I’m a noobie period,… I’ve always loved model trains and have started to get into them!
But, Life is starting to take some turns and im starting to get to the point where i need to get setteled!
Is railroading a decent career, I love watching them as they go by, I was curious as to if any of you were engineers or transportation operations specialist, Im still young but I love trains! I live in NC and have always been a southern and NS and CSX fan but I have nothing against othe branches, I respect the feild and have heard it is great retirement, what about family life? Im just looking for something I know i’ll enjoy.
Railroading, especially in the early years of a career can be far from settled down. There may be frequent furloughs or forced moves to other terminals to work.
The retirement right now is pretty good but by the time you have 30 years in and turn 60 that may have all changed. The trend in this country seems now to be to get away from any fixed benefit pension plans. The railroad carriers will follow suit, for sure.
Family like will be very hard. When you work, you will have lots of irregular hours with no ability to plan when you will be home or perhaps even have a day or two off.
You will not know if you will enjoy it until you try it. There is just no way you can know until you have lived it for a while.
I won’t suggest it one way or another. It is your life to live the way you wish. If you want to give it at try start the process TODAY! It is all about seniority and one or two numbers can make a big difference over a career in railroading.
If you have a local railroad facility with a trainmaster present you might go down an ask to speak with that person, yes, there are female trainmasters as well. Two questions you should ask are, “What are the chances I can get hired near town A?” and “Which locations will I have the best chance at getting hired?” You might also try to find out which terminals have the least ‘seasonal’ traffic patterns since that would indicate a location that has fewer winter layoffs than some others.
Railroad would be a great place to work from people i’ve talk to that use to work for the railroad. Its a wonderful job. I plan on working on the railroad as soon as i finish college.
Are you near Salisbury or Hamlet, NC? Great places to watch trains, and where you find great places to watch trains you will often find very well-informed railfans and maybe even employees.
I think the railroad in question probably has a lot to do with it. I personally haven’t ever thought about working for them (as an adult anyway) because I’ve had friends that tell me about having to work the extra board… Barely getting enough rest time… Spending holidays in motel rooms… and so on. But that’s mainly with the big roads. I think it’s possible to maybe find a smaller RR that has a little bit more predictability. You might have to do some time on a big road first, just to get the training.