Union Pacific in Seattle

Hello everyone,

I am currently a new conductor with BNSF. My primary recall is to a location I am not that fond of. It is nice to have a good career started though and my foot in the door. Before I hired out I was looking down the road to move up with some family back to the Seattle-Tacoma area. Though for us BNSF conductors, we have to lose all our seniority to get up that part of the system. Didn't know that until I hired out. With me having less than a year with the company and a recall for five years, my chances of moving up that area of the country are pretty slim. The sooner the better to lose all your seniority to start over again rather than later. They only process the permenant TYE transfers once every quarter, the next time coming up in Nov.

But I just happened to notice UP is hiring out of Seattle. Do they have a big presence in Seattle? Where do they run to? And is it really worth quitting BNSF to go to UP? What I have seen you can be fairly fluid in where you want to go and what you want to do with BNSF. How is it with UP? Remember seeing somewhere UP has district seniority not system wide. How many different districts are there? And is it hard to transfer between the two of them? The post closes 12/31/07, does it take a long time to get back with you after they close it? Just wanted to know, sorry for so many questions.

Thank you very kindly,

Dude

IMO, I'd stay with the BN. You are already trained, off of your derail and can transfer to the new area establishing seniority, whereas with the UP you would have to start all over again in the next few months.

With the UP, as a trainman, you can transfer between hubs (seniority swaps with other trainmen, very hard to do, the local union must approve as well as CMS), but once you hire out, you are basically owned by the hub and the crew bases within the hub. Once you promote to engineer, forget about a transfer outside of your hub in which you hired out of. That is the main reason I left the UP and came over to Amtrak, nationwide seniority (except the NE Corridor).

Both RR's have the same BS going for them, but from what I have read here in the forums over the past 3 years, and talking with guys over at the BN, the BN guys seem alot happier than those on the UP.

Good luck.

As far as UP in Seattle, it's kind of an outpost. When I was in Portland, the lower seniority guys would get forced up there when crews were tight (and I knew a few that voluntarily went up there because it's a lot easier terminal to learn). They have the usual yard jobs and some local road freight as well as dog catching anything north of Tacoma. The "North End" engineer pool is based out of there, which is unusual because Portland is the crew base for all the other directions in the hub. I also know that the extra board guys work a lot less than the Portland crews.

Seattle is BNSF country, but I know that UP operates some important trains into there. Seattle on the UP system reminds me of CSX in St. Louis....its the end point on their system, and while CSX operates some important trains into Rose Lake, they are nowhere near the busiest railroad in that market.

Lakeshore Dave