https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1NTfLWYW4
The other day I was in Grants, NM and heard a female crew member on the radio. Is this unusual? What percentage of train crews are women?
The first woman I remember seeing in a train crew was a flagman who boarded Amtrak/SP #2 in Arizona in 1980. From time to time, I have seen women conductors on Amtrak trains--such as one who almost ran into my arms when I was in the aisle of a sleeper on #3 seven years ago.
A few years ago, there was an article in Trains by a former SP employee who wrote of her experiences.
Johnny
My carrier has female conductor and female engineers. If their names come up on the board together - they operate the train.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
We had a regular engineer on the Auto Train for a while, and before that (and possibly after) she was a regular engineer on the Capitol Limited. I think she was active from the late '80's until at least the early 2000's. We also had two female Auto Train OBS crew members who were advanced to Conductor around the early '90's. I'm pretty sure one of them is still working on the Auto Train, and probably is among the highest in seniority on that train.
Tom
In the early to mid 70's there were two women in train service in the Philadelphia area, one on the New York Division that worked to Chestnut Hill and another on the Philadelphia Division that worked mostly to Paoli. The former had started during WW II and made a career of it and the latter was the daughter of a PC Exec. Both were pleasant and professional.
BaltACD My carrier has female conductor and female engineers. If their names come up on the board together - they operate the train.
Same with us and I have seen it happen.
Jeff
To answer my own question, I know that there are at least two female engineers on the New Mexico Railrunner. I've heard them on the radio and seen them in the engines. I think it's great!
Metra has some female conductors/trainmen on the Southwest line, and I assume that there are some on other lines.
I saw a female engineer climb on board an Amtrak locomotive several days ago. "Well good for you!", I thought to myself. "I'm sure you do a fine job running that thing!"
"But let's see you parallel park it!"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
ndbprrExcuse my ignorance but if there is just an engineer and conductor whose responsibility is it to spot and uncouple cars when switching and not trying to start something but are women strong and tall enough to do that?
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There's a very attractive female conductor who works between Marshall and Little Rock on the Texas Eagle.
Mark
BigJim ndbprr Excuse my ignorance but if there is just an engineer and conductor whose responsibility is it to spot and uncouple cars when switching and not trying to start something but are women strong and tall enough to do that? Yes.
ndbprr Excuse my ignorance but if there is just an engineer and conductor whose responsibility is it to spot and uncouple cars when switching and not trying to start something but are women strong and tall enough to do that?
Yes.
As to Amtrak conductors, As I was on the way back to my car Monday night I spoke, briefly, with the woman conductor who came in on #5 (I went down to the station to complete a change in my ticket for my next trip). I have seen several of the conductors who are based here, but I had not seen her before.
The hardest part would be replacing knuckles.
There have been women, and men, who didn't make it out of their initial training phase because they couldn't do some part of the required work.
Near the end of WWII the labor shortage on US railroads was becoming so acute that women were employed as train crew with some limitations. The big problem was that there was no way to accomodate women overnight away from their home terminals. They were used as conductors and ticket takers on interurban and suburban runs and some were assigned as firemen (?) on oil fired yard engines out West. All this ended as the wartime emergency wound down.
If an applicant of either gender doesn't have the physical strength to throw switches, tie down handbrakes, etc., they are washed out. Most RRs now require both physical and mental aptitude tests to see if the potential employee can do the job. I trained a young woman who was about 5' tall and weighed not much more than 110 pounds as a hostler helper. She could do any task required with ease and grace!
ndbprrI doubt you will ever see an all female crew unless it is a photo op but there have been female crew members since the mid 1980s and possibly earlier. Women did a lot of jobs during WW2 so there may have been some then but I don't recall any information to support that. *****************************************BN could and did field all female crews circa 1977 and later between Edgemont and Gillette. Dick Haave
In today's railroad on my territories, we have female Conductors and female Engineers. If the luck of their positions on the boards gets them called for the same train, we have a female T&E crew. By the same token, we have Fathers & Sons, Brothers and Fathers and Daughters. We don't have any Mothers and Daughters - YET!
We've had some father-son and brother-brother train crews. (Luck of the draw, just the way they were called.) We had the potential for a mother-son crew. Until the son got dismissed.
Those crews staffed by relatives were only possible where I work after the UP took over the CNW. The CNW had a policy of not hiring close relatives on the same seniority district. The UP didn't, or had discontinued if they did at one time, have that policy. I was told years ago that some railroads had that policy to reduce the risk of one family having multiple losses in one accident.
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