5Brewster3
New Member
Reading through this forum and elsewhere on the internet, I've seen posting on what life is like for those in the industry...especially those engineers and conductors who have to go on the road. With the announcement by Norfolk Southern that they'll be hiring 500 people within the next few months, I thought it would be appropriate for there to be a thread where people in the industry talk about their jobs or, as I have seen described, their lifestyle (since people say its more that than a job).
I have seen it mentioned a couple of times that some railroads are looking hard at their scheduling methods to appeal to the next generation of employee who may not be hip to being on call 24/7. There was one article I read where a company (sorry can't remember which RR) was thinking about having folks on call during an 8 hour period to give them greater stability/predictability.
Some of the questions I could think of:
What is it really like to work for a railroad? (very general, but a starting point)
What is your schedule like?
(Asked another way...) What is the average week/month like as a conductor/engineer?
What's the pay like?
What are the benefits?
What drew you to hire on in the rail industry?
How does your family cope with you being away from home?
How/where do you take bathroom breaks while on a moving train? (silly question perhaps, but I bet there are quite a few folks who are curious about it)
How does advancement to engineer process work in the various companies?
That's what I could think of for now...I'm sure there is more.
I have seen it mentioned a couple of times that some railroads are looking hard at their scheduling methods to appeal to the next generation of employee who may not be hip to being on call 24/7. There was one article I read where a company (sorry can't remember which RR) was thinking about having folks on call during an 8 hour period to give them greater stability/predictability.
Some of the questions I could think of:
What is it really like to work for a railroad? (very general, but a starting point)
What is your schedule like?
(Asked another way...) What is the average week/month like as a conductor/engineer?
What's the pay like?
What are the benefits?
What drew you to hire on in the rail industry?
How does your family cope with you being away from home?
How/where do you take bathroom breaks while on a moving train? (silly question perhaps, but I bet there are quite a few folks who are curious about it)
How does advancement to engineer process work in the various companies?
That's what I could think of for now...I'm sure there is more.