ten (10) days."

 Rule 3, Section 3 states that advertisements will be posted on Monday _or Tuesday and shall "...close at 5:00 PM on the following Monday." Bulletin No. 40 was posted on April 16, 1984. This was a Monday. Contractually, the Carrier was not obligated to post the Bulletin until Tuesday. By posting it on Monday it permitted employees a longer period of time to find out about and decide on whether they wanted to bid on the position. The Board notes that the Claimant did not actually put his bid in the mail until April 20, 1984, as he states. This was a Friday. The Claimant waited almost until the last day, therefore, to submit his bid by mail. The rule of reasonableness would suggest that the Claimant sho Form 1 Award No. 27649
 Page 3 Docket No. MW-26656
 88-3-85-3-399

 service deliver his bid, under these circumstances, on time. It was possible for his bid to have arrived on time, but it was not necessary that such had to happen. The Carrier, therefore, posted the position during the longest timeperiod possible under the position during what was almost the shortest time-period left to him prior to the expiration of the Bulletin.

 The Claimant argues that he fulfilled the provisions of Rule 3 by having his bid postmarked during the seven (or six) day period. The Agreement Rule does not address postmarks.
munication by either party is "effected upon the mailing or posting thereof"
 (Second Division Award 6352; also Award 3541 and Third Division Awards 11575,
 13270, 16537 by reference). Without denigrating such principle (although it
 is not universally held to be correct: see Third Division Award 13677), the
 Board must conclude here in view of the evidence of record before it, that the
 actions of the Claimant, by the manner in which he bid on the job, were tanta
 mount to negligence. He effectively depended upon regular mail service to
 deliver his bid over a week-end and thus unreasonably depended upon what some
 Awards in the line of precedent cited above call the "regularity of the mails"
 (Second Division Award 3541; also Third Division Awards 10490, 13270). Fourth
 Division Award 1908 states that: ...(t)ime limitations serve an important
 purpose and must be enforced in the interest of orderly process." To sustain
 the instant claim would, in the estimation of the Board, be disruptive to the
 interest of orderly process by establishing precedent permitting other than
 reasonable application of the principle permitting postmarks to serve as
 criteria for timely communications in this industry.




                          By Order of Third Division


Attest:

        Nancy J er - Executive Secretary


Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 16th day of December 1988.