Not enough railroad workers?

I agree Barry! And kudos for the forthright answers. I have been in managment in broadcasting for many years and this too means odd hours, holidays, and weekends, and actually showing up for your LIVE shift on-the-air.

You wouldn't believe how many people fall short. And for all the reasons Barry outlines. There seems to be a non-conformist movement with younger workers, that will not allow them to be" told what to do by the man".

Not all subscribe to this belief obviously, but I've had a "few" over the years!

I too worked for the railroad...a Class1 during the Conrail split. (At tough time for anyone associated with this merger.) I left for personal reasons...I got married. I'm glad I did now, as my wife had cancer about 2 years later and I was able to be home with her to take care of her. I could not do that working for a Class1. I currently keep my hand in the business as a bridge tender part-time for a regional. They're wonderful. Very nice folks and have been very appreciative of my efforts in assisting them in keeping their bridge in good operating shape. They thank me for anything for the smallest efforts I put forth.

My wife wants me to go back to the railroad as she knows I loved it, but I haven't had any luck with the local shortlines. I don't think I'd work for a Class 1 again. A regional...yes! Absolutely.

Greg

 

Couple of comments:

There's a lot of truth in that Barry and I think the carriers realize it. There's an attitude among some (not all by any means) of the younger guys that they aren't going to be told what to do by anybody. I think the RR is trying to avoid that because many of the new-hires showing up on the property these days are older people. They usually come equipped with a work ethic but even if they want to, they can't possibly work long enough to make a career out of this. We keep seeing retired law enforcement, military or private sector workers...some already in their late 50's right out of the gate. Some are in it for the medical coverage, some for an extra income and a few just "always wanted to do that" but the motivation doesn't seem to be as high as someone who's truly in it for a living. There's nothing wrong with hiring older workers in itself but it doesn't change the high turnover rate. The outcome is the same, you spend a bundle of time and money to train someone who, good employee or not, likely won't hang in there more than a few years. The extremes at either end of the age scale just don't work. Something is seriously wrong with the screening process if only the very young with no past history or the semi-retired with a squeaky-clean record can get past the front door.
There has to be Joe Average people out there somewhere with kids to raise and bills to pay who see this as a career and a profession, not a McJob. It takes a certain kind of crazy that's for sure but I don't think crazy has ever been in short supply.

I know from my own POV, this is by far the toughest best thing I've ever done but I still have my wife and kids after all these years. Maybe the difference is, I NEED the work to support my family.

 

I'll ring in on this one. Seems that everyone was "hitting the nail on the head" with reasons why it's difficult to keep people. Still the facts are there and they will not change in the forseeable future.

1. Railroading is 24/7/365
2. Railroads are not "family friendly" employers nor will they ever be.
3. You must be prepared to be on call and be able to work at least twice within any given 24 hr period.
4. You must be willing to put in 12-20 hr days,this figure includes "tow-in time"
5. You must be willing to be away from home for days on end.
6. you must be willing to work without days off for VERY LONG periods of time.
7. While the pay is seductive, you must realize that railroad pay is about the middle of the "blue collar" pay scale. You can earn more as a plumber,electician or bricklayer and sleep in you own bed every night and have weekends off.
8 you must be prepared to work in the most inclement weather known to man,repeatedly, and for long periods of time.
9. you must be able to carry a 90lb knuckle for a mile or more.
10. You must be prepared to be screened for drugs/booze without warning.
11. you must be able to work on and around heavy machinery that is fast moving and prone to making moves contrary to what you expect.
there are many more,but let me give you some plusses
1. Like any and all jobs, it's one big game, once you know the rules ,you can play the game to your advantage.
2. With very little seniority these days, you can probably hold a regular job,with regular days off. It wont be the best job, but you can have a semblance of a regular life.
I know this to be a fact. I know people considerably "younger" than me in seniority who
are holding really good jobs AND making good money. On METRA, you could probably hold
a job on the Milwaukee District Line to Elgin/Big Timber Rd. and make $75K as a brakeman
with less than 5 yrs seniority and have weekends off. Why? Cuz its a "worker" and the
old heads want the jobs that lets them work the 2 or 3 stop expresses and they can sit on their @**es the rest of the time.
3. Work for a railroad that has passenger service and bid into it or to an extra board that
covers it. You wear a uniform and DONT work outside except when you hit the platform at the stops. Many commuter lines have only day and afternoon shifts, NO midnights.
4. Commuter train jobs have semi or full weekends off, just like real people.
5. if your carrier only has freight service, learn how to pace the jobs,while still maintaining safe and efficient work practices, so that when you finally tie-up the job, the
end of your rest period will extend past the call time deadlines for the following shifts. Chances are your carrier will call an extra board guy behind you rather than hold the job until you are rested. Its all legal as long as you are following the rules, If you dont know how to follow rules, you DO NOT belong in railroading.
6. Railroad benefits are the best I've ever seen or had. Until just a couple of years ago,
there was no out of pocket cost for medical insurance except for doctor co-pays and the
prescription plan. Now most,if not all,carriers require an employee share for the insurance,however it is still cheaper that paying the whole damn thing yourself.
7. if you have a chronic medical condition that may cause you to call in sick, take advantage of the "Family Medical Leave Act" and get it for yourself(or family member if necessary). I had it for several years due to some physical problems I have. I used it but
didn't abuse it.
8. if you are truly sick, then lay off sick. Better you should stay home than risk passing out or fainting while at work and wind up coming home in a body bag.
9. if the RR requires a Dr's certification for your lay-off, then go to the croaker and get
a note, and make sure you keep a copy of it.
10. insist on your calls being made with the proper amount of lead time. That is covered
in your union agreement. IF you are short-called, then take the authorized amount of lead time before you report for duty. When the YM or TM starts giving you a ration of s**t about reporting late, tell them, respectfully, to check the agreement.
11. DO NOT start your duty until you have had a proper job safety briefing with your whole crew and you have ALL the necessary equipment AND paperwork needed for your
job. When your YM or TM starts in on you again, tell them, respectfully, to check the agreements AND the rule book.
12.DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT work with,on or near defective equipment! I worked with an engineer one afternoon who "red-tagged"(FRA violations)EVERY locomotive in the roundhouse.Guess what??? the Road Foreman of Engines was there that afternoon AND
agreed with the engineer. We sat around for a few hours until a job came in with compliant locomotives.

This is not hyperbole ladies and gentlemen, these are instances from my own personal
experience. I have been in investigations and have been acquitted. But I was never injured nor did I ever cause anyone to be injured. I was holding regular jobs ever since
I had about 3 yrs service. I made good money! I had a regular life. I paid my bills. I went
back on an extra board,as an engineer, just prior to my retirement. Had I stayed on, I would most certainly be holding a regular engineers job, with regular days off since the people junior to me are holding them. As I said, learn how to play the game and you will
have a good paying, rewarding and safe career with the railroad. It's their game, you just have to learn how to live with it and how they play it. If you want comfort in your life, marry a rich woman or the boss' daughter. If you aren't afraid of getting your hands dirty or cold,wet weather, then go railroading. You ain't lived until you see the "Father of
Waters(Mississippi River) in high summer, with the full moon glinting on the water and hear the waterfowl calling to each other and watch as a riverboat slips quietly by. You dont see that from a 6' X 6' cubicle!

CT

 

Charlie:

Nicely put. There are good sides to being a rail... you just need to know how to "play your cards right".

Have a good one.

Barry

 

I want to elaborate on a couple of statements in my earlier post.

1/ Observing call times. I guess I have an "old fashioned" work ethic in that I like to be on time for work. I dont like to be tardy. I had a difficult time with a crew caller some time back who kept "short calling" me. One time she didn't like my attitude(I made a remark about trying to get to work on time) and she told me that she was going to talk to my union griever about me. I told her to go right ahead and do that. She happened to call me 15 minutes short. I told her that with my particular situation I needed every minute of a 1 1/2 hour call. I live 40 miles from my home terminal and a good deal of that
is negotiating city streets until I reach the Interstate. I also told her that when I work a
road job or a job at one of the remote terminals our boards covered(Rochelle, Mendota etc)I needed every minute of the 2 hour agreement call time. Well she called the griever
and he got back to me. In so many words he told her that she was wrong and she should call me on time! He also told me that if I was short called that I should take the
agreeded 1 1/2 hour call time. I said I could do that but when I worked commuter service, it is difficult if not even wrong, to show up after on-duty time. Commuter trains
have FRA required inspections and the train must be properly set up for its trip and safety briefings MUST be conducted. When a crew member is missing, the other crewpersons have to double up on the required jobs. It is unfair to shift ones share of the workload to your co-workers just to prove a point.

2/ When our carrier started it's dreaded(and possibly illegal) Attendance Guidlines, a lot of guys started going thru investigations for violations of the Guidlines since they had laid off more than the "allowable" number of times in any given,rolling 3 month period.
I knew I had these physical problems which eventually influenced me to an early retirement. However I was aware of the FMLA(Family Medical Leave Act) but wasn't aware of how to go about it. This same union griever(he is an "old head" conductor who
alternates between freight and passenger service)told me about it when I had contracted pneumonia in both lungs in early 2002. I was laid off sick for about 3 weeks.
My griever told me to apply for it "after the fact" and also told me that in order to protect my job, and because of my infirmities, I should apply for it each year. That way
I could avail myself of the legal time off to tend to my medical problems when they flared up. The carrier started getting sh**y about it and began to deduct the FMLA time
off from ones vacation allotment. This eventually went to court and the railroad lost that
battle. They can no longer deduct FMLA from ones vacation allowance.
You should also be aware that you can get FMLA ONLY if you have a certifiable medical condition that requires treatment or attention or if you need to give care to a member of your family who has a chronic medical condition which requires you to be a care giver to them(eg birth of child, recuperation from surgery etc etc). Your physician must detail the conditions on the forms and sign them AND the carrier's medical department must agree with your physician and then approve the FMLA. You cant just go to your croaker and say that you want it!

CT

 

Relating this point to employee retention...Short calls and constantly changing projected call times are one of the issues that everyone, particularly new-hires have a hard time dealing with. When the computer shows a train on the lineup for 0400, then 0500, then 0900 and it keeps on changing by the hour, it's impossible to plan your rest or do much of anything. I've learned to pretty much ignore the projected times and just wing it but when you don't yet have the 'feel' for when things will likely run, you wind up getting caught short. It doesn't take too many of those to be very discouraging to a newbie. Again, many of them won't stick around long enough to get it figured out and just hang it up in the first year.
As for getting short calls, I get them from the new automated call system all the time and like you, I need a pretty good chunk of the 2 hrs. just to get to work. I just show up when I can and they have to deal with it. So far it hasn't been a big issue but then I don't work passenger service and boxcars don't scream about being late for work.
Realistic projected times and correct work calls would probably go quite a ways toward making the RR more livable. It would certainly cut down on going to work exhausted when you get caught short.

 

We have this problem with both our long pool(Chicago - LaCrosse WI) and the short pool
(Chicago - Savanna IL). You keep listening to the automated line up and keep hearing the
trains fall down as Rule 281 sez. It's disheartening, not so much a problem if your home terminal is Chicago, but at the away terminal, it is a real b***h! You dont have many clothes(I kept a workout suit as pajamas) and you just cant carry enough food to spell your needs so you better hope there are decent eating facilities nearby and/or a store
where you can buy food. There is a small supermarket across the parking lot from the Days Inn,French Island(LaCrosse)where we could buy food and prepared meals during the day.
We had a "nuke" oven and a toaster oven in the crew locker room at the motel(it was a
vacant utility room). There are some similar facilities nearby in Savanna, but it is an old,
sleepy river town now!
I remember having been deaheaded to Savanna as a conductor, and this is when we were staying at a hotel in Mt.Carroll IL which had been a co-ed dormitory for the defunct Shimer
College. There is almost nothing in that town!. There is a small market at the corner, but
its only open about 14 hrs a day. The hotel had a restaurant,but they didn't cook the food
until you ordered it. At any rate, I had been deadheaded to Savanna, and I was feeling crappy, I knew I was coming down with something. I was just laying around in my room watching cable TV and feeling lousier by the hour. I kept calling the automated lineup and the trains kept falling down farther and farther. I had been in my room about 12 hrs and by now I was feeling downright s*****y and I was gonna pick up the phone to call crew desk
and lay off sick and have them send me home. To my surprise, the phone rang and it was
crew desk, they were deadheading us(me & the hogger)home cuz the trains fell so far behind and there would be rested crews to take the trains when they came in. I was really
hurting and the crew caller heard how bad I sounded. When I got home, I laid off and was
off sick for a week with some horrendous flu bug that was going around the area. A lot of
our guys caught it and were off for extended time. That is the kind of thing you have to
deal with. All we got paid for was the time it took getting us to and from Savanna,nothing else! And to top that off I was sick for a week and railroaders dont get sick pay!

CT