Railroad Forums 

  • NJT engineer looking to move south

  • General discussion about working in the railroad industry. Industry employers are welcome to post openings here.
General discussion about working in the railroad industry. Industry employers are welcome to post openings here.

Moderator: thebigc

 #648743  by njtengr74
 
Im currently a locomotive engineer for new jersey transit, I contacted tri-rail about transfer or other employment. They simply shrugged me off and said there is no jobs at all....Any truth to this??? help a fellow enrg out....thanks for any posts
 #648789  by Noel Weaver
 
Tri-Rail does not employe the engineers and conductors but this is farmed out to a contractor. Their pay is nowhere near
what NJT pays and the operating crews are not even under Railroad Retirement. It is not a place that I would want to work
if I had already paid into the Railroad Retirement fund. The crews here are under the same "goldfish bowl" that they are
everywhere else.
I don't think they are hiring at present and unless there is an expansion in service in the future, I do not think the future is
too bright either.
My advice to you is to STAY PUT.
Noel Weaver
 #648791  by njtengr74
 
thank you for the post reply....how about amtrak????any other rail companies you might know of worth a look at?? Thank you for your time.
 #649189  by Jtgshu
 
njtengr74 wrote:thank you for the post reply....how about amtrak????any other rail companies you might know of worth a look at?? Thank you for your time.
Whooohooo!!! Move up!!! :) hahahaha Just kidding njtengr74 - well not really :)
 #649282  by slchub
 
Go to the Amtrak website and look for the jobs down south. You just missed a great opportunity within the past few years to basically slide on over to Amtrak without having to place a lot of time in the training seat as a re-entry engineer. Now you'll spend 8 weeks in Delaware and do your time to satisfy the federal requirements for a student engineer.

I made the move to Amtrak from the Union Pacific without a bat of the eye and have not looked back since. I have visited all three crew bases in Florida (Jacksonville, Sanford and Miami) and am looking forward to transferring down there when the economy improves.

I've looked at the other railroads (not many in Florida other than Amtrak, CSX and NS) and most do not contribute to RRB and have an average pay of $14-15 an hour for the hogger (all short lines).
 #653505  by keithsy
 
Stay where you are. You are building union seniority and you have union rights. The south is right-to-work. The living might be sweet, but you have it good for your $$$ future. I would never work below the Mason-Dixon Line.
 #653641  by jz441
 
Tri-Rail is now operated by Veolia (Connex), who operates MBCR in Boston and Metrolink in LA area... They are also UTU represented property.
 #654064  by blabey
 
I'd like to correct some misinformation in a previous post. Any T&E employee working for a common carrier shortline or regional railroad IS covered by the RRA. The Act applies to every Class 2 or Class 3 railroad in the USA. It does not, however, apply to crews working in industrial switching operations that are not common carriers or to trolley or light rail transit operations.
 #658639  by Noel Weaver
 
blabey wrote:I'd like to correct some misinformation in a previous post. Any T&E employee working for a common carrier shortline or regional railroad IS covered by the RRA. The Act applies to every Class 2 or Class 3 railroad in the USA. It does not, however, apply to crews working in industrial switching operations that are not common carriers or to trolley or light rail transit operations.
You are not correcting anything, I know people who have worked for them. The crews are employed by a contractor and not
by a railroad thus they are not part of the Railroad Retirement Act.
Noel Weaver
 #658871  by slchub
 
Noel Weaver wrote:
blabey wrote:I'd like to correct some misinformation in a previous post. Any T&E employee working for a common carrier shortline or regional railroad IS covered by the RRA. The Act applies to every Class 2 or Class 3 railroad in the USA. It does not, however, apply to crews working in industrial switching operations that are not common carriers or to trolley or light rail transit operations.
You are not correcting anything, I know people who have worked for them. The crews are employed by a contractor and not
by a railroad thus they are not part of the Railroad Retirement Act.
Noel Weaver
You can call the RRB and ask the rep if the RR you are interested in working for contributes to RRB. Many short lines do not. And there are some Class 2 & 3's which do not. Believe me, I've talked to several RR's in the SE US who do not contribute and pay their hoggers $13-16 an hour.
 #659011  by Noel Weaver
 
slchub wrote:
Noel Weaver wrote:
blabey wrote:I'd like to correct some misinformation in a previous post. Any T&E employee working for a common carrier shortline or regional railroad IS covered by the RRA. The Act applies to every Class 2 or Class 3 railroad in the USA. It does not, however, apply to crews working in industrial switching operations that are not common carriers or to trolley or light rail transit operations.
You are not correcting anything, I know people who have worked for them. The crews are employed by a contractor and not
by a railroad thus they are not part of the Railroad Retirement Act.
Noel Weaver
You can call the RRB and ask the rep if the RR you are interested in working for contributes to RRB. Many short lines do not. And there are some Class 2 & 3's which do not. Believe me, I've talked to several RR's in the SE US who do not contribute and pay their hoggers $13-16 an hour.
When you retire from the railroad and collect your Railroad Retirement, you can't work for any railroad or union with pay or
you lose your retirement benefits for that period. I was told I could work for Tri-Rail by a good friend with connections at
that time but I said if I still wanted to run trains, I would have stayed in New York State and continue to work for Conrail.
Being that the Tri-Rail people are not covered by Railroad Retirement, a retired railroader collecting a RR pension can still
work for the contractor operating Tri-Rail trains without a loss of their railroad pension. Thanks but NO THANKS.
Noel Weaver
 #659611  by blabey
 
Before you accept hearsay or rumors as "fact" when it comes to who may or may not be covered by the Railroad Retirement Act, you may want to check with the Railroad Retirement Board itself - or look up the Railroad Retirement Act of 1935. Frankly, if you're told that a particular Class 2 or Class 3 railroad does not provide RRA coverage for its employees, that company is violating Federal statutes (unlikely, since the penalties are severe) - or (more likely), the person who gave you the information is misinformed.

Let me quote from the Act -- 45 U.S.C. 231(a), parts i and ii:

The term "employer" shall include :

i. any express company, sleeping car company and carrier by railroad subject to the Interstate Commerce Act.

ii. any company which is directly or indirectly owned by, or under common control with one or more employers as defined in paragraph i of this subdivision, and which operates any equipment or facility or performs any service (except trucking service...) in connection with transportation of passengers or property by railroad.

Those provisions give the Railroad Retirement Board very broad jurisdiction. As I said in my earlier post, the Railroad Retirement Act mandates that employees of ALL common carrier railroads participate in the Railroad Retirement System rather than the Social Security System. By the way, when the term "common carrier" is used, I mean any railroad company handling freight in interstate commerce that is subject to the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board (STB). (The language from the 1935 RRA Act refers to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the STB is the successor regulatory body for the industry.)

Switching operations (contract or otherwise) located inside an industrial facility are not common carriers, since they are not subject to the STB. Most museum or Disneyland-type operations aren't under the STB either, nor are light rail systems like the SF Muni, transit and subway lines like BART or the DC Metro, or a handful of intrastate-only industrial lines (Connecticut's Brantford Steam RR, the narrow gauge line operated by US Gypsum at Plaster City, CA and the Erie Mining RR come to mind.)

Other than the exceptions mentioned, you have a common carrier railroad --- and if it's such a railroad, employees are covered by Railroad Retirement.