Books?

Forget books about railroads, but maybe that Get a RR Job Book can give some resume pointers I dont know. If you get an interview, focus on safety. Safety is your #1 priority when coming to work, and most class 1 RR's tell you that safety is a condition of employeement.

As far as having previous experience goes, yea I had it before hiring on with NS. It's all in how you present yourself. I had over seven years in, but NEVER act like I know everything. My brain is a sponge, and I try to learn something new everytime I come to work. I work with guys who hired out last year and you cant tell them anything. This is a profession in which you never know everything, there is always something new to learn. Defenetally have to come into it with an open mind.

[/quote]We have folks who came from other class I's and short lines. Just last hew hire class had 2 guys from the short line. BNSF's theory is, if they managed not to get hurt working elsewhere, we can easily conform them to our standards and policy's. Now if that applicant from other railroad has had some discipline issues, they will find out and he will not get hired. No offense Drew, but I am sure glad not to work NS or CSX.... this place is a paradise compared to eastern RR's.[/quote]

I TOTALLY AGREE !!! So much in fact, I left NS and applied to BNSF. I received a conditional offer two weeks ago and start training July 11. From everything I've read about BNSF, they and CN are the top two freight RR's to work for (from an employee view), no contest. The pay, guarantee, step-rate, time off, and "power" are just a few of the many things that are much better at these two RR's than the rest.

I've always heard the opposite about CN.

Hell, they're all the same. They just paint their engines different colors.

jz441 wrote:

drewg350 wrote: I never said that was 100% the case, however it does seem to happen an awful lot: guys with experience are passed over in favor of guys without any. Now if it happens to be a location the carrier is having a difficult time filling, than they'll drop their standards and start accepting applicants who might not be considered in other places. So nothing is 100% certain one way or the other.

We have folks who came from other class I's and short lines. Just last hew hire class had 2 guys from the short line. BNSF's theory is, if they managed not to get hurt working elsewhere, we can easily conform them to our standards and policy's. Now if that applicant from other railroad has had some discipline issues, they will find out and he will not get hired. No offense Drew, but I am sure glad not to work NS or CSX.... this place is a paradise compared to eastern RR's.

With that said, how is UP to work for? Any UP guys here? Just curious.

GF

From what I understand, UP has good and bad places to work....

Thanks for the replies guys. There is plenty of food for thought.

I have a couple of years before I will seriously begin the job search. I plan to retire from my job in the federal prison system in two years at age 50, and am looking forward to starting something new. I'm tired of prisons and tired of thugs. The railroads I've looked at have excellent pay and benefits, and I've been doing shift work for nearly 25 years.

Crosstimbers Okie wrote:Thanks for the replies guys. There is plenty of food for thought.

I have a couple of years before I will seriously begin the job search. I plan to retire from my job in the federal prison system in two years at age 50, and am looking forward to starting something new. I'm tired of prisons and tired of thugs. The railroads I've looked at have excellent pay and benefits, and I've been doing shift work for nearly 25 years.

I started out as a young man (age 30) and in excellent physical condition. The work was hot, dirty, LONG, and not for the faint of heart. The days began with me following an old crane around the property loading rail, frogs, package switches, tie plates into and out of high side gons. At age 50 I could still do the job, but I noticed that I wasn't I was not quite the man I was twenty years before! However, by 50 I had built enough time to bid on less strenuous jobs such as Inventory Clerk, Storehousman, and Stockman. While I DID handle some heavy stuff, it wasn't as regular as it had been. Most of the time I was either pulling orders with a fork lift, or a "caraselle" that literally brought the parts to ME instead of my trudging thru the warehouse pulling out parts off the racks. We do not like to admit that we aren't 30 again! We also don't realize we have gotten "set" in our ways, and, WRT, the railroad, it is not likely a 50 year old man is going to "like" having men twenty years his junior being able to out-bid him for the better assignments, the better jobs. It can cause problems, and I saw this during my career. Older workers who "dovetailed" into our roster and who, thru the prevailing union agreement, had to go to the bottom of the list----oh, you should've heard the hue and cry about those young whippersnappers getting the 7-3:30 shift and THEY were forced to the 2nd-3rd trick. This is *MY* opinion, not necessarily correct as to what YOU will find, but I would not want to have to start out brand-new at age 50 on the railroad knowing what I know (from experience). Surely, you might not mind the wild hours, or the odd days off (if any), the stress that is inherent in the business. Railroading is NOT for the faint of heart. It has an environment like nothing you have ever seen before, like no civilian job you have ever worked. A person has to be very flexible to adapt to the peculiar railroad ways!

Then there is the retirement system that is unique to the railroads. All that has been explained before. If you have an adequate retirement, built up thru a state pension + social security, how you approach railroad retirement will greatly affect your total retirement income when you DO retire. If you don't do it right, you could FUBAR your total pension income by going under railroad retirement because, at retirement, you can collect ONE or the OTHER; not both---even tho you worked 20-30 years under SSI, it "rolls" (vesting occurs at 5 years) into railroad retirement and become Tier I under RRB. Normally, railroad retirees retire at age 60 and even if you work until age 67-68 (which may happen anyway eventually), you *may* not accrue enough credits to cause the total compensation to equal what it would have been under SSI. It all can vary.
IF it were ME, I wouldn't do it. YMMV and its all up to you. OTH, I guess ya gots to work *somewhere*!

jz441 wrote:
This is not entirely true! BNSF and UP gladly hire experienced railroaders from other class I's or short lines. It's true not to mention anything about rail fanning or Trains magazine. There have been some bad apples in the past who were convinced that they already knew it all since they follow the industry very closely.
I am not sure what RR do you work for Drew, but they sure have a strange selection process!

That might be true to a certian degree. The UP in 2006 was willing to hire me with almost 30 years experience they invited me to 8 new trainmen hiring sessions. My thinking was the only thing I would need to know is territory & signals most operationing rules are universal with the railroads. When I finnally talked to a human being at UP HR which they called me my experience didn't matter. Railroads want to train people to their standards an I was informed that my generation of railroaders were antiquated an obsolete. I still don't know what that means. lol