Aussie Railway Song (Apologies for the non-US terminology):
*The guard is the man
Who rides in the van
At the back of the train.
The driver up front
Thinks the guard is a cnt
And the guard thinks the driver’s the same.
Anyway, congrats on the job, you lucky bugger. Big, powerful toys, those. Be safe and have fun.
[highjack]Hey, he probably worked through my old home town of Cherokee which used to be a division point on the IC.[/highjack]
At least NS doesn’t make you guys sh*t in plastic bags anymore…
When I was in college, I worked for a tourist railroad. It was fun, dirty, and a lot of work. It did the job of getting the idea of working for a real railroad out of my mind once and for all. I’ve done the jobs of brakeman, gandy dancer, mechanic, hostled, and even hand-fired the steam engine on runs.
Heh!
I read an interview some years ago about one of the first female engineers in NYS. She was quite a character, and at the end of the story she noted that she could do any damn thing a man could do, except pee out of the engine door.
Yes, it can be done by women. Watch the delightful hobo documentary “Train on the Brain”. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276578/
SnakescatLady,
There’s no 1218 or 611 in our system locomotive tables so they’re probably either not around anymore or they’ve been changed.
Zag, yesterday was my first day going down an industry track. Bad track all the way. I thnk they’d rather pop a car or two back onto a track occasionally than pour money into tracks that serve only a few customers.
Loadeddog, So far from what I’ve seen the engineers and the coductors get along quite well.
Vunderbob, Um…they told us about the poop bags in class and I think they still do use them on certain trains. Not only that, they started numbering them because certain crews were out decorating trees with them. I haven’t seen one yet. (in a tree or on a train)
Add me to the “way cool job” chorus.
An ex-co-worker of mine (was in sales) quit to become a train guy, but it didn’t work out (I don’t know why).
Brian
One of the quicker ways for it to not work out (besides failing a background search and physical) is:
To fail the “hang test” on the first day. They have you hang from a ladder with one arm and give four different hand signals for about three and a half minutes. If you fall then you’re out. If you step down they give you one more chance (i think)
or
If you fail three of the quizes in phase 1 or the final test and field evaluation
or
On our first day back to the training center (phase 3) we have to take a signal test. My region has around 62 signals. If you get lower than an 80% you fail and go home.
I guess there are a million other reasons they can determine if you’re unfit for railroad work. Mostly safety violations
[highjack]
Yup. He still lives there. My Dad’s folks lived in Aurelia from 1960 to 198?. Then Grandma moved to Cherokee, wher she died about 3 years ago. Ever get gas at the Mobil station on highway 7 in Aurelia? That was Grandpa’s place until about 1980. Anyway, I’ve been in Cherokee lots of times.
[/highjack]
I live less than 100 feet from a railroad siding.
Some engineers sneak through so quietly I hardly hear them coming. They know that at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning or 11:30 on a Tuesday evening there is little traffic on the quiet streets in my neighborhood and little kids might be sleeping, so if they blow their horns at all it’s just a short blast for the idiots that blow through the signals.
Some engineers start blowing their fucking horns half a block before the fucking street and don’t fucking stop until they’re half a fucking block past the street. Since it’s a 5 mph track that’s one fucking loud, long horn, and one day I’m going to find an arms dealer to sell me a black market sniper rifle with scope and silencer and start shooting. Please don’t be like those guys.
My First Day Runing Trains
Ok, I can’t be the only childish pervert who giggled when she saw this, right…RIGHT?
And yeah, definitely cool job.
I can’t even begin to guess what you’re talking about. “My first day running trains” (no typo, no extra uppercase) seems about as unfunny and unchildiish and unperverted as “my first day eating oatmeal”. What did you see that I’m missing?
Who’s in charge of what? Does the conductor outrank the engineer? Can he/she tell the engineer what to do?
Also, if the engineers can’t poop in bags anymore, how do they go?
BTW I’ve seen ladies pee forward occasionally, but knew better than to ask how they did it. 
Can’t speak for the US system, but here the guard (conductor) is, on a passenger train at least, responsible for the train. It’s his or her train. This is despite that job being lower ranked and attracting less pay than driver (engineer). The driver is required to operate the train safely, and of course if a guard were to tell him to proceed through a signal at danger, he could tell the guard to go jump. Generally though, the guard can say “do it” and the driver does it. In real world railroading though, the driver considers himself superior to the guard, and often the guard won’t push things too hard.
A lot of trains have bathrooms in them now with real flush toilets. I haven’t worked in one yet though but my trips have all been short ones.
The conductor is lower paid (not by much) but he is responsible for the entire movement of the train. That being said, if something goes horribly wrong they pretty much investigate everybody. Both can get taken out of service. Also the trains have black boxes.
That’s why, Chique, they are supposed to blow the horn at crossings because it’s all documented and if he doesn’t and hits a car then his ass is grass. (long-long-short-long until the front of the train occupies the crossing.)
I think the idea is that the conductors job sort of overlaps the engineers in that if the engineer disregards rules it’s the conductors duty to address it and if all else fails he’s to stop the train. This is also the case if the engineer happens to drop dead while operating the train.
But the conductor’s main job is to operate swtches, read signals and guide the train when it’s making a shove movement. A “shove” is when the train pushes the cars ahead of the engine and the engineer could be 100 cars behind the movement and not be able to see anything. The conductor is his eyes and counts off in car legnths how far he needs to go.
He’s also the one who’s responsible for getting the right cars to the right place. Oh, and conductors also piece the trains together in the yards and perform airbrake tests among other things.
I guess the reason the engineer might feel a little higher up the totem pole is because he pretty much is. They’re usually promoted up from conductor so they know both jobs.
Ooh, and the pee thing is out of my area of expertise but I think they just sort of pull back their…well. That sounds like a good GQ question!
[hijack]I never got gas there but I’m pretty sure I was in there just last September asking where a high school classmate of mine lived. I still have three cousins living in Cherokee and we visited there last fall. Another classmate who lives in Florida and I arranged to be there at the same time and one of the locals arranged a little 65th high school reunion luncheon at our request.[/hijack]
I agree.
How often will you change routes and see new scenery? How many routes are available to you?
That was no lady, that was my…uh, never mind, but I will tell ya’ this, her vibrator had a kick starter.