Getting Hired by the Railroad

[bladeslinger]

>With the hours of service, on call basis, working 24/7/365,
>any weather, all the rules and regulations, ease of being
>punished/fired and volatile job security I sometimes wonder if
>that "dream" job with the RR even exists anymore!

Well the railroad is not exactly a dream job by any stretch. I wouldn't be here at all if I didn't have to. I didn't know my ex was waiting for the job to come through before she filed for a "no-fault" divorce. My income doubled almost immediately when I came out here, and she knew she would get a good sized child support check. In fact she gets 1/4 of what I make before any taxes or anything else comes out. Also it's against the law for a non-custodial parent to claim children on their taxes so I don't get any relief for that. Add to that the fact that we no longer get FREE health care, but now pay for that too, along with union dues, whammy premiums (insurance you buy incase you get fired that pays for some but not all possible situations you could be fired for), all the various federal, state, and local taxes and retirement taxes, and there isn't a hell of a lot left. If I gross 2000 dollars I'm lucky to get home with about 700-800 dollars unless i change my dependent status (which if I do that then come tax time I usually have to pay in, so it's a choice of pay now or later), but sometimes I have to do that just to pay the bills. I'm remarried now, so my wife's refund often offsets what I'd have to pay in.

One of the reasons I came to the railroad was the FREE health insurance. It killed me when they announced we'd have to start paying, and I expect the premiums to continue to go up over the years.
Union dues and whammy premiums sure have. I was paying under 100 a month for both union/whammy combined initially but now it's about 130 something a month. Might not sound like much bit it all adds up. We pay more in retirement taxes than regular civilians pay into the Medicare program. Some tax preparation services aren't familiar with this either and will ask you why you pay double what everyone else pays.

It's a daily worry that you will be "run off", "taken out of service", "fired" or whatever you want to call it. I have avoided working certain jobs just to stay away from individuals who have a history of being run off, tearing up equipment and so forth, just to protect my own job...because usually they run the whole crew off unless it's a clearcut situation where one person is at fault and no one else had any way of becoming involved. They can't fire the engineer if the conductor knocks off a handbrake from the ground, but if a crew splits a switch and the engineer was in a position where he COULD have seen it, whether he DID or not, they get him too! In some situations this is not fair, in others I suppose it is.

But anyone who things the railroad is a "dream" job...better leave it a dream. The railroad is a very dangerous place to work and very exhausting as you mentioned...they do prefer to run existing crews on the law rather than hire additional employees. The railroad is cheap about a lot of things, but they'll let you tote off all the overtime you can stand most of the time. Every so often on the locals they'll get on a kick wanting to eliminate overtime, but on the locals you WANT to make overtime most of the time, because they don't pay as well as mainline jobs. It's being out on the road 12-14-16 hours a day quite often sitting still for 4 or 5 hours at a time that really wears you out...and of course if they catch you sleeping...they take disciplinary action against you. They stick a man out at a stop signal in the middle of the woods at 2:30am for 5 hours and expect him to stay awake the whole time staring at that signal. And this might be the 4th or 5th time this week you've done this same thing. It gets very tiring after awhile.

I don't want to bust anyone's bubble, and I Am the person who started this thread to begin with, and I don't want Kyle or anyone else to be offended, but I'm here to tell you the railroad is just a job! It's not an adventure! If you want that join the Air Force (or whatever branch of the military that used that as their slogan). Those of you old enough will know exactly what I'm talking about.

[NS Ed]

Bladeslinger,

You mentioned the part about paying now for health care. Do you have the option to use your own health care program and not use what NS offers? Just curious.

[bladeslinger]

>Bladeslinger,
>
>You mentioned the part about paying now for health care. Do
>you have the option to use your own health care program and
>not use what NS offers? Just curious.

You can opt out altogether or go for a reduced benefits package with a lower premium if you wish, but I couldn't afford to get outside insurance, it's higher than what the railroad offers currently. My new wife's insurance at work also cost a little more than the RR's and did not have quite the coverage, so we dropped her insurance when we got married a couple years ago.

I also can't afford to reduce benefits because I'm required by law to have my children covered, and believe me...my ex takes them to the doctor every time the wind changes direction whether they need to go or not. I have to pay 1/2 of everything not covered by insurance, so you can see where insurance is VITAL in this respect. A lot cheaper to pay the healthcare fee than to have to come up with hundreds or thousands of dollars each time they go to a doctor.

The actual insurance itself is very good, it's just the whole fact that when i started out here it was free, and was for the first few years I worked out here, then all of a sudden they decided we had to pay part of it. Basically one of the fringe benefits of working for the RR was taken away.

Don't get me wrong we still pay less than a lot of other industries workers pay for healthcare, but it's the fact that we used to pay NOTHING for it, it was totally funded by the employer. It hurts a lot to go from paying nothing for insurance to paying over 100 a month. Actually members in the BLET pay more than members in the UTU, but I'm sure it's a matter of time before it equalizes out. Members in the BLET have one advantage if they're engineers though...engs. get a yearly bonus which they take their entire year's premium out of instead of deducting monthly. Unprotected conductors/brakemen do not get any kind of bonus whether in the UTU or BLE. Protected cond/brkmn who haven't sold their "productivity" get a bonus check, but insurance isn't deducted from it like the engineers do. I'm not sure what is done for engineers who are in the UTU...but I will probably find out before too long because I do not plan to join the BLE when I mark up as an engineer.

[NS Ed]

Great info there Bladeslinger...thanks much!

[beltontigers]

My question to the guys who dislike the railroad so much? no one forces you to continue working there..just like we were told...the resignation papers are there, all you gotta do is fill them out

[bladeslinger]

>My question to the guys who dislike the railroad so much? no
>one forces you to continue working there..just like we were
>told...the resignation papers are there, all you gotta do is
>fill them out

Kyle, I believe you take this all too personally. You seem to be defending the railroad as though it were your mother and someone were saying bad things about her. If you stay with the railroad, which the odds aren't that great (as about 50% of people quit within the first couple of years), I'd be interested in hearing your opinions in a year or two. You may find you are no longer defending the railroad.

No, Kyle, no one is forcing us to work there, but financial obligations certainly dictate earning a certain amount of money. Many people are not fortunate to be able to take advantage of college, tech school or other post-gradeschool education. Some never even finish high school.
Often if you can get into a job like this which makes pretty good money, you kinda get stuck...because where else can you go with no skills to make the same money/benefits/retirement program/etc.?

When you start later in life like I did (I was 35), you have to think about your ultimate future...retirement! Under the current railroad retirement, which is 60 years old with atleast 30 years service, I will have to work an additional 5 years just to get my 30 years in.
I can't just walk away at nearly 42 years of age and expect to find a job such as this. But just because a job has good pay and benefits doesn't mean it's not a screwed up place to work.

All those rules in your rule book are there to protect you and others, but they serve a dual purpose in that the company can use them against you should you become injured or cause damage or injury to others.

Trust me Kyle...if I could find a 9 to 5 job with weekends off and could get paid the same with same insurance and such, I'd fill out those resignation papers. Incidentally...I don't think they have resignation papers. Most people just walk out and never show up again. A lot of them don't even turn their radio and other gear back in. I'm not sure what the railroad does about it, but I've heard of several over the years who just vanished and never made another day on the railroad. Railroad radios, lanterns, air gauges, switch keys and all sorts of other employee equipment seem to show up at a lot of the "train shows" that are hosted around the US, so I'd be willing to bet that quite a few of those came from former employees who decided to keep the goodies they were issued.

[beltontigers]

No no, not taking it personally...i'm just stating the same thing i've heard from my friends on the railroad..

Yea as far as trying to have a life, i know it's damn near impossible when you work for the RR. This i knew long before i decided to get on myself. My dad also works for the BNSF, so i see first hand what the life entails...yet i still decided to do this.

[gemleeus]

JMHO,

I was hired by NS several years ago when the hiring sessions were going full steam, they were putting people on right and left. bladeslinger is exactly correct concerning hiring process. don't waste your time cause they will find you out, the rr's have their own police dept. for petes shake and at a federal level at that! I had a background in heavy equipment scrappers, doziers, loaders etc. i guess thats why i was hired on the first session and probably barely squeaked by on the math and reading portion of the test lol. considered myself to have good common sense on the "pyscho" test. within a week i was in mcdonough, ga. going thru training. the training center was a blast, had a lot of fun, nice people good food, really easy to get thru.

the field training wasn't bad either, all the employees i trained under were nice folks i felt they wanted to see you succeed, and being in the field training with them you'll certainly get the real low down on how things really work being a railroad man or woman. bladeslinger is also right about telling them at the interveiw your a rail buff, i did and the interveiwer just rolled her eyes but of course i still was hired, but remember that was several years ago. in the small yards north of inman was easy. you build up the trains for crews to work the industries, no big deal, you have a sheet telling you where to put what. the local industry work up north ga. wasn't to complicated either, it seemed like you just had to pay attention real good to where your going and what you needed to do when you got there. working a large plant was the job to have. coal plants, paper mills, chemical etc. if its a large enough business they have a set of dedicated locomotives where you just set in a hut and wait on the plant to call you when they need something moved, man those guys that worked them jobs had some serious senority, the one i trained on for a week we probably made 3 moves average per day the rest of the time you sit there reading the paper and talking with one another = this is where you'll get the real scope how railroad life is, i felt as though they felt sorry for me, no joke lol.

running the main line was a blast, thats want i wanted to do, but of course so did most everyone else, i could tell right off the bat i probably wouldn't get to do much of that. ya know that dreaded senority thing! lol. here in lies the problem with mainline work, for me anyway. i'm the type of person that sleeps well with a fan running or a clothes drier, ya know the constant buzzing or whriling sound. well the few times i got to train on the mainline where at night. the train would leave out of inman headed to debutts (chattanooga, tn.) i had plenty of rest, ( my training was in the winter months) you sit shotgun in front of the conductor, after getting out of the inman area, where you may stop several times within a few miles and blow a lot of whistles, the poop hit the fan with me. the inside of the cab is nice and toasty, the constant humming of that massive diesel engine the gentle swaying back and forth inside the cab of that monster absolutely put me to sleep a few times and had to be woke up by the conductor in order to call out the junctions over the radio as we approached them. they just laughed and told me i would get used to it not to worry, it concerned me because that light sleep those few times just made me more tired during the trip, which would take our whole shift and sometimes longer to get into debutts. of the 4 times i was training on the main with a unit going into debutts i only seen the scope of that massive yard one time, the other 3 we ran out of time and had to be taken to the motel. so what i'm getting to is the railroad , of course, realizes these problems. there are alerters in the locomotive that go off periodcally and the engineer pushes a button and the noise stops ( most locomotives i was in the alerters were disabled) they also preach at you concerning the type of food you should eat in order to keep yourself alert.

the railroad ( if it hasn't changed) has to give you a 8 hour break between shifts, federal law. but here lies that problem. you get off work after your shift, it takes you 30 min. to an hour to get home ( average) your hungry, you eat and wind down for approx. 30 min. you take a bath apprx. 15-20 mins. you get in the bed, takes me about 30 min to fall a sleep ( during the daytime mostly, factor in normal daily noise in trying to fall a sleep) by law they can call you within 1.5 hours before your 8 hour rest is up. so actually you may only have 5 hours to sleep before you have to go do it all over again. and you can bet your last dollar they WILL call you!

for all you ladys out there, once i went to the marietta square, they were having a craft show, so lots of people were crossing the tracks back and forth. because of this the csx had to slow down its units coming into the square until they cleared this event. anyway i was standing there checking out craft tent and here comes a huge consist just creeping down the tracks, it started slow to a crawl approx. 300 yds. away, it blasted the horns 4 times at about 100 yds. i mean hard blasts, got everyones attention, so after that it hit the horns maybe twice, just a slight nudge on the lever not very loud. it was 4 dash 9's all coal seemed like it was 2 miles long. so it just crept up to the crossing, sounded like barely mechanical braking but the dynamics where going to town ( man what a beautiful, powerful sound ya know) everyone turns and looks up into the cab and looking down at us is this gourgeous YOUNG lady in the right seat (engineer) sunglasses and just smiled so pretty and waved, beauitful white teeth, the power expelled a couple blasts of air as it was easing across the crossing there and everybody jumped and she just laughed. it was really a sight to see, just a petite little thing in control of that beast.

so thats just a little of my experience with railroading. not meaning to discourage as more trying to prepare someone interested in this as to what will transpire. i met several folks that were just cut out for this type of job. but it is a job and they take it very seriously.

[heavyd]

I wasn't trying to knock those who like it either. I had a terrible time and really hope my experience was isolated. I am sure there are many ppl out there who hire out in area that are more geared towards new trainees with a positive learning enviornment. The terminal that I hired out in was very negative towards trainees. We were the plague. They didn't care at all. Our training was very insuffient in my opinion. The crews I worked with really don't have any training themselves to be instructing trainees. They don't have any obligation or criteria to instuct a trainee. Most guys were great to work with, but when the end of the day came there was just too many questions left unanswered, "Oh don't worry about that right now/We don't have time for that right now/Here's 10 buck go get us some coffee..." The terminal that I trained in was the largest for my RR nation wide. However, the training program was the same time length(about 5 months) for all terminals. Most other terminals were only half the size of mine so the learning experience would have been easier somewhere else.

My class started with 16 ppl, I was the 8th person to leave. Actually when we quit, they were very serious about getting all their stuff back. Radios and keys had to be returned for security reasons or they would send the RR cops after you. They don't want a potental pissed-off disgruntle former employee with main-line switch keys at large. When I quit they didn't have a fancy form, I just wrote, "I resign" on a blank piece of paper and signed it.

For those who have hired on and just love it I really am jealous. I wanted so bad to enjoy the job. I still think I should have hired on in a smaller terminal where it would have been easier to learn that job. But you don't know until you go. I still have that dream, I would love to try again. But, all the stuff we have been discussing here just seems to haunt me. I am lucky, I am diesel technician by trade so employment isn't an issue with me. For those who don't have something to fall back on I totally understand you still need to work and eat. Every city is different just like every RR. I am sure there are some great locations out there for new hires. I just wish I found one when I had my chance.

[beltontigers]

I hired out of the same terminal my father works out of. This alone got me accepted w/ his friends. But more than that, many of the old heads (and newer guys), are more than willing to answer questions. Several times a day, i have guys asking me if there was anything i needed help with. I've had guys sit down w/ me for 45 minutes at a time (instead of going home after work) to answer questions and explain.

Most of the guys up there love it. But there is the few that hate it, and are only there because of the pay. So far i've loved every second of my training, and where i work out of, many of the guys, like i said, are some of the nicest guys you'd ever meet....

So i guess it really does depend on where u work out of.