Okay all you rail roaders, what’s your favourite part of your job?
The part I love the most is having to get up ridiculously early on one of those mornings when the mist is so thick over fields it looks like an ocean, and everything is qute except for the clikity-clack of the train and the whistle over the crossings, going east into the promiss of an amazing day.
I actually have dozens of momments like these. I think of all those people who work their entire live to have an office with a window. Look at my office and my window!!!
Time to make all those office dwellers jealous, and reminde yourself of the reasons your there!
-Toronto
there are several moments for me at 10 -11pm when most people are going to bed and the night is young the peaceful feeling that travels with you thru the night when the real movers and shakers are working. things are quite and the world is asleep. then around 5am you crest the grade and the sun is shining. a light fog is over the valley. you start down and the sun disappears and it looks like dawn again the farmers are up moving around then you just lean out the window let the cool air hit your face its fresh its so quite you dont even hear the engines just peace its a great feeling at that time of the morning.
Early dawn, when the deer are starting to go back into the brush, just before the sun comes up, and there is just enough light to watch the world wake up. We have even shut down the motor, in a siding while waiting to get back into the yard, and poured us each a cup of coffee, we go sit on the front of the motor and just listen. Amazing how quite the woods are that early, you whisper to each other without even knowing why.
On those days I remember why I walked away from the desk job. Why bother with looking through a window when I can breath it, feel it, taste and smell how great life really is.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
As you know I dont work for the RRs, but I also find that smell of fresh damp air in the county side in the morning. I work till midnight and some times drive foe work. After work my fiance’ & I and go for alot of drives till dawn. My favorite sight is the sun rising over Lake Michigan in the wee morning hours. You cannot tell where the sky and lake touch when its all midnight blue and purple. The city also has that fresh smell early in the morning. Its as if your the only one alive in the city. I think I now realise why I took 2nd shift. I can still see this stuff and sleep the day away!
And all the “normal people” have to look at tail lights all morning. And never have any idea what they are missing out on.
Lucky us nightcrawlers dont tell em…
Stay Frosty,
Ed
I enjoy the conversation with my coworkers. I enjoy hearing about the old days. I also love sunrise and sunset. Good stuff! Its kinda cool rollin through the small towns at night and wondering what’s going on in podunk Nebraska at 11:00pm.
Ken
Sounds like everyone really LOVES the mornings.
Y2K newyears eve. Stoped for two hours beside lake Ontario in a dome car watching fire works…
I love my job!!!
Good to see you folks still like the job. As for myself, I really enjoyed the feeling of the power and the sound [through earplugs]of the locomotives, and the feeeling in control [usually] of all that weight at speed.
HOWEVER, I became real tired of answering the phone at xx:00 to go to work, four hours after the caller telling me there was nothing showing and I was 4 times out in the pool, and being on duty for at least 12 hours, staying at a lousy hotel, then 12 more hours on duty and them home for hopefully 12 hours to get reacquainted with the family.
Yes, I miss the view out the window; I miss all those things those before me wrote. Now, I look out my office window and watch trains go by [the CP main is <100yd from my window], sometimes really missing my 20yrs of railroading, and sometimes wondering what time the crew had to be on duty, and being glad to have regular hours.
I’ve been away from railroading for 10 years. And from what my old cronies tell me, railroading just is not as much fun as it used to be. With locomotives that practically run themselves, to the extensive monitoring (electronically) of all activity, and the federal involvement in rules enforcement, I’m not sure if it would feel the same.
On the flip side, in the “good old” days, there was rampant rule violations, safety set aside for ease of operation, dangerous equipment, and a management that really did not care.
So I do not know if I woulod still like it.
When I go out to photograph trains during the early morning sun, and I hear on the radio a crew telling a dispatcher that their hours expire at, say, 1100, I think that these guys were probably called for work before I went to bed, they have been at it for nine hours already, are ready to expire on the law, and in the meantime I’ve had a nice evening with the family, got a good night’s sleep, and have been out recreating, all during the time the crew has been devoted to work.
Of course, they probably make more $$$ in two days than I make all week…
Every now and then they take me off the road to train new hires. We’re in a class room for 5 weeks - Monday to Friday, 9:30-17:30. You would think it a great treat…it always sounds better .
Somhow though, it never is. For some reason, getting up at 7:00 for me is harder than waking up at 3:30. At the end of each day I’m home. But when I get home I’m so tired that I can barely cook myself supper.
Why is that? Why is it that that I can work 16 hours on my feet from the crack of dawn until nearly midnight and be laughing all the way…but make me work under neon lights with books and computers around me for eight hours, me, I’m pooped!
To each his own, eh? I mean at the end of the day, if you’re not happy somewhere than you’re probably not in the right job. If you ARE happy, you should treasure ever momment of it.
Saturday night, just as I am setting out for my trip to Windsor, a REAL steam engin pulls in right beside us. It was shiney and loud, and it felt like, just for a momment, like we had all stepped back in time. It was spectacular. I was truly in awe. We all stood out on the platform with our jaws gaping. Ya, I really like my job!
Despite all that I wrote recently regarding the lousy hours, the homogenity of the new equipment, and all the monitoring of activity, being a Locomotive Engineer was, and remains to me, the coolest, most fascinating, and best job of all!! I got a tremendous feeling of satisfaction from getting a difficult train over the road without any problems. If there had been some type of regularity of hours, I would have stayed there until I was forced to retire. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I really miss it sometimes.
well,i dont work for the railroad,but my favorite part is being on the road. i drive a dump truck and get to see a lot of different places. but mostly like it out in the country working on some farm when you get to see all the animal, and nature at its best.
I’m headed to work now. 0330 is not the greatest time to work but its one of the best jobs we have. I love the way the cw60ac’s that we’ll have sing at 60mph. I’m not a morning person but i love to see the sun come up in the winter time i think its got something to do with the cold crisp air. I love the fact that i never use an alarm clock. Staying away from my family and at rough hotels and the gestapo management sure do make it hard to enjoy work right now but it’ll get better
While never employed by a RR my favorite is when rail fanning & get to one of my favorite spots just as the sun is rising & watch the trains go by. [:o)]