Hey everyone great group here i like it. i have me a question. I am looking to be a police officer and looking to be a poilce officer i can call up any agency and do a ride along with a beat officer on his normal everyday beat its alot of fun! i love doing it!. anyways back to my point i am wondering if union pacific did some type of program that i could call and set up a time to do a ride along with a engineer in the actual engine. if someone had any information about that let me no that would be great. I would love just to ride around on a engine for a day and learn some more stuff about being a engineer. Thanks everyone!
P.S. i actually no a engineer i just havn’t got to talk to him about it yet and if he says yes would the company ok it?
Welcome aboard and good luck with your career, but I don’t think you will get a cabride as a ride-a-long. Try contacting the police dept. of the railroad(s) in your area.
UP has quite often done an “Officer on a Train” program, in the interest of grade crossing safety. I haven’t heard much about it in a year or so, though. I assume your department would have to be in an area with a higher accident rate, and I’d have no idea how you’d go about being the lucky officer selected, but it isn’t all that hopeless.
Also check out the strength of your town’s Operation Lifesaver program.
You guys are too funny! If Chrysler had ever built locomotives, it would appropriate to have a MoPar doing that flight.
Here’s a true story of how someone got a UP cab ride, through all the right channels:
When I was a student at USC in Los Angeles, one of my profs in 1971 was an assistant dean of the business school. He was also, as I found out, a railfan.
He told me (with his eyes lit up) that during one recent year, Union Pacific had wrapped up its recruiting visit on the campus, and the rep was thanking the people in the school office for their hospitality and cooperation. The UP man also said something to the effect of “Let us know if we can ever do you a favor.” My future prof seized the opportunity and mentioned that he’d love to get a ride in the cab of a locomotive. UP didn’t give him just any ol’ cab ride, but let him ride in the eastbound City of Los Angeles all the way to Las Vegas. Talk about making good on a promise!
One could hardly BUY a ride like that, at least not legitimately.
The key thing here is it was 1971, things have changed. A local shortline may be willing to agree to a cab ride, but not a class 1. But it never hurts to ask.
Go to www.somethingawful.com and look for something called “Photoshop Phriday” - look in the archives for 2004 for “Great Moments in Railroad History” … there are more than a few really good ones in there. I grabbed the two images and put them on my server (no bandwidth issues for them that way) to post here.
When I was about 11 or 12 years old (think late 60’s) My Scout group went on a tour of the local Great Northern roundhouse and shops in Great Falls, MT. We spend a good 2 hours touring around the facility guided, I assume, by a member of management (I have no idea now who that guy was.)
At any rate, about two months later, I talked my Dad into taking me out there again. I thought I could just go out there and look around any time I wanted t. I have no idea where I’d got that idea, but I was pretty sure of myself. Well, my walking around the inside of the roundhouse with Dad in tow – with no escort – caused a pretty big scene. We had several guys “come out of nowhere” and demand to know what we were doing. They herded us into the offices and started asking my dad a bunch of questions. [:-,] Dad did his best to explain what we were doing there, and everyone started to calm down. Finally we were ushered into the General Managers office, with a stern warning that this was private property and we couldn’t just barge in there anytime we wanted to. I figured they were going to hand us over to the local police. Dad must have done some pretty serious fast talking.
Wouldn’t you know it - the next thing I knew the GM called a guy in to the office and told him to “run one of the Geeps out onto the tunrtable.” He then escorted Dad and I out tot he TT, gave me a tour of the loco, and then not only gave me a ride, he actually let me run the controls!! I got to operate that Big-Sky Blue GP7 down the tracks, apply the brakes, then reverse, speed up, and go around the back of the roundhouse and shops. We finally brought the loco back to the turntable and the GM ran it back onto the TT bridge before leading us off the Geep and back into the office. We dind’t go far, but what a thrill that was! He then gave me a couple of souvenir pens or something like that, and then sent us
Why are they so strict on cab rides. I must be very lucky in the mid 90’s I live in PA and a stone throw away was a conrail short line that would come a few times a week. And during the summer I would go and wait sometimes hours for it to come through. One day they stopped to get coffee and I was talking to the engineer and long stry short I was on. And a couple times that year he would stop and pick me up. Then arond the same time I was visiting my Grandma in Texas that just so happened to live 1/2 mile from a small UP train yard that supplied tank cars to the refineries. Got lucky and a engineer names mike asked me if I wanted to see how this thing works. And I got to go along to a couple of refineries and do some switching and he even let me drive. The conducter said i drove better thanMike. The good ol days.
I just have some advice for the police officer thing. Through school, and applying, and all of that great stuff, mind your grammar. I at one point was interested in being a law enforcement officer, and the biggest piece of advice I received was to stay in school, and have good communication skills.
If you are still in school, perhaps you could job shadow an engineer?
I have to second that bit about the grammar. Being able to write clearly and concisely is extremely important when working as a cop, firefighter, or paramedic.
