Lesson of the day:Do as your told!!

Crap that's funny.

-s

Yardmasters are a funny breed. Generally, they're just clerks with a radio. And they're wannabe Conductors. Like I tell them, just tell me what the finished product should look like and I'll take care of the manufacturing.

They also have some strange concepts regarding the use of the word "we". "We" have a motor swap in Dover or "we" have six OK's on S&I 2 West to go get. We? Who exactly is we? "We" consists of my Conductor, engineer and myself. We are the ones that will perform the work while you sit there and push your pencil. I love the way they try to inject themselves into the action.

thebigc wrote:Yardmasters are a funny breed. Generally, they're just clerks with a radio. And they're wannabe Conductors.
You sit there and push your pencil. I love the way they try to inject themselves into the action.

Im kinda gonna stick up for yardmasters here Maybe our "tower guys" have alot more on there plate. All the times i made it up to visit, scared the crap out me. Multi tasking at its best, like you said in general over the whole country alot might be like clerks with radios, but some tower jobs make train dispatching seem easy. I think...... when they say we...... they mean we the railroad want you to do this, management wants. Maybe not in all cases.

Back at the CNW we had a couple of, shall we say, high-strung yardmasters. One of them was a pretty good guy who went from the ground to the tower, but I think the job was ruining him - they were always screwing him pretty good. Think I remember him pulling three shifts in a row once.
But we had this one guy. I'm usually pretty bad with names, but for some reason I remember his. He obtained the nickname "Screamer". He'd get on the radio and just rant and rave. One time we were piloting a Conrail crew into the yard. I don't remember what we did, it was a long time ago, but he didn't like a move we made so he goes off. Finally, after a minute or so, the Conrail Conductor gets on and tells him maybe, if he'd shut the h*** up for a minute, we could just finish our move and they could go home. This yardmaster actually pissed a guy from another road off so bad that, after heading back to his terminal and tying up, he came back to the tower and waited for him to come down so he could kick his a**. When the screamer came down, the Conductor asked, "are you so-and-so?"
"No, he's still upstairs", and he scurried off. Made things interesting for the poor guy who was still up in the tower when he came down!

We've got a few guys like that here, the best one is the overnight guy. He's a good guy when everything is smooth, but he gets a few flies in the ointment and it's meltdown time. Usually in a very public way, like on the yard or road channel. He went absolutely nuclear on a road crew once that were ready to go dead and reminded him one too many times. It's like dinner theatre with him, pull up a seat and a bottled water and listen to the show. That being said, I wouldn't want the job, all the heat you take from everyone. There is definitely a big picture that most don't see when dealing with the guy in the tower, I try my best not to get aggravated whenever he hoses me.

UPRR engineer wrote:
Im kinda gonna stick up for yardmasters here

Yeah, we've got good and bad as well. I wasn't trying to piegonhole all yardies.

Our best yardmasters are usually in the busiest yards. Its the ones in the smaller terminals, that think their yard is the focus of the entire railroad, that usually try to get their fingers in the pie. They wanna be the conductor and they haven't figured out how to be a good yardie yet!

And we've got one guy who likes to sell wolf tickets from the safety of the tower. Real tough guy/smart ass. Until you call him out or he hears footsteps on the stairs and locks the door. Only problem is he's in charge of their local and the new guys think that's the way to be a yardie and treat your crews. Not so.