SantaFeGuy wrote:Right now BNSF and KCS require it. BNSF has not advertised a conductor position for months, but I got hired recently. The ONLY reason was NARS so posts from 2005 and early 2006 don't reflect the realities of late 2006 and 2007. The economy isn't going to pick up until maybe 09 so if you want to work for the RR you'd better go to school.
BNSF and KCS don't require NARS. They give "preferential consideration" to applicates that passed, but legally they can't require it. Read the applications. Something to do with EEO. They do both say they require a 90% or better at NARS on your GCOR, but KCS is the only one of the two that actually inforces that because it is our training instead of the 13 or 15 weeks BN and SF use, respectively.
And since we use it for our training with an added 2 weeks in Shreveport, new hires that haven't been through NARS already are sent by KCS. Although I wouldn't bank on that right now, cause the freeze has been on so long that there a ton of NARS grads wanting jobs, so KCS has the pick of the litter for now at least. They were up there last month or month before recruiting from what a friend in HR told me. Why couldn't they have gone when I was there?
Sitting out of work for almost a year stunk. Such bad luck.