Female brakeperson

[Cheese]

Indeed,

Any woman working for the railroad earns my respect.

There is a tourist line in England called the "Severn Valley Railway". Isaw their volunteer video posted on Youtube, which featured a woman working in the signal box (towers, we call them here) at Bridgnorth (the terminus of the line) who is called a "Lady Signalmen", who, I gather from the video, is a volunteer.

For those interested, here is a link to the video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8Tosivq9I

Cheese

[cnwfan51]

   We have a few women conductors and engineers working here in Boone and for the most part they do thire job and I do not have a problem with them at all.  But we did have a female student conductor who thought this job was just riding trains and after she was set up as a qualified conductor got a rude awaking one night when her train arrived in Marshalltown Iowa to both set out and pick up a string of cars and refused to do the work because  she was a girl and it was raining outside  needless to say she did not last to long after that   Larry

[Anonymous]

My wife and I volunteer on a tourist line and we BOTH qualified as brakemen.  She knows to ask for 3-point before going in to lace the hoses, and has her own switch key so she can bend the iron, just like everyone else.  If I was worried about her, I'd tell her to stay home.

[Anonymous]

Mike,

   Evidentely when the word tourist is mentioned, in reference to you and your wifes volunteering as brakemen, it must have been during tourist season in a climate in a  part of the country that was not like a winter here in the midwest where for 30 years I tied up thousands of air hoses hoses when they were so stiff from the cold that it took two hands to bend the hose to make a connection and at times seen brakemen in that weather that took all the strengh that they had to get the switch handle over.No job for a woman unless her a lady wrestler.

As one person in this forum mentioned. Working in freight train service as a brakeman or switching yards is a Whole Different "ball of wax".

I seen a brakeman get between  two cars when opening  couplers when the slack in about 15 cars between him and the engine run back in toward him. Not a good spot for a brakeman of either gender. I can still picture that in my mind.

 

 

[Anonymous]

Mike,

   Evidentely when the word tourist is mentioned, in reference to you and your wifes volunteering as brakemen, it must have been during tourist season in a climate in a  part of the country that was not like a winter here in the midwest where for 30 years I tied up thousands of air hoses hoses when they were so stiff from the cold that it took two hands to bend the hose to make a connection and at times seen brakemen in that weather that took all the strengh that they had to get the switch handle over.No job for a woman unless her a lady wrestler.

As one person in this forum mentioned. Working in freight train service as a brakeman or switching yards is a Whole Different "ball of wax".

I seen a brakeman get between  two cars when opening  couplers when the slack in about 15 cars between him and the engine run back in toward him. Not a good spot for a brakeman of either gender. I can still picture that in my mind

I would like to clarify my Post above being a little more specific.-As to the brakeman that used poor judgement: When the coupling was not made he gave the signal to engineer to pull back to seperate the cars and which did happen but this was done but on a very slight incline which led to the slack between the cars to run back down just as the brakeman was opening the knuckles on the two draw bars {couplers}. I learned later that he had about 8 months as a brakeman.

And as for hard throwing switches : Snow in the trailing points made a hard job for brakeman to get them over.