Larry, maybe where you work wasn’t any better than it is today but CN sure was. Since we went from a crown corpoation to a private company the job has changed a great deal. We have trainmasters who never worked a day on the ground barking out orders, telling guys with 25 years service they don’t do their job right.
You make it sound so easy to just give up a job you once liked and the senority which you have earned and start anew, it ain’t easy pal. Maybe from where you’re sitting,retired! The money, which you say is so much better than when you were working in '85. I’ve got news for you your salary bought a whole lot more in '85 than ours does now.
One thing I notice about some railfans is that they seem to view railroading as a form of entertainment rather than a business. If you go to a ball game,a concert,or an auto race you have every right to expect to be entertained as that’s the business of the sports and music industry. But a freight railroad is in business to make money for it’s shareholders by moving commodities.If some fans get in the way of this,it’s understandable that the railroad companies crack down.
‘Shunting’ the rails is not only highly illegal here it’s also bloody stupid. The trains that I see in the daylight here through my town hardly stop anymore and there are less of them, sure I bemoan the fact that they race through at about 45mph but I would never do anything to compromise the safe running of the trains.
Adrian New Zealand
being a rail buff dose not disqailify you from working for csx… anyone that passes the conductor schools entrance exams…passes the class…and passes the physical can work for csx… oh yea…back grownd checks too… but as for being a rail fan…nope…about 30% of the people that hired out when i did…are rail buffs…
shunting the rails is something i wont tell couse there will be somebody trying it or doing it after reading about it. but i dont like buffs for the reason that they always have a camera. and picture tell on the crew. if we are moving down the road and say smoking you take our pic. well thats a rule violation no smoking on the engines. also some of the new hire officials that are fresh out of collage to managment school dont have the sloghtest idea of what your doing and proceed to bust a crew for a minor infraction of rules. the thing is they are smart enough to dress like a buff. cant tell them apart except maybe no camera. otherwise i have no problem with buffs.
All I can add to this discussion is to relate this incident. While watching trains at Fostoria recently, doing the railfan thing, when another car drove up. after a while one of the two guys came over to talk. He was a CSX conductor, his buddy was an engineer, it was their day off. I asked about the “foamer thing”. He said a few employees are clearly anti-fan, but most are railfans to some degree. Then he smiled and said " I can’t get enough, I guess".
I hear ya Desert dude.I’m glad NS considered me “unworthy” for employment.Today,I satisfy my fix by riding in trailing units and on the porch of a grain hoppers.
Well, you know what? I don’t understand it either.
In my 25 years of railfanning, I’ve been met with both welcoming arms, and suspicion. One incident really stands out in my memory. Several years ago, my cousin and I were railfanning at Schoolcraft Michigan, at the depot, where the Grand Trunk crossed Conrail. We noticed a chunk of rail missing out of the “diamond”, and I got on the dispatchers phone, that was un-locked, and told the dispatcher what I had seen. Well, the next train through stopped, and the crew was very thankful of our concern. We had most likely prevented a disaster. But, guess what, the next time we visited Schoolcraft, the phone box had a lock on it. Try to figure THAT one out.
Todd C.
Let me start out by saying that I’ve been a loco engineer for 25yrs.Currently I’m in a long intra-divisional frt.pool for a western RR.While growing up I always dreamed of becoming a engineer and today I’m living the reality of that dream.I still enjoy my job most of the time but it has its drawbacks.Long hrs away from home,working 24/7 night and day,bad weather and good,dealing with the college educated idiots who have no RR experience and call the shots,unrealistic pay for what we are reponsible for and are required to know and do.A UPS delivery driver makes a higher hourly wage than a yard engineer!I am one of many who don’t look down at rail fans.Just try to remember we, who work on the RR have to live with railroading while on and off the job.While at home waiting for that call for a train on the line-up that was due 12hrs ago and still hasn’t been called.So when you have a bad experience with a railroader it might be because he or she has had a long hard day or night.We are human to and sometimes we have a hard time understanding why others see the galmore of railroading.I do apologize if I have offended any of you in the past and will do my best to remember that rail buffs are human too.
I lived just up the road from the Asst Station master of a station I intend building shortly a few years ago. Out of the blue, I rang and asked to visit. He is now retired, and over 80 years old having spent his whole life in the railways (except fpr WW2).
I was rather disappointed that he was unable (or unwilling) to meet me, and in discussing this with other MR’s, it is a common problem here in South Australia - old employees of tyhe SAR seem to be bitter and cynical.
DS
AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH! Wichita, PLEASE, please. Don’t ride hopper portches. I don’t know who’d be letting you ride trailing units; on my road, I could be fired for allowing nonemployees on my engine…any one of my engines. On my road, we’re not allowed to ride the end of ANY car except a ballast car with railinged porches. If an old brakesman could fall off, so could a hobbyist. Sudden, violent slack could send you sailing. Have you ever been stopped by the RR police and had your name taken? THAT might be why they didn’t want to hire you.
Man,
Lots of different responses.
And witchita, Skeets is trying to save your life.
I work in yard service, I switch and kick cars all day. A lot of my job requires me to ride the side of car. Catch the word side?
If your on the porch of any car, you have broken the plane of the car body, and are in the dead zone. We call it that on purpose. If anything goes wrong, and your in there, your dead. This stuff does not give you a second chance.
I shove 100+ cars around all day, without air in the brakes, if you dont know its coming, the slack can snap you off the train just as easy as you flick a skeeter off your arm.
And if I catch you in or on my train, I dont play, I call the cops. Not because I dont like fans, but because your putting yourself and my crew in danger. What happens when you catch your shoe lace in the cut lever while your climbing up the ladder, and unknowingly uncouple the cars ahead of you? Guess who is riding the point of 50 lose cars, and when I tell my engineer to ease up, guess what happens? I get to try to stop 50 loaded railcars with nothing but handbrakes. Even at 10mph, it isnt fun, or funny.
Think thats stupid, or made up? It isnt, it happened to me the first year was railroading. Scared me half to death, could have killed someone.
Now, if you want to take my picture, or shoot some of my train, I dont mind, just do it from public property.
As for the dislike and distain shown fans, well, let you in on a not to well kept secret. Most railroaders are fans, they just will not admit it. Not because they are embarassed, but because most management above trainmasters didnt come from the ranks, but were hired from outside the culture, and like someone mentioned, they feel a fan cant or wont take the job seriously.
Where I work, we have a yardmaster who not only is a fan, but a modeler, like myself, he forgot to mention this on his application. But now that we are here, and have shown the brass we do take our job seriously, they don
I applied for a RR job building bridges for the BN back in the mid 70s
If I had gone in there and said “I hate the RRs, the last thing I want is to work for them.
You’ll never catch me LOOKIN because I detest anything connected with the RRs”
I might have gotten that job. Nuts, now I’m too old.
Sooblue
From reading Trains Magazine I’ve gathered a little understanding of the attitudes of railroaders. I read those stories of experiences people have sent in and it generally seems the “bosses” sometimes have ego problems and also like to make the workers miserable which, in turn, the workers like to get back at them by telling them off or pulling a prank at least once in their career. A passenger train worker lets his supervisor oversleep then wakes him up as the train pulls out. He knows he’ll be in trouble when the super. gets back, but it was worth. Another story is about a woman who worked in the yards and had a nice supervisor everyone liked until he retired and an ego-maniac took his place and everyone’s life was miserable again. (It’s late and I’m not gonna go dig the article out right now.)
There are many such stories and railroading is a tough business and I can see now why some railroaders are grumpy. You can’t say that this business attracts such personality types because every job has these natually (for lack of a better word) “anal” people.
If you were to make a list of romantic jobs you’d begin to list dangererous ones. Firefighter. Test pilot. Railroader. That’s what’s so captivating about railroads. A little bit frightening, but at the same time captivating.
For someone can’t understand what’s so facinating about railroads, and why there are “buffs,” just go look at any construction site to see how many guys stand around staring at those machines moving earth and erecting steel beams and stone blocks. Or go to an airshow sometime and see how many people came just to look at airplanes. Trains are just as mesmerizing. Big heavy machines moving tons of freight across thousands of miles.
A RaiFan’s Perspective
by ironhorseman
Trains command a certain awe and respect. A diesel engine is not like asteam engine, but is a species in it’s own right. A diesel engine has a deep, grumbling roar in its belly. It’s unmistakable scent of die
From reading Trains Magazine I’ve gathered a little understanding of the attitudes of railroaders. I read those stories of experiences people have sent in and it generally seems the “bosses” sometimes have ego problems and also like to make the workers miserable which, in turn, the workers like to get back at them by telling them off or pulling a prank at least once in their career. A passenger train worker lets his supervisor oversleep then wakes him up as the train pulls out. He knows he’ll be in trouble when the super. gets back, but it was worth. Another story is about a woman who worked in the yards and had a nice supervisor everyone liked until he retired and an ego-maniac took his place and everyone’s life was miserable again. (It’s late and I’m not gonna go dig the article out right now.)
There are many such stories and railroading is a tough business and I can see now why some railroaders are grumpy. You can’t say that this business attracts such personality types because every job has these natually (for lack of a better word) “anal” people.
If you were to make a list of romantic jobs you’d begin to list dangererous ones. Firefighter. Test pilot. Railroader. That’s what’s so captivating about railroads. A little bit frightening, but at the same time captivating.
For someone can’t understand what’s so facinating about railroads, and why there are “buffs,” just go look at any construction site to see how many guys stand around staring at those machines moving earth and erecting steel beams and stone blocks. Or go to an airshow sometime and see how many people came just to look at airplanes. Trains are just as mesmerizing. Big heavy machines moving tons of freight across thousands of miles.
A RaiFan’s Perspective
by ironhorseman
Trains command a certain awe and respect. A diesel engine is not like asteam engine, but is a species in it’s own right. A diesel engine has
I got lucky, saw an ad in the local newspaper, filled out an app… Got an interview about 3 weeks later. 1 1/2 hour later i had the job and started about a month later
Try coming over to Europe and getting a job on the railroad. Railfans are a lot more welcome. I reckon in the Operations department of one British company that more 50% are railfans of one kind or another. The only hindrance is if you apply for a Management Trainee post, then its a no-go. But some of them don’t last long, soon get disillusioned with working all hours of the day or night.