My husband has been offered a conductor position in Los Angeles and we are in the middle of the approval process. We have had a few questions come up that I'm hoping somebody here can help us out with. 1. The housing market in LA is tough; we're looking at having to relocate from Seattle. Where are people commuting from? 2. In looking over the available materials on the training and testing process, we're curious about what the final exam is like. I know you have to score 90% to pass, but what is the pass rate? Are there study guides out there that we could get now? Any advice you wish you'd had when you went through training? 3. In terms of the jobs available and getting bumped, how is the work in LA? We have several friends who are conductors up here in the Seattle area, but they don't have first hand knowledge of the staffing levels and work load down there. Is there enough work to keep the new guys very busy? Any input would be a huge help. Thanks!
As in real estate for L.A. its expensive. Do you know which part of L.A. he would be working? If downtown L.A. try Altadena, south pasadena, Alhambra, monterey park,rosemead,san gabriel,sierra madre,santa anita, relatively cheap housing good neighborhoods close to the mission yards if hes working down town. If your a nurse, plenty of nursing jobs. Alot of understaffing. If you have ED,IC,Tele experience there are a ton of private companys looking for transport nurses. Laid back, easy and good $. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
When I took my conductors final, it was about 320 multiple choice questions. There were also diagrammed scenarios as part of the exam. Your husband will have most of the day to complete the exam. The norm is 4 - 6 hours. I dont know the pass/fail rate, but from personal experience it appears to 80%+ passing. In my conductors class of 17, only one failed. a couple more just squeaked through under the wire. If the % rate is 89.5 or greater it is rounded off to 90%. Your wrong answers are given to you for further review as an FYI. The engineers final is an even bigger beast as there are 3 exams , but not all taken on the same day. There is the G.C.O.R.(rules), Air Brake and Train Handling and Mechanical. The mechanical is an open-book exam. The reason for that being your ability to recognize a problem,what it involves, and how to handle it. The answers are found in the book, the examinee has to give the chapter and page for the answer. The best way to take the exam is to be well rested, don't pull an all-nighter trying to cram for the test. Eat a full breakfast, dress comfortably, dont rush through the exam, if there is a problem answering a question, move on to the next one and go back later, often you will find a question that will provide the answer to the question you skipped over. Break a leg! Charlie (retired BNSF engineer and conductor)
My husband has been offered a conductor position in Los Angeles and we are in the middle of the approval process. We have had a few questions come up that I'm hoping somebody here can help us out with. Congratulations to him! I'm about five weeks into the conductor training program up in South Dakota, having moved from San Diego. 1. The housing market in LA is tough; we're looking at having to relocate from Seattle. Where are people commuting from? I can't offer much in the way of this question other than to reiterate J's point about the expense of living in southern California. It's steep. 2. In looking over the available materials on the training and testing process, we're curious about what the final exam is like. I know you have to score 90% to pass, but what is the pass rate? Are there study guides out there that we could get now? Any advice you wish you'd had when you went through training? From what I understand (mind you, I'm still ten weeks from the final..), the final exam is about 280 questions with the aforementioned 90% or better passing rate; that said, what I've heard is that the failure rate is pretty low. As far study guides are concerned, your husband will be provided with a gigantic notebook of study materials (the crux of which is the GCOR - General Code of Operating Rules). This will have all the information he needs. As a student in the program, I would advise against utilizing outside training aids.. there is already so much information to take in and it's quite confusing until he starts his "on the road" training.There are several study guides uploaded to Quizlet but they won't do much for him except cause confusion until his actual class covers the material. 3. In terms of the jobs available and getting bumped, how is the work in LA? We have several friends who are conductors up here in the Seattle area, but they don't have first hand knowledge of the staffing levels and work load down there. Is there enough work to keep the new guys very busy? I can't speak on the work in LA or their staffing levels but what I can tell you is that seniority is EVERYTHING in this job. It determines whether or not you're furloughed (laid-off) and which jobs you can hold. At a yard, there are typically "pool" jobs, which are longer, relatively consistent trips to the same places, albeit different trains / loads. People in the pool generally stay in the pool unless they are "bumped" by someone with more seniority or when someone leaves it. There are "extra boards" for Engineers, Conductors and at some yards, for Brakemen (Assistant Conductors). These boards fill the vacancies in the pool or other jobs when the regulars take time off or call-in sick. These are also seniority based. If your husband is bumped or cannot "hold" at his home terminal due to his seniority, they may temporarily force him to a different terminal until he has enough seniority to bump someone at his home terminal. I hope this helps! Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have. Spooky
I am also in the process with BNSF for LA. Does anyone know if the new hires are getting laid off right off the bat, or is business on an upward swing and everyone is staying busy? Also I have a question about the work in L.A. is it 50/50 road/yard? Does anyone know what the pay is like AFTER training?
cant tell you what the work mix is but in Chicago we had to be qualified as conductors/switchman/brakemen/hostlers. In Chicago terminals we have yard switching, pool freights, inter-divisional pool freights(on the BN side),road switchers(locals) industry switching, and passenger trains(METRA commuter trains-BNSF is a contractor to them)working passenger service also requires an AMTRAK rules exam as AMTRAK owns Chicago Union Terminal. Pay varies from job to job and job type to job type. It is all under union schedule. Your union LC or griever should give you a copy of the union constitution and the pay scales. As you might guess, the best paying jobs are held by the old heads. If you work the passenger brakeman extra board you can make decent money because you stand the chance of catching a good paying day commuter job. The commuter trains are only day and afternoon/evening. There are no middle of the night commuter trains on METRA. Yard jobs pay the least and you get to work outside most of the time. In SoCal that is not a problem but up in the Great Midwest we have a phenomenon called winter. You dont really wanna be outside in winters in this area unless you are going ice fishing which is usually from September thru May. Again most of this applies only if you are working in Chicago. There should be a decent mix of jobs in L.A. Go for it. Best wishes to you! Charlie
thanks for the response, I'm just afraid of getting marked up in la, getting a apartment out there for like 1300-1600 bucks per month then getting laid off and having to move to like kansas to chase work then get an apartment out there and having like 50bucks a pay check. But it is a possibility of the job. I currently have another offer from NS too it seems like the pay is lower then bnsf. I just want to know if it possible to make ends meet out there in LA on a conductors salary. I would feel comfortable if there was a guarantee but it seemed like at the hiring session no one could give an exact answer to the pay other then the training pay.
I know what you are saying! I worked with and had displaced trainmen doing qualifying trips with me in both the yard and commuter service. No sooner did they make a couple of trips and they were out on the street again. A great many of them were around long enough to get measured for METRA uniforms. All I know is that there are a lot of guys out there who got a uniform issue that is totally useless to them. A lot of these guys had new vehicles and had payments to make. Dunno how many of them got a visit from the RE-PO man, but so many of them moved around so much, the Re-Po man had to find them first. Right now, the carriers are busy, but tend to slow down toward the end of the year. Most furloughs occur after the 1st of the year, but that is not a hard,fast rule. Fortunately I was never furloughed but I came damn close once, that's when a bunch of us went to Galesburg. We were "turnin' and burnin' " there. I think J911 can give you some good insight. Hang in there! Charlie
