However, if you are called at Friday morning to go on a two-day trip, you need to report to work and your two days will start whenever you get back from your trip. Good luck making plans with friends and family. As far as preparing for the day, you will need to have a bag and cooler packed, as well as your essential work gear, and most everyone has rain gear with them at all times.
You may or may not be home that night, but usually, you get on a train and go to another terminal to swap out with a different crew, they will then take your train to the next terminal. Depending on the terrain and location you are stationed, your trip can range from hours to all 12 hours, which is the longest shift that the FRA Federal railroad administration will allow a crew to stay on duty and active.
Once you sign out on the computer or with the call office, you start your ten-hour rest period and then wait around at the hotel until you are called again to take a train back to where you started. Sometimes when there is not enough train traffic they will send taxis to take crews home, but that is usually not the case.
Once you get back to the home terminal, you either put your train away or swap crews, and head back home before you are back on call in 10 more hours, minus drive time. This can be any time of day or night, so you may get home and choose to sleep, or stay up and hope that you can sleep later before you are called again.
Most people only sleep when their family is busy, and try to be awake to see them before they are called out again. Railroad jobs are not advertised. Usually, people hear about them from a friend or family member, or know about the railroad because they grew up or live around a train yard.
The best and possibly only way to get hired is to apply on the website of the railroad in your area, get on their job mailing list, and then keep an eye on their job postings.
A railroad may have a position open far away from you, but if you want to work out of a specific location, you need to wait to apply and be hired at that location only because once you start in a location there is no transferring. Many people do join the railroad with a college education, usually because they can make much better money out here than they can with their degrees.
More often than not however, only a high school education is technically required, but work experience and mechanical aptitude are a plus. Many applicants are drivers, truckers, mechanics, oil rig workers, machinists, heavy equipment operators, etc. One thing nearly everyone I personally have met has in common is that we hate office jobs, or at least the idea of one, and love some element of nature enough to want to be out in it every day.
You get to see the scenery along the tracks every time of day in every season. I am fortunate enough to have beautiful scenery, but if your trip is through a cornfield, plan on looking at that same cornfield for 30 years. Liking trains is a plus, but pretending you know much about them is not a plus. They want to train you from scratch, and there is nowhere to get railroad experience besides a railroad.
If you are in a position where you are able to live directly in between the beginning and end of your trip, you can have a 1 and a half hour commute each way but be able to come home every day. Many people are able to do that, and they have much better quality of life than those stuck in the hotel half of the time. Do your research, try to meet someone who works for the railroad and let them tell you about it, and remember that although they may complain, there are a lot of benefits to working for the railroad.
This includes taking tickets, sometimes accepting payment from passengers who did not purchase tickets in advance, assisting passengers when necessary, and alerting passengers to upcoming and scheduled stops. Seniority generally dictates where a railroad conductor falls on a particular pay scale.
Most of the data from the U. Source: U. Bureau of Labor Statistics, A railroad conductor's job requires a high school diploma , on-the-job training, and in some circumstances, certification. Being an effective railroad conductor typically requires some of the same soft skills necessary in other customer-service professions, but there are some physical requirements as well.
Job growth for railroad conductors is projected to decline by 2 percent for the decade ending in , according to the U. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is considerably worse than the 7 percent growth projected for all occupations as a whole.
BLS attributes the projected decline to several factors. Demand for coal is down as more power plants are using natural gas, and an increase in pipelines decreases the need for rail transportation for oil and gas. Although a lot of the job is conducted on trains, railroad conductors need to be able to work in all types of weather.
It's a very physical job, requiring the ability to lift, push, and pull various weights and be able to readily sit, stand, and climb. Financial perks Relocation assistance Employee discount Flexible spending account.
Insurance Health insurance Dental insurance Vision insurance. More Retirement plan Tuition reimbursement. Easily apply. Conductor Trainee - Lincoln, NE. The job is not for everyone, seniority is everything so expect to be furloughed within the first five years. I've gotten a good year after hiring out then was furloughed for over 2yrs, the pay is amazing for the amount of work we do. Railroad retirement is superior to social security, health benefits are pretty great as well.
Best job I've ever held but not without its cost being away from home on road jobs, and hard to plan anything with loved ones. Some management is good others are a pain same goes for crewmembers. The threat of losing our craft to technology is constant, the company says it cares about safety but that's a lie, just look at the mega trains they're having us run.
Experiences may vary you'll never know until you get here so good luck to anyone considering working here. Pros Pay, Benefits, Variety of Work. Find market worth.
Base Salary. Total Pay. Find out what you should be paid Use our tool to get a personalized report on your market worth. What's this? United States change. Experience Early Career Experienced Don't see what you are looking for? Skill Switching and Routing Transport Don't see what you are looking for? New research shows that each woman experiences the disparity of gender pay gap in different ways, depending on her position, age, race and education.
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Coordinate movement of trains and rail cars. Maintain accurate, clear documentation of train movement. Communicate train and rail movement or switches with crew.
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