***Does anybody work for the railroad?***

[LiveSteam]

Big Notorious Shit Fest is the last railroad I would ever work for.
I would work for this railroad.
Were a great big rolling railroad. One that everybody knows. we were born of gold & silver strikes a 100 years ago. Were a million miles of history shining in the sun. We are the Union Pacific & our story has just begun. wooo,wooo... woo. wooo./wooo,wooo... woo. wooo.

[AndChiefs]

Be on the lookout for children in boxcars. Don't want any injuries.

[FAX]

When I was 10 years old, I once hopped a KATY boxcar with a friend. We wound up in Cherryvale, KS with no way to get back home.

My mother was very proud that day, I can tell you.

FAX

[Buehler445]

My BIL is a conductor for UP. Conductor is the pathway to become an engineer.

My understanding is the money is outstanding, the work I not difficult. But there are some union things that are annoying

[Buehler445]

Sorry guys. Couldn't come up with any train jokes.

[vailpass]

You quit your job at UPS? A person in your line of work? Without already having another job lined up?

[outhega]

I work for the Union Pacific railroad as a conductor. Is there anything specific you would like to know? The RRs a good job but they are so big everything is different according to terminal and local union contract.

[outhega]

Conductor and engineer are considered operations "crafts". In the class one RRs brakemen and switch men are relegated to yard jobs since they did away with five man crews. In the yard there is a foreman and switch an and the engineer runs the engine. Yard jobs typically pay less and you are outside rain or shine building trains and delivering cars to industry. Sooo on the UP conductors are qualified brakemen/switch men and fill in doing whatever is needed depending on what their seniority will allow them to hold.

Road conductors generally get on a train at the home terminal take the train to the away terminal, get rested, then take another train home. You don't have to work your way up to do this but most of the young conductors can't hold this type of job because it pays more, there is less "work" involved like setting out and switching, just get on and get off.

Where I work it is eighty percent road jobs so the pay is good and the work is easy. The con for any conductor job is there is no set schedule. It is almost all "board" work. You get put on a board, or list of other conductors, and wait for you name to go to the top. Then your phone rings and you get assigned a job and you go to work. Road work only gives you five personal days a year. No holidays or weekends off. Yard work gives you two days off a week and holidays but no personal days.

And the last thing you should know is new hires start at seventy five percent pay and increase five
Percent a year for five years before you are making one hundred percent pay. That is specific to UP. The last three years UP have been furloughing conductors pretty regularly, so there is a chance by the time you pass your classroom and ojt trading periods there might not be enough business for them to keep you around. Sounds shitty but it happened in 2008 and 2009. They hire a ton of new guys then cut them all off after they were trained.

Hope that helps. As for liking it I like it alright. It is a job.

[Munson]

Originally Posted by outhega

Conductor and engineer are considered operations "crafts". In the class one RRs brakemen and switch men are relegated to yard jobs since they did away with five man crews. In the yard there is a foreman and switch an and the engineer runs the engine. Yard jobs typically pay less and you are outside rain or shine building trains and delivering cars to industry. Sooo on the UP conductors are qualified brakemen/switch men and fill in doing whatever is needed depending on what their seniority will allow them to hold.

Road conductors generally get on a train at the home terminal take the train to the away terminal, get rested, then take another train home. You don't have to work your way up to do this but most of the young conductors can't hold this type of job because it pays more, there is less "work" involved like setting out and switching, just get on and get off.

Where I work it is eighty percent road jobs so the pay is good and the work is easy. The con for any conductor job is there is no set schedule. It is almost all "board" work. You get put on a board, or list of other conductors, and wait for you name to go to the top. Then your phone rings and you get assigned a job and you go to work. Road work only gives you five personal days a year. No holidays or weekends off. Yard work gives you two days off a week and holidays but no personal days.

And the last thing you should know is new hires start at seventy five percent pay and increase five
Percent a year for five years before you are making one hundred percent pay. That is specific to UP. The last three years UP have been furloughing conductors pretty regularly, so there is a chance by the time you pass your classroom and ojt trading periods there might not be enough business for them to keep you around. Sounds shitty but it happened in 2008 and 2009. They hire a ton of new guys then cut them all off after they were trained.

Hope that helps. As for liking it I like it alright. It is a job.

Even though you work according to the board, do you generally work 40+ hours a week? About how many hours a week would a newbie conductor get? I would hate to become one, be on call 24/7, only to work something ridiculous like 20 hours a week.

[vailpass]

Any talk of the railroad union being broken?

[outhega]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Any talk of the railroad union being broken?

Every craft has their own union. Signal men, Carmen, MOW, conductors, engineers, dispatchers, telecomm, etc. So they cant break the "railroad" union, but they are trying to do away with certain crafts by replacing them with newer tech. The conductor position especially they have been trying to get rid of. It will be years down the road until they can eliminate the position though. There are just to many variables to run one man crews any time soon.

[Bump]

I know a guy who does, makes 100K a year. He says he just gets a call, goes to some town and takes naps and practically does nothing. His dad got him in, I think he took a 6 week course too. It sounds like a good deal.

[outhega]

When you work as a conductor or engineer for the RR hours don't matter. You go by "starts". You get paid by miles. As a young conductor in a big terminal you would probably work the yard extra board. Basically you would fill in for other yard conductors who call out o are on their off days. You could be a hostler. They are conbuctors who specify in moving and switching engines. Some places have preference boards. Those are boards where the most senior guys get called first, take the best jobs, then everything else goes down the list. Those are generally the low seniority jobs.

All the conductor work I know of is guaranteed. Meaning no matter how much you work or haw many hours you put in you get a base pay. You can earn more than guarantee by working alot but the guarantee is there so you can still make money if business slows down, or if you are the extra board and you don't get called for awhile.

Usually you will work alot. Alot. I have been working for the RR for almost six years and that is still low seniority. I am still on the extra board. The last month I have twenty eight starts, and the last two weeks I have over one hundred hours. That is not conting hotel time. I have not drwn guarantee for quite awhile.

Again this is as general as I can get, like I said earlier every RR and terminal and district is different. There are some many different contracts and rules and local union bylaws that could change what you would be doing and where you would be doing it.

[outhega]

I just got called for work but one more thing that might help.

As the new guy you will work "on your rest" more often than not. Meaning you will be home for ten hours to get rest then you be called again. When business is heavy that will be the routine. Be home for ten hours, get called for a train, spend twelve hours on the train, sixteen hours in the hotel, get called to go home, then another twelve hours on a train, go home do it all over again.

The work is easy and the pay and benefits are good but the schedule is..... grinding.

Get hired stick out the early years and you're golden.

[jet62]

I worked as a Locomotive Electrician at BNSF for 3 1/2 years in between getting laid off as an A & P (Airframe and Powerplant) Mechanic at the airlines. You will not be able to hire in off the street as an Electrician or Diesel Mechanic unless you have similar technical experience somewhere else. They did take a lot of laid off aircraft mechanics because of their technical background. Also the Diesel Mechanics came from jobs such as heavy equipment and truck mechanics.

If you don’t have the experience you should try to hire in as a Laborer and get into their apprenticeship program for Electrician or Diesel Mechanic. I think it was a three year apprenticeship if I remember correctly. They would rotate those guys around the shop to learn all the jobs. Plus they would send them to schools too. If you have a choice, try to get an Electricians job. It’s a lot cleaner. Those damn Locomotives are filthy, nasty and everything on them is heavy. I myself was glad to leave but then again I have worked on airplanes for 27 years and enjoy it more.