I just tested and interviewed for both. The BNSF is in Willmar,MN and the CP is in St. Paul,MN. Which RR do you guys think is the better one? I know a difference is BNSF is in a small town and CP is of course not. I’ve been a longtime lurker of these boards but just now decided to register. Thanx for your opinions.
Cmon guys and gals. I’m just looking for opinions here. I know some of you have them [:)]
Which do you prefer? Chocolate cake (e.g. Mookie!) or Tuesday? They are very very different outfits, but both do their jobs very well indeed. They are both first class railroad operations all the way, both (so far as I know) treat their people well… I really wouldn’t care to have to choose between them, myself!
Go BNSF, bigger, more places to work…
Ed
I would stay away from large city centers. The training is the same time in lengh with CP from terminal to terminal. If you train with CP in a large city you will NOT get experience with all locations or operations/assignments. It will be harder to learn because you will spend less time with mainline training and be spread out in a wide variety of field placements. Basically, the bigger the terminal you hire at the more you have to know, but the training time is the same, with CP it was about 5 months. 5 months is plently of time to learn all your in-class work + 2-3 mainline sub. and 3-4 yards with all the locals and road-switchers. If the terminal is any bigger than that it will be harder to learn. If they give you more time, great, but they wouldn’t give us more time!!! If BNSF is the smaller in that area, I would start there, if the area is too small or boring for you check into if you are allowed to transfer and how than process works exactly! With CP they told us we can transfer as long as there was a vacancy somewhere else. But it was a job vacancy that you need 5-7 years of senority to bid on successfully. I would also check out if they run commuter trains, or provide the employees to commuter service. In Toronto CP conductors and engineers can also get called for commuter trains. Believe me, commuter service is a whole new ball-game! I hated it, not what I signed up for, and they DID NOT tell us about that during the hiring sessons!
I hope this helps…
Excellent…thanx for the responses. I was kinda leaning towards BNSF in the smaller city to begin with. I guess we’ll just wait and see what happens [:)]
[bow][bow]BNSF RAILROAD[bow][bow]
Go CP, Smaller, Canadian, Quaint…
i’m Slightly Bias though, so…
CP has the golden beaver on the side of their loco’s, do you really need another reason?
Mmmmm…beaver! (go macguy!)
I like BNSF better, but I know that both railroads are good and efficient.
Willy
Seems to be personal preference. Although it would seem BNSF has more fans here.
Go with the one that accepts you first if you don’t have any other way of deciding. BNSF is a bigger road wich gives you more choices, CP alot smaller and may be a tiny little bit less corpret, I’ve noticed that CP employees seem to have a better moral by class 1 railroad standards.