What is the duty and responsibilities of a Roadmaster?
What about a Trainmaster?
ed
Roadmaster is responsible for maintenance of 200-500 miles of track in a given territory. In charge of routine maintenance and budget to maintain that territory. He gets extra help for new capital projects built under his direction.
That is his piece of railroad, he has the ultimate trump card to tell the dispatcher whether the DS and any train can use HIS track. He rarely pulls the trump card as a member of the overall team.
and he is usually overworked, underpaid, and underloved…
So then, the Roadmaster is in charge of the tracks, and the Trainmaster is in charge of the Trains that run on those tracks? Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown
Manager of Train Operations (MTO), Manager of Track Maintenance (MTM), Manager of Operating Practices (MOP) are modern titles of a Trainmaster, Roadmaster and RFE.
Dave H.
Thanks for the information - all this time I thought a Roadmaster was an old Buick.
dd
I believe that you are refering to a Roadster or an modified overgrown sportscar. I.E. MG’s some BMW’s, Mazda’a Meiata, et. el etc., etc., etc.
Nope - Roadmaster was a Buick model…
What year?
The Roadmaster was the 4-hole Buick. I think Buick made the Roadmaster from 1948 through about 1959 or 1960. It was replaced by the Electra.
dd
Thanks for the 411
No, I was not a '58 Buick with chrome & tailfins…[:D]
Depends on whose railroad you are on. The terms above were dreamed up by the wall street yuppie trash and others when they could not decipher the older military terms. NS uses the term track supervisor for roadmaster (To BNSF, that is a motor track inspector). Then there are General Roadmasters and Division Engineers. It gets very different between the railroad cultures.
Mudchicken and others:
Speaking of military…I notice that railroads are very similar to the military in a lot of aspects.
Today, I heard the Roadmaster being referred to as Mr. _________.
Ok, I am all for formalities…but Mr___________…cant a simple Jim Smith suffice in addressing someone?
ed
The early railroads were built by a lot of ex-military types (one of the best early engineering colleges was West Point). Railroads also had an operation which resembled a military organization in a lot of widely separated far flung outposts that required a great deal of coordination and operated 24x7.
Even today the railroads hire a lot of ex-military. I have known B-52 pilots, nuke silo operators, Navy air traffic controllers, MP’s, SP’s and even a few ex-military intelligence types who have worked for railroads.
Dave H.
UP was first operated by ex-Civil War generals. Since many of their workers were ex-civil war solders, and having not other organization pattern to follow for a large undertaking, they used the military organizational structure they were familiar with. It worked. So it stuck. In fact, the UP “generals” were so used to giving orders, they often ordered the US Army around to fill UP needs - that worked also.
dd
And the Roadmaster name was revived from 1992-1996 in the Buick line with GM’s final full size rear-drive platform that included the Cadillac Fleetwood and the Rear-wheel drive Caprice and Impala SS Rear wheel drive model. these generally had the 5.7 liter engine in them…all discontinued at the end of the 1996 model year. Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown
My first car was a 58 Buick 2 door hardtop[:)].
Took premium gas,got 10 MPG[B)].
My favorite aircraft. Now if I could only get and SD40T-2 and a B-52 in the same picture.
That’s interesting that NS calls Roadmasters Track Supervisors. When trackwork is being done along the NS line between Altoona and Johnstown, I sometimes hear radio chatter calling" Track Supervisor Little" I don’t recall Mr. Little’s first name at the moment, but I always thought that track supervisor position was just a supervisor of that particular crew, I never knew that it was actually up in the job grades of Roadmaster and Trainmaster. Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown