Who Is A Conductor?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I’ve been wanting to ask this for along time and am a bit confused on who is a conductor and who isn’t.

ON FREIGHT TRAIN:

  1. 2 crew members, one is an engineer, the other is… a conductor?

  2. On diesel locomotives of the olden times I’ve heard that the other man in the cab was referred to as the fireman… was this an incorrect reference?

  3. On steam trains-were there 3 people in the cab? engineer, fireman, and conductor?

ON PASSENGER TRAIN:
4) The guy (or gal) who punches my ticket: is he/she a conductor? All those people in uniform that check your tickets before they let you on board- they’re conductors too?

  1. Is there one head conductor and others are assistants? Do they follow some seniority rank?

  2. Who rides in the cab with the engineer on a passenger train? Is he a conductor too?

In Trains magazine a while back they said in the olden days blacks were not allowed to be engineers but there is a picture of the guy in the cab with train orders- was he officially a conductor? What would happen if the engineer would become incapacitated- would he, the conductor, be allowed to take over in an emergency?

I heard an Amtrak conductor say once a long time ago say he got this Amtrak job to get out of the weather most of the time.

In all my train books the glosseries leave out the term ‘conductor.’ I think almost everyone knows what a conductor basically does, and I’m not trying to trivialize those duties, I just want to know right now which ones on the train crews are called conductors.

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

I am assuming you are talking about American railroads.

  1. Where there are 2 man crews working without remote control on common carrier railroads, yes.

  2. No. There were firemen well into the diesel era.

  3. Sometimes. It was usually the Engineer, Fireman and Head End Brakeman. The Conductor, Rear End Brakeman and/or Flagman rode the caboose on road trains.

  4. Sometimes. Usually a train has only one Conductor who is also the “Boss” of the train crew. In passenger service the conductor and other trainmen wear uniforms and collect tickets these other folks can go by a variety of names depending upon the railroad and the exact duties and include: Trainmen, Assistant Conductors, Brakemen and Ticket Takers.

  5. See #4. Yes there is seniority in play and as one moves up the train service roster one can hold various positions. Different railroads may divide the rosters differently by job and promotion. For example, a new brakeman could hold the brakeman’s roster, but not the Flagman’s or Conductor’s roster. One rose by seniority and knowledge of the craft and through periodic promotion exams.

  6. No. Usually it is a fireman or in the case of Amtrak an Assistant Engineer who is also a fully certified Locomotive Engineer under the CFR.

With regard to the black employees on southern railroads. They suffered discrimination at the hands of others just as their counterparts in other industries did. I believe the photo you are talking about depicts a black Fireman. Typically Fireman did some running of trains, but that would probably depend upon whether the Engineer would allow it.

LC