Completed 200-hour training course last week; thought it would be easy to hire out somewhere. Found out the hard way that it is not. Family (and I) becoming discouraged. Advice, anyone?
Where are you looking? UP is hiring like crazy. CSX also is hiring in certain locations as is the NS. Several short line groups are looking at multiple locations as well.
You need to keep trying and expand the horizons of your search. Railroaders fequently have to move to hold work. It is a concept you should get used to.
LC
This is why I have discouraged people from going to these “train schools”.
To hire on the NS go to their web site nscorp.com and submit an online resume.It is about the only way the NS hires now.If they have openings they will email you.The school will help as an aid on your application.And the thing is, the NS pays you to go to school and train [^] .
But like Limitedclear mentioned,you may have to move around a little at first.Or you may luck out and hire in a local position.
Good Luck !
.
Like Mack, I discourage people for attending a “training school” without a job offer in hand. I always tell people to contact the railroad they want to work for first, and go to the school they tell you to.
Best advice I can give, is to submit applications to all the Class Is and regionals in your area (don’t be surprised if they send you for more training at the school of THIER choosing). You can try shortlines, although shortlines may not be interested because you are only “school trained” with no experiance.
As Limitedclear said, get used to the idea of moving. No one may be hiring in your area, and you could have to move 100 miles or more for a position.
Good Luck
Nick
I would also tell people not to go to these schools. I went to one. A complete waste of money. We were lied to by the school about our job prospects following school. Before we went to the school they said there were more jobs than people to fill them. After we got to the school they told us no one from the previous class had gotten a job. In my class of nine people none of us got jobs. I now work for U.P. but it took me 25 years to get on and it is not in the field that I trained for.
Save your money. Just apply for every position that interests you. Don’t give up. I interviewed for four jobs on two railroads before I got on.
If you give some idea of where you live, you have more chance of being pointed in the right direction.
One place you can look whever you are is the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board Job Listing at www.rrb.gov. Click on the "Railroad Job Listing Link in the bottom right of the home page. Once you get to the job listings they are listed by category and below all the current listings are links to numerous railroad websites employment information.
LC
I live in Staten Island, New York. Have you any connections here?
No, but I’ll bet you have quite a few “neighbors” reading this forum who can give you good advice.
I did find a few things on the internet which you’ve probably already looked into, but just in case-
Passenger - Long Island Rail Road posts openings for Assistant Conductors.
New Jersey Transit, Assistant Conductors, Hoboken & Newark.
Freight - Norfolk Southern, Conductor Trainees, North Jersey, NJ.
New York & Atlantic’s site shows no openings.
Best of luck!
Why did it take you 25 years to find a job with UP (if you don’t mind my asking)?
first of all…did you go to a school with a spesific railroad teaching the program (ie csx training school…UP training school ext ext)… i ask becoues if it was railroad spesifice they normaly will at least offer you a job interview at some point durning the program and a job offer when you complite it with atleast the min. required grades and passing the background…drug…driving record and physical screenings. If it was just a 200 hour program for no proticuler railroad. sorry but you just got screwed over if you payed out of pocket for it yourself. becouse you may have to pay for it all over agin to get on with a carrier if they want you to go thourgh there carrier spicsific traiing program…
csx engineer
You may have to move to where the RR needs workers, but don’t fret that. Since by working the extra board, you’ll only be “home” long enough to get rest and called back out.
Just for kicks, go here and check state by state job postings on the NS.
Makes it pretty convenient since all you have to do is tell them what state you would be willing to work out of, and they tell you what is available, where.
Don’t give up!
A few years back a friend of mine in his 30s, a bus mechanic at the local transit authority (Tampa, Florida), decided he wanted to work in the railroad industry. He called UP and BNSF offices. After 3 months of checking, a UP rep on the phone told him of job openings in California. Though he had to relocate, UP still hired him to work in maintenance. Though he was a mechanic his goal was to be a locomotive engineer. Last I heard he was working as a train crew member, though I don’t know which position.
I considered getting into the railroad industry as well, but as is stated so often, if you want to work in the transportation crafts you may have to relocate to another town or state.
Union Pacific is looking for switchmen/trainmen along The Overland Route across Nebraska and Wyoming. Please submit an application at their web site.
Zone 100 seniority encompasses
- Kansas City to and including Oakley and Colby, Kans. plus
- Council Bluffs, Iowa to the east switch at Cheyenne plus
- the coal line between O’Fallons, Nebr. and South Morrill plus
- the very busy Marysville Subdivision connecting Topeka, Kans. with Gibbon, Nebr. plus
- some additional branchlines and the North Platte yard.
Zone 200 seniority encompasses
- the east switch at Cheyenne to Granger, Wyo. (where the “Oregon Short Line” splits away from The Overland Route mainline) plus
- switching terminals at Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins, and Green River, Wyo.
Establishing a seniority date in a Zone allows an employee to hold a job anywhere within the Zone (seniority permitting). For example, a guy who establishes an 11/01/06 date in North Platte has seniority over someone whose seniority date is 11/02/06 in Council Bluffs. For new hires point seniority doesn’t apply, only the seniority date established within the Zone is valid. But don’t be misled, if you’re marked up on a North Platte board, you won’t be called to fill a switch engine assignment 280+ miles away in Omaha.
Zone 200 is entirely within southern Wyoming. It has a milder climate than the midwest and plains states, taxes are dirt chea
New Jersey Transit is hiring. And it owuld not be much of a commute for you.
Check them out.
I went to a training course in Albany, New York run by a company called AMDG, based in Atlanta, Georgia. And, in fact, it was what you called a “railroad specific” program–for CSX, ironically! I earned my certificate, but I did not pass the strength test. My instructors said that they would do what they could to help me find a job–in fact, I intend to call one of them later today because he told me that he has quite a few connections in the New York City area. Needless to say, I will be eternally grateful to him if he can really help me. Wish us luck!
what specifically is “the strength test”? All they said to us about that kind of thing is having to be able to lift and change an 80+/- lb coupling knuckle.
That’s to make sure you can pick up stuff.
right , I’m just curious what seperates pass from fail, as far as the test this person took.
AntiGates, I can tell you from my own experience with the UP, that the strength test consisted of chinups, situps etc conducted in the Yard Office which was a petty comical exercise to both witness and participate in. Alot of us paunchy “candidates” looked like we were going to implode in a red faced demonstration of mind over matter. One guy hung on the chin up bar like wet laundry for what seemed like several weeks without managing to bend an elbow toward the bar. Several of us retreated afterward to a local dive that had its own bar where we managed to bend our elbows without any apparent effort with Milwaukees finest.