I was flipping through the local paper tonight and I saw an ad for AMDG…“Freight Conductor Positions in Ottawa(IL)” “Work for an American Railroad!” it says.
I went to the website www.amdg.ws and looked through it. It appears to be a trainmen’s(?) school with locations in Georgia and Ohio. I’m going to submit an application just for kicks.
I’d highly doubt it would work this way, but the railroad in Ottawa, IL is CSX and from what I can tell is a gravy job. I thought they’d recruit from within to the yard and local jobs and then throw the new hires out on the less desirable work.
Has anyone heard about this? Any info would be appreciated.
Hmmm…let me divulge a bit of info to you about this outfit. I applied with them back in Nov. of 2004 for a conductor spot here in GA. After passing all the tests, and going through the interview successfully, I was put into their active database for potential new hires. You can imagine my surprise when, 9 months later, they informed me that I had not passed the personality test after all. (it took 9 months for them to figure this out???) I had to go back to Atlanta to retest. After answering the same, exact questions again the same way, I once again passed the test. That was 4 months ago, and I’m still on their “active database” list. It is my understanding that CSX is planning to train conductors in house again very soon due to the fact that AMDG and others are not training these new hires well enough for the job. So AMDG might not be around for too much longer…at least in training new hires for CSX. For the record, once you submit your application you will immediately have to choose a date to come in for testing/interview.
Railroading is hardly a “gravy” job. Does the CSX actually have any locals based in Ottawa? If they do, you can forget about holding one for at least 10 years, probably longer, as those kinds of “gravy” jobs are held by guys with lots of seniority.
I’m not exactly sure how it works with schools like AMDG, but you normally apply for an opening at one of the major hubs (Ottawa ain’t one of 'em), get your training, and then you’re on call 24/7 and you get all the crap work and crap hours. You’ll occasionally get called for a daylight switcher or, if you’re really lucky, a local. More often than not, however, you’ll be on the midnight hump pulling pins or coupling up tracks in the bowl.
Personally, I have a few issues with the way some of these schools seem to operate, AMDG in particular. This ad sounds like those 1-800 ads for postal workers or home computer businesses, and I assure you there’s no openings in Ottawa, which makes AMDG’s practices all the more suspect in my eyes.
Ottawa is about 100 miles west of Chicago and is on the old Rock Island trackage. It’s pretty much the end of the line for CSX, but the line continues on west to Council Bluffs as Iowa Interstate. I don’t know for sure, but I would assume there are a couple locals based in Ottawa as most of the work that’s done is the silica sand plant in town. There are a few other industries along the line into Chicago but the silica sand is the major customer.
That being said, I wonder if rather than move someone out of Chicago they would hire someone new. Ottawa is somewhat of an outpost, since Chicago is about the furthest west CSX goes.
I’m sure my school of thought is wrong and the information on the website is deceiving. But that would be the cats***if it would work out that way.
That’s cool.
I apologize if I was a little terse, I can get that way when I hear railroading referred to as gravy work.
I certainly know where Ottawa is - home of Buffalo Range. I’m a bit North near Rochelle.
I know it would be nice to be able to walk in off the street and land a job working the local in town. I sure wouldn’t mind a local in the area myself, but believe me when I tell you it doesn’t work that way with the larger carriers. Those sorts of jobs don’t even make it to the yard office bulletin board before someone snatches them up.
I assume you’re wanting to get into train service. If you’re looking for a class 1 railroad near home, the closest terminal is probably the UP in Rochelle; they’ve had openings there on occasion. It would be about a 15 minute commute for me, but I took a buyout from the CNW, so that pretty much rules out the UP for me. After that it’s either in toward Chicago, or West toward Iowa. A few railroads also have terminals in the Champaign, Springfield, and Peoria areas as well. Being near 80, the EJ&E in Joliet shouldn’t be too far of a drive for you. Just take a look at the various railroads’ websites and see where they’re hiring. Most class ones only accept resumes for positions they have posted.
I’m aware that railroading is hardly gravy work. Undoubtedly some is more gravy than the rest though.
I guess you could call me a bit nieve with my original post, but that’s why I posted, to listen to what people had to say. One of the interview sites is in Ottawa, on two different dates. I submitted an app, just for the hell of it but I doubt I’ll go to the interview. Mainly because I can’t afford time off work and because I don’t really want to give up what I do now.
I’m actually straight south of you in the La Salle-Peru area. Being right near 80 and 39 certainly leaves the options fairly wide open though. However, that same location is going to curse our area, distribution centers are going to spring up EVERYWHERE. I’ve heard this area referrenced to the “new” Bolingbrook in 5-10 years.
Hopefully we can sell some of our land to build one of those and 1031it into 4 times as much somewhere else off the beaten path. lol
Anyway, no hard feelings and thanks for the input.
Farmer I agree with you on the new Bolingbrook you are right been to the old one recently. I had to struggle to get thru there a couple weeks ago. I of course have a different problem I want to work however the body says no.
CSXT currently uses several college-run training programs, plus AMDG to hire all new conductors. A co-worker of mine looking to get hired on by CSX said that the CSX HR rep told him that the only way to get hired on CSX as a conductor currently is through one of these programs. They do not hire conductors directly anymore, even experienced conductors.
CSX opened a state of the art $8 million school in Atlanta GA last year called REDI (Railroad Education & Development Institute), but is currently only open to CSX employees [B)].