Question for those in the business

[unclejoe009]

Perhaps my search wasn't too thorough, I couldn't find any threads on this, but for those of you who hold operations positions (engineer, brakeman, conductor, etc.) with the railroads and have families at home, how hard is it to spend quality time with your families? Are you very limited on the time you get to spend with them? I apologize if this question is too personal for some of you out there, but I would like to see what some of the input from you would be, and if there were any differences between the different companies. If you are wondering yourself why I am asking, it is because i was looking at an opening in my current area (San Luis Obispo, CA) for the UP and was contemplating applying for it. I know it would be a long shot at getting the job but just for reference to see what kind of impact it would have on my own family life. Sorry if I started rambling, but I look forward to see what you all have to say, thank you.

Matt

[csxengineer98]

to awnser your question....yes...its hard to have any kind of quilty of life and have a family at the same time...that is why at some point you have to tell the railroad to stick it up thier a$$ in so many words
csx engineer

[edblysard]

It is hard...but not impossible.
Depends on what job you hold.
I work the same yard shift, 0630 to 1430, (6:30 am to 2:30 pm) sat thru wed, off days thursday and friday.
And, it never fails, holidays, birthdays, kids graduations always fall on days I have to work.
Guys in Class 1 pool service and extra board men have no life outside the railroad, everything is planned around the next call, and you should expect to spend more nights away from home than sleeping in you own bed.

On the other hand, like my road, we are a local switching terminal, so everyone goes home at the end of their shift.

You have to weigh the benifits against the personal cost.

Ed

[Mookie]

And I was raised in a family that had a fireman and then an engineer that spent many, many hours on the road. Yes, he missed the important days and holidays and yes, we had big gaps in our family life. But when he was there, it was quality time and that is what will make the difference.

Mookie

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

to awnser your question....yes...its hard to have any kind of quilty of life and have a family at the same time...that is why at some point you have to tell the railroad to stick it up thier a$$ in so many words
csx engineer

Yes, that is what I did, and they called my bluff.

Even with 20 years seniority, the best job I could hold was the freight pool. I had been in the pool for many years, working up to 70-80 hours per week. My family was dissolving, mostly due to my infrequent times at home. I asked for a leave of absence so I might have time to bring my family back together, and was denied. I took the time anyway, and was fired for "insubordination" (failure to protect assignment).

Best thing that ever happened to me. Sure, the railroad money was good, but we had no savings, due to everyone in the family (including myself) always spending money on things in an attempt to fill the void in our lives left by my work obligations.

I now work 8 hours per day, know when I am going to work and coming home, have a healthy savings account, house almost paid for, and am more happily married than I ever was while on the railroad. Now I am quite content to watch the trains go by, maybe taking the occasional photo.

Ed and CSXengineer are lucky in that where they work they have regular yard assignments; where I worked there were very few "regular" jobs, and one needed tons of whiskers to hold them.

[CShaveRR]

Like Ed, I'm one of the lucky ones--I always worked in the yard, with fairly consistent hours. There have been times when I couldn't hold the jobs I wanted to, and wound up working at times that didn't make things easy, but I have a few "whiskers" now, enough to stay, or go, where I want to.

We have had to adjust to my "weekend" coming in the middle of everyone else's week. Saturday nights are just another day at the job for me.

Fortunately, I have a wife who adjusted pretty well to all of this. She works part-time, and most of the week we manage to get by on only one car going to both jobs (of course, I try to bike to work during the good weather, and leave the car at home with her).

Getting days off always used to be a problem. It can be done now, and my advice is not to abuse the privilege; the powers that be are more inclined to help out the people who are normally good about working their own jobs.

Our more recent contracts have allowed us to take some of our vacation time as flexible days, which helps a great deal for important family events. At this moment, I have four flex-days requested for various family functions. I still have to schedule vacation time late in the fall for the entire year (this year my vacations were planned around my daughter's upcoming graduation and later her wedding, with the rest of my vacation being taken in flexible days).

But, as I said, I'm one of the lucky ones. I think I see a lot of divorces and subsequent marriages on the railroad, more than I do in other circles. I don't think it's all due to moral issues--the family environment has to be a major contributor. Most railroaders have to be married to their job, and a lot of spouses aren't interested in going along with that. I wonder how many of the new hires will stick it out long enough to be as lucky as I am.

[Anonymous]

Read Hemphill's column on misery pay from 2-3 issues ago!

90% of us get divorced.

USHR rules are far worse that the Canadian ones.

Be prepared to have no life outside of the RR.

Welcome to the "24 hour" club.

NAR Guy

[Anonymous]

The lifestyle isn't a lot of fun. You are away from home A LOT. You have no way to plan anything except on the few weeks of vacation you have. You do get to run the train and that is interesting, but stressful in its own right, especially after you become an Engineer.

A lot of us do get divorced due to job related stress. A lot of our kids grow up without enough time with their dad (or mom in some cases). I compensate by spending as much time with my kids as possible. I almost never drink alcohol at all as it can interfere with work.

The biggest thing I do is try to hold as much regular work as I can. I'm pretty lucky having joined the RR at a time when many older guys were retiring. I've been around long enough now so there are only 26 engineers older than me on our entire district. There are a number of locals that I can't hold regularly, but I can take a hold down on the job when the regular man is off. We don't have much in the way of yard work so that is not an option. Pools I can hold take me all over, but I can generally get a decent one that will get me home without too much hog law trouble. Still they are 6 days per week. It definitely beats the extra board though.

If you decide to hire out do so in a terminal that is large enough to offer you some options. I'd take LA over San Luis Obispo. Reason being, that as I recall the only jobs in SLO are crew changes(pools) and the helper jobs. Perhaps there is a local as well. In any event, I would expect the old timers will have the helpers locked up and possibly any locals as well leaving you on a pool or the Extra Board. LA seems to have more choices. Perhaps Oakland or Roseville is another option?

LC

[csxengineer98]

also senority plays a big part on how much and what jobs you can and will work...the higher you are up on the pole..the better chance you got of working yard jobs and haveing a true life outside of work..but on the downside...if your low in it... you will be figting to make a living for a few years...it all comes down to when you hire out...and the age of the emplyees that are already working... you get into a terminal that has alot of older workers that can retire in the next 5 or so years...your first few years will be rough..but as they start to retire..it will get better...but if you hire into one that has already hired a lot of newer emplyees..that have years and years to go...your going to be stuck working the extra list and you might get a reglure job for a few weeks when vacations are going on....
thier are so many factors that go into being a railroader that its truly hard to sit down at a computer and be able to cover them all at one time....your best bet would be to try and find a T&E emplyee that you can sit down with and have a conversation with...that way you can ask questions as they come up..and beable to get clearify things easier then on this forum...
csx engineer

[csxengineer98]

as for me..i hired out at a good time for my area..i only have 7 years service..but i can hold reguler yard jobs...when i hired out it was mostly alot of older emplyees..and over the past 7 years... they are all starting to retire or get a disabilty...it is still hard for me as an engineer at times..the majority of engineers here still have 15 years to go..but..since we have a flowback aggreement...when i cant hold as an engineer in a terrminal..i just flow back to a conductor...as has a conductor i have *** good senoirty... the only shift i cant touch is 1st...but i can hold all the others.... as well as many many many pool turns on the road...and alot of extra board spots in the yard boards as well as the road boards....timeing is eveything...and i hit it at just the rigth time....
csx engineer

[Anonymous]

I have THIS to say:
A lot of it all has to do with the attitude and willingness to understand of your family.
Ditto also actually aplies in the COMMUNITY.
If you live in a 9 to 5 community where nobody has ever even HEARD of blue collar, you will spend the rest of your life unsuccesfully trying to explain to "civilians" why you're not avaiable for that weekend or evening social evenmt. On the other hand, if you live in one of those "railroad towns" where everybody had a father or uncle or neighbor who was an engineer/conductor, people will be a bit more understanding.
So far as the family situation is concerned: I was once told it this way: "If a womean marries a railroad man, she knows what she's getting herself into, If you marry FIRST then start railroading, you're asking for trouble.
My suggestion is this: Try it, first, and make it a family decision. If it doesnt work out, you can always change careers> On the other hand, don't turn 65 or 70 and spend the rewst of your life wondering :
"What if I HAD?"

[gabe]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill

If you want to make good money in a railroad job, and have every evening and weekend off to spend with your family, you really need to think about winning the lottery or finding a different line of work. That kind of railroad job existed as a fluke of history, and it's rapidly being driven back out of existence by competition between railroads and other modes of transportation, competition between all the people who are seeking jobs, and competition with other industries that have higher rates of return on capital.

Road jobs with regular hours are plentiful, if you don't mind working for a short line and making a wage of $25-35K a year. Road jobs with high wages can be had, too, if you don't mind chain-gang road service that will age you ten years for every five, being enslaved to the crew caller, and if you don't mind never seeing your family or being able to tell them when you will be home or if you can be there for all the events that matter to you and them so deeply.

If you want the really big money in railroading, it doesn't matter whether you are in management or labor: You WILL work long, exhausting, irregular hours, and you WILL be away from home for the majority of your life, until the day you retire. You'll never see your kids grow up. Your relationship with your wife had better be really strong. If you don't have one, you'll find dating very difficult.

Case in point, myself. Yes, I'm in management, and I'm making a great wage. I also will only be home to see my family two weeks every four months, I work 16-17 hours a day 7 days a week, and every time I go to work I take a substantial risk of being shot or blown up. If my phone rings at 0300 I'm going to get up and deal with it.

There aren't any good deals in life except for a very lucky few. Most of us have to do it the hard way.

I don't know, Mark. Now that you made me realize that I don't have to worry about getting shot every morning (except for a breif five minutes while going through a bad neighborhood on the way to work), I don't think my work is that tough.

Gabe

[BaltACD]

A railroad career is not for everyone.

After 40 years I have no regrets for the career path I chose!

[ValleyX]

I agree with some of the above, I was railroading before I was married so it wasn't like she didn't have a clue but that doesn't mean it's been an easy time. You have to lay off for what is important to you or your entire life will be only a memory of one long trainride. That doesn't make for much of a life. I am astonished by the one poster's 90% divorce rate, though, in my part of the world, I don't see the divorce rate being much higher than that of the general population. Some who get divorced get divorced for the same reasons that people outside the industry get divorced, money, infidelity, sobriety issues, etc. I've seen people quit this job because their spouse was threatening to leave and despite the fact that they quit, the spouse left anyway, so there was usually more to it than the railroad.

It's a tough way to live and you don't get to participate in things that people should participate in. You have to do what you can to alleviate the stress and strain on a marriage and parenthood and it can be done. I couldn't hardly imagine do anything else, though, quite frankly, it's what I always wanted to be.

[Anonymous]

I grew up with the railroad. Dad was a conductor with 37 years of service (MP then UP)when he retired a couple of years ago. He was also on my hometown's fire department and had been for around 30 years. So I have two professions in my blood that both have extremely strange and demanding hours. Knowing what both of them are like was/is very important in my life now and in the past.

I worked as a volunteer firefighter in college and then 8 1/2 years as a career firefighter/officer. The fire department obviously had a regular schedule but could be hard on the body responding to calls at all hours.

Ten years ago, I hired out with the Union Pacific in Kansas City, working west to Marysville. Conductor then engineer and then (Egad) into management. Dad didn't tell me for a long time but had told my wife, he didn't want me to go to work for the railroad and definitely didn't want me going into management.

All this background to say that Mark Hemphill's note is completely accurate as to the particulars of the lifestyle. When I was on the road, I didn't need an alarm clock, only a cell phone and pager. As a manager, the schedule was a bit more predictable but the hours were as long or longer.

Right now, I'm Manager Chemical Transportation Safety with UPRR in Kansas City. I'm the Haz-Mat guy for my territory, which means that I'm subject to call 12 days out of 14. Schedule?? Some days there is none, responding to incidents that may last several days. Home time?? Better than when I was on the road most times but I'm just now finishing up two weeks away from home doing training across Colorado and Nebraska. Pay?? Good. I'm not the highest paid employee of the railroad but it's comfortable. Not as much as if I was still working KC-Marysville, though. But right now, I have the best career that I have ever had. I LOVE what I'm doing!!

You can make lots of money working for the railroad but it takes its toll in other places. It's going to be a wild ride the next few years as the railroad industry replaces huges numbers of employees who are retiring. Not everyone who walks through the door is going to stay when they realize just how much of their life (soul) they are going to have to give up to work.