It’s just a routine part of railroad life. That’s why I tell all my new-hires to get qualified to work everywhere they can. Sure, you may have to drive a little farther, but it means the difference between working and collecting unemployment.
Nick
Humm This is interesting. I wasn’t aware of any sesaonal employment by railroads. I do wonder what shops were these employees hired on? Were they engine shops?
The same thing happens on BNSF this time of year traffic picks up in late January, and gains steam untill after christmas it is a fact of life with the railroads, now here is where it raely picks up is in the spring when work trains are going.
Rodney
Railroads have historically had seasonal peaks and valleys in their operations and adjust the work force to minimize payroll costs during the valleys.
heard on my scanner this morning a dispatcher told a crew there were no relief crews in garrett.maybe need to move a few crews around?
stay safe
Joe
The BN furloughed about 20 guys from the Temple area, and 10 from the Houston metroplex…we have them working here till BN recalls them.
One was hired, went through BN training, and furloughed the day he marked up…worked one trip and then off…
There was something in our (UP) employee paper that suggested that young employees in some areas have been, or will be, furloughed. We’re down a few yard jobs from where we were a month or so ago, but I don’t think that anyone’s looking at this as a permanent thing.
Meanwhile, we’ve got a class of over a dozen new-hires training in the yard right now.
Thanks for that link.
I had been under the impression that CSX was so busy in all of its divisions that layoffs were not likely. I hope these trainmen will be o.k.
I wonder though how train crew professionals with low seniority “get through” a two or three month furlough period. Are employers willing to employ them part time or full time knowing that it would be short term. Yes, places like Wal-Mart and fast food resteraunts would, but these railroad professionals make considerably more than what these businesses would pay.
To you railroaders:
What does your railroad company do? Do they try and put some fuloughed employees in other positions temporarily, such as in a maintenance department or an office type job?
I was a union steward at a transit authority, and layoffs were rare but when we did have one we always tried to get employees put in “helper” or assistant type positions in the shop or front office. Usually worked out positively and though it cost the company money, it benefited in the long run since people were exposed to different career aspects.
On BNSF trainman have system wide seniority except in the old Great Northern they can work other places that they can hold and have a recall to their home terminal, I almost went to Texas 4 years ago to work and then a derailment happened with no trainmen available and was recalled, I was cutoff for only 2 weeks.
Rodney
Just a bit of curiousity on that aspect , but how would one “get qualified” on districts other than the one you are assigned to?
Seems like the RR is going to put you to work where they intended you to work the moment they hired you, and where is the time (and training) going to come from to get familiar with a foreign district?
Just for example, where I live the NS owns both former Nickel Plate and former Wabash. The former Nickel Plate is crewed from here, to Chicago, Cincinnati, and East into Ohio.
The former Wabash they crew from 90 miles away. And in just reading your suggestion (a good one, by logic alone) I just have a hard time understanding how a crewman working here would ever get the chance to work on the other enough to qualify.
That is even seperate from the fact that the employee would have to be willing to answer crew calls to work the other district, I just have to think that the RR would not be willing to invest the time paying a 3rd crew member to ride a foreign district, during the orientation period.
just curious
Most likely, they’re not going to pay you to ride along on qualification trips, you’ll be doing it “free gratis”.
Railroads have been furloughing people during seasonal and economic flucuations for as long as I’ve known anything about it and long before that. Once upon a time, I worked on a line that had historically depended on coal traffic and without coal traffic, there was almost nothing. Those fellows had taken a beating every winter, when Lake Erie was frozen over. They all had stories of going to locations a hundred miles and more away from home and stories of doing every kind of oddjob and temporary job imaginable. Later, after a merger, it became a line with a lot more freight traffic and that all changed.
If you’re working out of one terminal, the railroad isn’t going to call you to work out of the other terminal unless you make a seniority move to that terminal. If you’re furloughed out of one terminal but have sufficient seniority to work out of another terminal, you will most likely be paid for qualification trips, that is less likely if you make a voluntary seniority move to another terminal
To get “qualified”, you made a certain number of trips (number determined by the hosting RR) over the territory with a “pilot” (trainer). This ‘pilot’ is supposed to instruct you on the various operating condition of his railroad (i.e. set the brakes earlier for signal xxx because the track starts a slight downgrade to the absolute signal). After the predetermined number of trips, you are officially considered “qualified” (even though you most likely are not REALLY qualified).
If memory serves, on the CNW we were considered ‘qualified’ if we had three trips over a certain piece of track. Yeah, right, I was real qualified. Qualified to get myself in a lot of trouble.
Depends on your local management, company policy, and your initiative.
The first option is to get qualified everywhere while you are still a trainee. My company woken up to this tactic only recently. It is useful for the new guys.
Our local budget also has money set aside for qualifying. So when we had a traffic downturn, rather then furloughing people, we set about increasing their territory qualifications.
My company’s policy is that you can mark up anywhere with-in your senority district, regardless of qualifications. You then get 10 trips with a pilot to qualify. My previous company required you be qualified before you marked up on a position, but allowed you mark off to qualify.
Lastly, there’s qualifying on your own time. Don’t knock it. Some people will use their rest days to ride for qualifying, especially, if you only need to qualify on a short segment of line.
At one point, I was qualified from: Baltimore to North Jersey; on SEPTA Philadelphia to Lansdale, Philadelphia to Chester, and Philadelphia to Langhourn; and on SAC Camden to Deepwater, Camden to Palermo, and the area around Morrisville.
Being qualified lots of places can also mean big paychecks, if you’re qualified places most people aren’t.
Nick
I went to one of their hiring sessions for CSX right before Christmas they told us they were going to hiring 30 conductors for the Garrett, IN yard and that the Garrett yard was so busy that the last time there was a layoff was back in the late 70’s but the ironic thing was that they kept drilling us that if we were furloughed they put in another location if at all possible because would not want us to quit and work for another RR after they spent all that money training us, but after all that has happened lately I’m glad I lived out of their prefered commute area, I think I’ll like NS better
Rich
I thought CSX made new hires pay for their training?
I wonder how that is going to affect the class that I will be going to in February for a CSX Nashville conductor training position. Maybe by the time I am done with my training 6 weeks later the layoffs will be finished. $7,000 is a lot of money to invest to only find out that I wont be working for a while. Break down of the cost is $4,500 for tuition and $2,500 for lodging expenses in Atlanta.
The word I was given when I talked to the AMDG folks late last summer was the “pay your own way” training with them was slowly being phased out over a period over about 18-24 months. Sure enough, a few weeks later it began with places like Richmond, Baltimore and Brunswick and now has spread to quite a few spots. CSX now sends many conductor trainees directly to their REDI Center in Atlanta. Here’s a listing of current locations where you can hire directly off the street, no paying for choo-choo U:
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Illinois - Chicago, Danville, Decatur, Ottawa, Rose Lake
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Indiana - Evansville, Garrett, Lafayete, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Washington
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Maryland - Baltimore, Brunswick, Cumberland
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Massachusetts - Boston, Framingham, Middleboro, Readville, Walpole, West Springfield, Worcester
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Michigan - Detroit, Flint, Lansing, Midland, Saginaw
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New Jersey - S. Kearney
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New York - Massena, New York City, Rochester, Selkirk, Syracuse, Watertown
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Ohio - Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Crestline, Lima, Marion, Maryville, Toledo, Walbridge, Willard
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Pennsylvania - Connellsville, Erie, New Castle, Newell, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh
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Virginia - Richmond
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Washington D.C./Benning Yard
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West Virginia - Benwood, Brooklyn Junction, Grafton, Parkersburg
Yes they send everbody from Garrett, IN to REDI the only thing you need to pay for is food which they reemburse you for they will either fly you there or you can drive but they will only pay you for up to the price of an airline ticket
RichB
They may have told you that they were probably not going to furlough people, but if there is one think I can tell you about working for the railroad its this: Dont believe ANYTHING until it actually happens or you see something in writing. I heard pretty much the same thing when I hired out at CSX, but wouldint it just figure, I just recently got furloughed myself. Hope all goes well for you at NS.