For those of you that are interested in training to go work for the railroads, I am going to tell you a little about the Modoc Railroad Academy in Sacramento, California (www.ModocRailroadAcademy.com). I am one of 5 students currently enrolled in their 8-week conductor training program. We just finished Day 1 which consisted of Red Cross CPR / first aid certification training, so there is not much railroad-wise to report yet, but I will keep you updated as things progress.
The next couple of days we will be spending covering the development of railroads in North America from the 1820’s onward (and even a little pre-1820’s railroad history from England as it pertains to the development of US railroads). We are using the text “Trains across the Continent” by Dr. Rudolph Daniels (ISBN 0-253-21411-4). Even if you have no intention of ever working for a railroad, I would still highly recommend this book to any railfan that is unfamiliar to railroad history - it is a VERY interesting read indeed.
The basic structure of our course is for weeks of classroom training in at the Academy’s office suites in downtown Sacramento, covering primarily signals and the Union Pacific’s Operating Rules handbook, with a little history at the beginning to put things in context.
I hope you didn’t pay them too much.
Ask your instructor why the Modoc railroad academy is not in Modoc anymore, and Why they’ are not welcome back.
Hope it works out for you.
First of all, to correct your error, “Modoc” is not an actual town or city, but is a county in northern California.
Although the Modoc Railroad Academy was located in Modoc County, California originally, they moved to Sacramento area in order to secure branch-line ralroad trackage on which they could operate their locomotive and rail cars to train conductor and engineer students.
If you have additional information concerning any negative reasons as to why the Academy was moved to Sacramento, you really need to share those with the rest of the railroad community. Without further information, your last post basically appears as a statement from a disgruntled railfan.
Although I am trying to be fair to you, please do note that the TRAINS Magazine discussion forums are not the place for the posting of unsubstantiated negative rumors and gossip concerning railroads, railroad-affiliated companies, railroad employees, rail fans and other concerned parties. Please note that such unsubstantiated statements may be considered a form of “liable,” which is a crime punishable under US federal law as well as civil litigation by the Modoc Railroad Academy and interested parties.
drfizzix,
I have lived in Modoc co. at several times in my life, Including most of last year. While I didn’t live there during the days they were there, My father (also a railfan) has, for over 20 yrs.
I don’t know the details and don’t claim to. My post was not aimed at being negative, but rather a warning to watch yourself.
What I do know is the person responsible for paying the bills skipped town owing a lot of bussiness a lot of money. Feathers were ruffied with both the City of alturas, and Modoc co., and the land owners (of the former mill property where they operated). They also made promises they didn’t keep reguarding the museum they were supposed to set up. There are still several loco’s an some rolling stock on the site, and the property owners have no way to get rid of it. A lot of this equiptment was donated because it was going to be a part of that museum.
I don’t know if the same people run the Modoc railroad acadamy. I do know that just mentioning them around modoc will raise a LOT of serious hostilities.
If you want to reasearch this for yourself, try the Modoc Record’s web site (I don’t know it, but they do have one)
Chad, I apologize for nature of my previous post, but I really was not sure if there was a problem that I should be concerned about or not. Obviously, according to what you described, there definitely are some serious concerns about the school. I will definitely look into the situation to the extent that I can as that does indeed raise some troubling questions. I did search the Modoc Record (newspaper)'s website after your initial post, but the only relevant articles I found related to their grand opening in 2000 - nothing relating to their moving to Sacramento or any business misconduct (although their website is not the greatest in being able to locate the information you are looking for).
I am aware that much of the rolling stock is donated (primarily BNSF) albeit I am not familiar with the circumstances surrounding those donations. I did ask the instructor (who is the original founder for the record - David Rangel) about why they moved and his response indicated that the main reason was the lack of commercial development and transportation services in the area in terms of how that negatively affected their enrollment by lacking the commercial surroundings of a big city.
From the week or so that I have been attending the school, everything seems to be on the up and up. I must admit that some of there business operating practices (even from my own personal experience) do raise some questions about the credibility of the program, but the program itself seems legit so far. We are scheduled to have a BNSF recruiter visit our school later this month for direct interviews and tests, so I am assuming that they are at least on good terms with them. Also, one of my fellow classmates has a friend that was recently hired by the UP after completing Modoc’s program. Although their business affairs may or may not be in order they seem to be able to give the students what they are paying for in terms of getting them hired by the US rail carriers.
Drfizzix,
After my last post I thought about it a bit.
First off, Im glad your experience is good so far. I hope it all works out for you.
I should also state that all my info is second hand, and probably is not accurate.
I mainly gave it merrit based on so many people telling me the same thing.
I should also point out that Modoc is somewhat hostile to outsiders bussinesses.
Also the paper there is in my opinion a joke.Example: A friend of mine got busted for DUI and it made the front page. The editor’s son got busted supplying the whole basketball team with whiskey, and nothing was mentioned in the paper.
Perhaps both of you should search this site for prior discussions about Modoc RR Academy. I know it has been discussed several times before both the positive and negative…
I have no idea about the relative merits of the points Chad raised, but I think it’s important to note that libel law in the US is nowhere near as restrictive as this post implies. A litigant must generally prove not only that the statements in question were dishonest, but that the person who made them knew them to be untrue and made them with the explicit intent to harm a person’s reputation. In the case of public figures, courts have generally given a defendent even greater latitude when the complainant was a public figure - the rationale being that the legal system prefers some loose public speech to the chilling effect litigation would have on free speech.
The use of threatened legal action is nevertheless a common form of intimidation these days, and you’ll pardon me, I hope, if I point out that the excerpted quote sounds exactly like legal boilerplate designed to silence criticism. You obviously don’t know the law (if you did, you would hardly have confused the terms for liability and libel), and you ought therefore to be very careful about writing statements that could be construed as a threat of legal action - particularly when you have already associated yourself publicly with the allegedly libeled institution, and your posts could therefore be construed as somehow official.
All comments about business practices aside,it seems to me that the Modoc Academy will attract more students being located in a major city like Sacramento,rather than in Alturas,which is a small town,a long distance from anywhere.
Well, for those skeptics of Modoc’s training program, you will be pleased to know that with one week of field training to go, all five of the students in my conductor class (myself included) have been offered conductor positions.
I was the first one offered a position, as a conductor with BNSF at the Los Angles terminal, starting on May 16th. One other student is beginning the same day with BNSF in Richmond, California (Oakland area) and the other three are hiring on with the Florida Central Railroad Company (www.FCRR.com) around the same time frame too! [8D][:)][:D][^][C):-)]
Modoc also recently printed up some color brochures on their program too. If you would like one, just send an e-mail to them at ModocRailroad@hotmail.com to request one.
Scott,
Glad to hear it is working out for you. I wish you luck. It must be intimidating to start out in LA terminal (shops yard I’m guessing). That is a very busy place. All kinds of room for disaster. Hope all goes smoothly. And as Joe always says be safe.