Sad to see them scale back but I guess with the other parts of the Army shrinking or have shrunk it makes sense........
https://www.army.mil/article/153773/army_railroaders_undergoing_dramatic_change
A millenial video game! Six weeks training?
Unqualfied to understand or recommend anything.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Camoflage and Hi Vis vest! Makes a lot of sense.
BaltACDA millenial video game! Six weeks training?
Psst... it isn't the millenials designing and implementing this stuff.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
We have an engineer who started his railroad career in the Army. Then to a short line and finally to us.
It sounds now like instead of training people to be working railroaders, they are going to train them to be railroad managers. Or railroad consultants.
Jeff
zugmann BaltACD A millenial video game! Six weeks training? Psst... it isn't the millenials designing and implementing this stuff.
BaltACD A millenial video game! Six weeks training?
No - it is Gen X'ers that never thought railroads existed - all they ever heard was that railroads were antiquated technology that would not longer exist far into the 21st Century.
jeffhergert We have an engineer who started his railroad career in the Army. Then to a short line and finally to us. It sounds now like instead of training people to be working railroaders, they are going to train them to be railroad managers. Or railroad consultants. Jeff
Their last big assignment and deployment was to put the pieces of Iraqi National Railways back together and get the trains running again after the last invasion. One of the guys that deployed there wrote an article for Trains Magazine on the expeirience. What they basically found with the last assignment was they were not needed as "hands on" as they found the locals already had what they thought were the best practices in place. So they backed off and helped in more of a coordination role. So for example the Iraqi's had no clue how the bureaucracy of the U.S. Army or U.S. Government worked and the railway workers eventually handled that for them and trained them in it. Working with the new Iraqi State to obtain new locomotives and rolling stock was another mission. Also in how to coordinate with Army ground units for security in areas of known enemy activity. So I suspect their new role will be patterned after that. However only 150 people? Thats not a lot to do much of anything unless the country is tiny.
BTW, at one point the Iraqi National Railways was dispatched from Cedar Rapids. IA using satellite techology I think I read somewhere. That was back when the country / city areas were not as secure.
Uniformed Railroad folks only handle the trains in a secure PORT environment and overseas. The various Army installations across the country use civilian crews obtained via USAJobs probably. Some of the overseas railway work such as in Germany with DB is also handled by civilians as well.
The high visibility vests are worn in garrison areas and they are not popular but they are helpful when your in a loading area and you have tanks rolling around with railway equipment, with other heavy equipment......easy to get lost in the background and squashed. Especially if it is a foggy / drizzly day.
As a former US Army railroader I don't like to see the cut back. I left the Army a long time ago but I try to somewhat keep up with its happenings.
This change seems to be in line with what is going on in the armed forces. Authorized strength levels have been reduced so choices have to be made. One such "choice" is to replace every soldier, sailor, or aircrew member, with a civilian contractor where possible. An example consists of the US Navy's ships that bear the "USNS" prefix instead of the "USS" prefix. The USNS ships are resupply ships that serve the combat ships which have the USS prefix. The USNS ships have civilian crews. The Navy also contracts to civilians for aireal refueling operations.
It makes sense that the Army would contract out rail operations when and if they need such a thing. They also want to retain some in house knowledge of rail operations. They seem to have done that.
I'll opine that our armed forces have been reduced too much. For example, the Army has been drastically reduced. Part of that reduction was the removal of every US Army tank from Europe. The same administration that removed the tanks put some of them back when (surprise!) Russia began grabbing parts of the Ukraine. Now our Army, despite its greatly reduced size, has been task to put two active duty heavy (tanks and mechanized infantry) brigades in Poland.
With such tasks and constraints it's reasonable that the US Army would chose to put avaiable soldiers in tanks instead of locomotives. And then rely on contractors to operate the supply lines.
greyhounds As a former US Army railroader I don't like to see the cut back. I left the Army a long time ago but I try to somewhat keep up with its happenings. This change seems to be in line with what is going on in the armed forces. Authorized strength levels have been reduced so choices have to be made. One such "choice" is to replace every soldier, sailor, or aircrew member, with a civilian contractor where possible. An example consists of the US Navy's ships that bear the "USNS" prefix instead of the "USS" prefix. The USNS ships are resupply ships that serve the combat ships which have the USS prefix. The USNS ships have civilian crews. The Navy also contracts to civilians for aireal refueling operations. It makes sense that the Army would contract out rail operations when and if they need such a thing. They also want to retain some in house knowledge of rail operations. They seem to have done that. I'll opine that our armed forces have been reduced too much. For example, the Army has been drastically reduced. Part of that reduction was the removal of every US Army tank from Europe. The same administration that removed the tanks put some of them back when (surprise!) Russia began grabbing parts of the Ukraine. Now our Army, despite its greatly reduced size, has been task to put two active duty heavy (tanks and mechanized infantry) brigades in Poland. With such tasks and constraints it's reasonable that the US Army would chose to put avaiable soldiers in tanks instead of locomotives. And then rely on contractors to operate the supply lines.
While not privy to all the intrinsic details I'm of the opinion that we need to keep a strong military if we are going to survive the onslaught. Teddy Roosevelt's comment about carrying a big stick while speaking softly had merit.
Norm
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