As long as I show up with my steel toed work boots, safety glasses, leather gloves and am clean and neat I am working granted I am a freight engineer which means I can wear almost anything I want wihtin reason long as my tee shirt in the summer does not have any profanity. As for the radiator on the dash 9 you are right LC but also haveing the reset the overspeed trip on an odl EMD with all of the oil that is near the governor.
Rodney
Obviously none of you has ever visited the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway in central North Carolina [:P]. Our conductors, locomotive engineers, mechanics, signal maintainers and track workers are ALL required to wear company uniforms, in addition to standard railroad safety equipment. See my picture for an example:
http://Images.GreenFrogInternet.us/people/ScottDeVries-ACWRConductor-OakboroNC.jpg
Here is the odd twist to this bizarre requirement (bizarre for US freight railroads anyway). ACWR conductors and locomotive engineers are only required to wear uniforms while operating freight trains, but are permitted to wear non-uniform business casual attire while running our all-to-infrequent passenger specials… go figure that one out [%-)][censored].
Those uniforms look nice and are comfortable. Some of the crews down here wear them regularily. (BTW, we are not a freight railroad)
Are the old conductors cap badges with the RR name and title on it still made? By whom? I’m aware of Transquip but they don’t have the traditional cap badges with the RR names on them…
LC
I see pictures from time to time of British steam engineers on tourist railways wearing shirts and ties. I guess you could get away with it because the British kept their steamers quite clean. Here in the US, though, just working around one would make navy blue into black [:)]! Not to mention the fact that in Needles, at 113 degrees, behind a 2-10-2’s boiler, you’d probably get heat stroke!
I guess they are still being made by someone today. I’m unsure of the company. Anyway, I do see some of our Septa conductors with the conductor style cap you are talking about. I also tend to see some Amtrak conductors with them too.
Amtrak conductors do have them, but all they say is Amtrak.
And a big AMEN to you, Rodney. Just making a trip and never leaving the cab leaves a fine film of dirt on you, freight locomotive cabs aren’t that clean, espcially (sad to say) when they’ve gone through several crew changes in the course of their trip. Anybody who works out there knows you can take a white paper towel and wipe it across your forehead and you’ll immediately know how dirty you’re getting. No, I don’t want a uniform, even if the company was buying it, regardless of what all the non-rails posting on here think.
Rodney -
Yeah, there are a lot of ways to get dirty on a locomotive. I remember once sitting on a seat that stuck to me. The product of somebody’s attempt to repair it, with duct tape. I remember telling the TM that I was gonna red tag the engine for unsafe seat at the end of that day. Glad I wasn’t wearing a suit…
LC
Yeah, it is scary when you think about how many times you’ve heated your lunch on a sidewall in one of those things, doesn’t it…lol…
And don’t get me started on the bathrooms…[gag]…
LC
Amen to that LC and also do not forget about the water tank on a dash 9.
Rodney