Foremen, Superintendants, and Masters (question)

[Anonymous]

I have read and heard quite a bit about formen, superintendants, and trainmasters. However, I have a few questions:

1.) What does a trainmaster do?

2.) What is the difference between a foreman and a superintendant of, say, a yard, locomotives, track, etc.?

3.) Why do you need them all?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Most gratefully yours,
Daniel Parks

[dehusman]

1. A trainmaster is a line operating officer. He is in charge of train and yard operations on his territory which is usually a yard or a subdivision. He makes sure the crews follow the rules and the work gets done.

2. The traditional pecking order is:

Superintendent is in charge of a division.
Trainmaster reports to the superintendent.
Foreman or conductor reports to the Trainmaster.

3. Do you need them all? Think of it along the lines of a military organization, Supertendents are Colonels, Trainmasters are Captains and Foreman/Conductors are Sargents The size of territory tends to increase over time (a trainmaster now has more territory than a trainmaster 20 years ago) and the number of officers for a division varies wildly between railroads and eras on each railroad.

Dave H.

[csxengineer98]

a forman is the person in charge of a yard crew...he is not managment..he is one of the crew....
a road forman (road forman of engins) is the direct superviser of locomotive engineers..he is managment
a trainmaster is the direct superviser of trainmen (switchman, brakemen, conductors and formans) he is alos managment...
(a trainmaster and road forman of engins can fire or write up either craft for rule violations)
thier is also the track forman..he is in charge of the track workers
a superintendat is the grand master of the intier divistion...all lower levels of managment report to him.....
and you need them to mantian order in the many levels of managment... and to be able to mantian order and safe opporations of the railroad.... granted some are not worthy of thier managment postion...but you have to respect the titel...even if you dont respect the man that has it....
csx engineer

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainjunky29

I have read and heard quite a bit about formen, superintendants, and trainmasters. However, I have a few questions:

1.) What does a trainmaster do?

2.) What is the difference between a foreman and a superintendant of, say, a yard, locomotives, track, etc.?

3.) Why do you need them all?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Most gratefully yours,
Daniel Parks

Daniel-

I will try to answer your questions. I think each of the prior responses is good, but each omits some positions so take this for what it's worth:

1. A Trainmaster is an operating officer as has been pointed out. He supervises employees in the transportation department. He investigates derailments, and rule violations in conjunction with other officers. He handles union issues such as regulating extra lists in conjunction with designated union officials. He speaks to customers about service issues. There are Assistant Trainmasters on many railroads who perform many of the same functions as well.

2. A Road Foreman of Engines (or a Travelling Engineer on some roads) is a supervisor of locomotive engineers. He is responsible for supervision of locomotive engineers, training, qualification of new engineers, and enforcement of rules and regulations.

A yard foreman is often similar to a freight conductor. He is an non-management employee. He is in charge of a yard crew usually composed of himself, an engineer and one or more switchmen.

A Yardmaster is a quasi-management employee. He is in charge of a yard and supervises yard foremen and crews. He provides switch lists and provides train lists to road crews. Generally Yardmasters are unionized employees.

A Roadmaster is a manager of a specified portion of a division for the Maintenance of Way department. He supervises track foremen and trackmen, welders, and other MOW employees. On many roads this position is known as Track Supervisor. He is the rough equivalent in authority to a Trainmaster.

A Track Foreman is a MOW employee with some supervisory responsibilities over his section or travelling gang. He supervises trackmen, welders, truck drives and other MOW employees.

A B&B Foreman is a MOW employee similar to the Track Foreman except he has responsibilities over Bridge and Building Maintenance Employees such as B&B Carpenters, B&B Welders, Truck drivers and other B&B employees.

A General Foreman (on some roads the Shop Superintendent) is a management employee of the Mechanical Department responsible for a major railroad shop. He is responsible for both locomotive maintenance employees such as machinists, electricians, carmen and their foremen.

A Shop Foreman is a management employee in the Mechanical Department responsible for a particular portion of a shop activity such as a Car Shop Foreman being responsible for freight car repair and maintenance activities at a particular shop. Similarly there are Locomotive Shop Foremen and others.

A Superintendent is usually the direct supervisor of Trainmasters and is the boss of an entire railroad division. He not only supervises the Transportation Department but also has budgetary responsibility for his division and deals with many of both the Trainmasters and Road Foreman of Engines responsibilities on a higher level. The Superintendent reports to the V.P. Transportation or other V.P. at most roads.

3. You need them all to keep the railroad running smoothly and more besides. We haven't even touched on any of the many clerical folks or marketing people or many others without whom the railroad would come to a grinding halt or run out of money.
Perhaps if you can focus this part of your question a bit more I can try to give you a better answer.

LC

[Mookie]

LC - have to print this out and take it home to study.

Thanx

Mookie

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainjunky29



3.) Why do you need them all?

TJ29:

Dave H and LC gave you a good start on Railroad Remedial Education 101. The military relationship in the titles goes back to Civil War practice and the fact that most engineers and railroaders got their training in the military at that point in time. CSX hogger clearly fell out of the wrong side of the bed this morning and is feeling a bit crusty .[|)] It take a whole bunch of folks to keep a railroad moving. Looking at the locomotive only exposes you to the tip of the iceberg. Most of what you are hearing about is the Operating Department where Ed, CSX & LC work. Then there is Maintenance of Way/ Engineering and Mechanical (Randy Stahl) ..... Management has tried to come up with "Yuppie"/Hyphenated terms for what these folks do so that the clueless ones on Wall Street and other non-railroaders can get a handle on what's going on. The old terms tend to outlast the new ones after a while.


Why do you need them all? Without them, there wouldn't be a railroad.

Ruffled Feathers[banghead][banghead][banghead]
(Roadmaster, Construction Roadmaster, Chief Engineer, Office Engineer, Field Engineer......This roadmaster did not come from Detroit with chrome & tailfins!!!)

[deltamech]

Where does a Master Mechanic fit in the scheme of things? Is this title still used?