Railroad Management

GN 599 wrote:I would'nt mind being a Road Foreman, all those guys seem to have to do is harp on people for stretch and power braking, download tapes and screw off.

The words of someone who's obviously never been a Road Foreman.

I have yet to see a decent operating manager who did not come out of the ranks.

Now if we're talking about the guys in legal, finance, sales, logistics, etc, well, they are not really rails. They might as well be working for any mega corporation as their skillsets are not specific to the railroad industry. The guy above could work in sales or shipping for Wonderbread and get just as much job satisfaction at seeing a kid eating a peanut butter sandwich as he does at the sight of a passing train. His contribution to the end result is just as relevent.

If management is your long term goal, I'd say get that degree first. It will open more doors for you, especially later in life.

I don't think I could be called a Naysayer as this is what I actually experienced. Very unprofessional workplace. Odds are it was probably the road I hired on with.

I'm no dummy. So getting yelled at had nothing to do with my actual decisions or job performance. Had a college degree from a big university in the Boston area and a 3.5 GPA. Did eight years in other transportation fields prior to going to the rails.

Got tired of the operations department and took another management job in marketing in-house to stay on the railroad. Did that for 2 more years, but there was no desire on the part of senior management to improve the service, so business kept declining and found that was always marketing's fault.

Sorry but maybe it was my own unique experience, but I got tired of the bullsh_t and moved on to trucking. Get paid more and treated like a human being.

You guys with the positive management experiences are lucky. I have some friends in Commuter Rail that have similar pleasant experiences.

But for me - again - being in RR management sucked. Being honest is not being a naysayer.

Now if we're talking about the guys in legal, finance, sales, logistics, etc, well, they are not really rails. They might as well be working for any mega corporation as their skillsets are not specific to the railroad industry.

... so like the railroad attorney who specializes in FELA or grade crossing litigation... or the electronic commerce guy who specializes in rail information data transmission, CLMs, and freight billing.... or the marketing guy who has to have an intimate knowledge of unit train economics and operations in order to tailor a competitive service for a customer (and provide all those T&E guys work)...

Cowford wrote:

Now if we're talking about the guys in legal, finance, sales, logistics, etc, well, they are not really rails. They might as well be working for any mega corporation as their skillsets are not specific to the railroad industry.

... so like the railroad attorney who specializes in FELA or grade crossing litigation... or the electronic commerce guy who specializes in rail information data transmission, CLMs, and freight billing.... or the marketing guy who has to have an intimate knowledge of unit train economics and operations in order to tailor a competitive service for a customer (and provide all those T&E guys work)...

Yes, those are all fairly generic fields not specific to the rail industry. Those folks come and go with boring regularity. Didn't we already cover this?

...so grade crossing litigation is NOT specific to the rail industry? So experience in such a field can apply to, say, your Wonderbread factory example. Employer: "What makes you uniquely qualified to work for a bread making company?" Applicant: "I have 10 years of experience in grade crossing litigation." Employer: "WOW! You're HIRED!"

Cowford wrote:...so grade crossing litigation is NOT specific to the rail industry? So experience in such a field can apply to, say, your Wonderbread factory example. Employer: "What makes you uniquely qualified to work for a bread making company?" Applicant: "I have 10 years of experience in grade crossing litigation." Employer: "WOW! You're HIRED!"

Is that the answer you would give in such a situation? Do you always pigeonhole yourself? Are a lawyer's skills strictly limited to grade crossing litigation in the same manner that a locomotive engineer's skills are limited to operating a train? Surely you are not suggesting something so idiotic and inane as that a lawyer who has specialized in grade crossing litigation (if there even are lawyers with such an extremely narrow scope) would be unable to apply that experience in relatively similar fields or be employable at companies outside of the rail industry. So what good is that college degree if, as you indicate, you are now trapped in your current narrow field? Wasn't a good part of the purpose of getting that degree in the first place to expand your employment options? Don't go getting all butthurt just because I pointed out the obvious fact that those skillsets are most definitely not limited to the rail industry. How about giving yourself a little credit rather than simply resigning yourself to being stuck in a dead end job/field?

Employer: "What makes you uniquely qualified to work for a bread making company?"

Applicant: "I have 10 years of experience successfully representing a rail transportation company in liability litigation resulting from employee injuries and motor vehicle accidents. I believe that the extensive experience in accident investigation, reconstruction, and subsequent courtroom proceedings that I would bring to your company make me uniquely qualified to represent your company and it's distribution operations in similar matters."

Easy Cowboy. No need for the pep talk or snide comments- I'm hardly in a deadend job. You are correct in that T&E employees are more narrowly trained- in general- than management folks, but you don't seem to understand that, regardless of schooling, years of experience in any chosen field or industry often place you into buckets. Railroad managers are no different. To continue the lawyer example: Yes, there ARE RR attorneys out there that specialize in grade crossing litigation, FELA claims, RRB issues, interstate commerce law, etc. They do great work, but I wouldn't hire one of them to help me with my estate planning or divorce. And you wouldn't find many law firms out there that would, either.

I can not only appreciate that people do indeed fall into "buckets" to a certain extent, but also that those buckets are also larger than you suggest and much more often than not span multiple industries. Yes, I probably would not want a corporate lawyer trying to defend me on murder charges. It is probably not difficult to focus on one of the handful of jobs that may fall into a smaller bucket than most, ie the grade crossing litigation attorney. Even so, he is likely familiar with accident investigation, accident reconstruction, forensics, courtroom litigation, etc among other skills that would crossover to other industries quite well. I can see someone with such experience going to work for an insurance company. I would agree that railroad operational managers may also fall into a smaller bucket than others. But data transmission, sales, billing? Come on, data networks are data networks, sales are sales, billing and accounting is billing and accounting, regardless of whether it's boxcars or Beanie Babies.

That's simply not true. First of all, sales requires product knowledge, industry insight, and connections. There is also consultative sales, technical sales, relationship sales, etc. All require different skill sets and experience. A railroad sales guy or gal is in tune with railroad operations and economics... and it's a relationship play. The skills they learn can translate into other industries but it's limited. Go talk to a railroad sales manager and ask him how much he sees sales folks floating in and out of the industry. It's not very common.

Cowford, therein lies part of the problem. Many of the railroad sales/marketing people today don't have the knowledge of the operational side. Ask any mid-level operating person and chances are he can tell horror stories of marketing promising things which just can't be delivered. In theory there should be close interaction, but it does not always work that way.

If you have the skill, panache, personality, and charisma to sell, you can sell. Product/service is irrelevent. You can always do your homework on what is that you are selling.

Yeah, and if you can learn to operate a locomotive, you've got the skill set needed to operate a forklift, bulldozer, truck, etc. But you're not going to make six figures doing so. Delta - I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Aji-tator- you're spot on about the interaction. Railroad sales and marketing folks are not supposed to be as knoweldgable about ops as a a local TM or Supt. But the two camps operate in such a siloed environment that communication between the two suffers. I've seen M&S make really poor decisions because they didn't consult ops folks... I've also seen ops guys totally f*&# up a customer because they changed an ops plan without consulting M&S. Stop me, I could go on and on about this subject!

Cowford wrote:Yeah, and if you can learn to operate a locomotive, you've got the skill set needed to operate a forklift, bulldozer, truck, etc.

To a small extent this is true, especially if one is mechanically inclined and has a natural ability to operate equipment. However, that doesn't aptly describe most employees in train service. I sure that transitioning from selling rail service to selling most other servcies or products is MUCH easier done than transitioning from train service to operating a bulldozer. I don't understand why you even keep bothering to belabor arguing the point. Like I said, no need for you to get all defensive and butthurt about the obvious. And I am actually agreeing with you on the underlying point of this thread, which is that a degree can expand one's employment options throughout their career.

I sure that transitioning from selling rail service to selling most other servcies or products is MUCH easier done than transitioning from train service to operating a bulldozer.

Butthurt? I'm laughing!