 Some Chinese diesel owned by the Iraqi National Railroad. My unit was based out of a train station in Western Iraq and this train passed through 4 or 5 times a week. The station, and I think the whole spur line, was built by the East Germans in the 80s.
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Sep 3, 2012 20:34
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Brother Jonathan posted:Ah, CSX. The biggest collection of brilliant people who can't run a railroad. Wait...I thought CSX was the good east coast Class 1 and NS was the bad one.
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Oct 11, 2012 05:34
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Employed train people: I have an interview on Wednesday for a Mechanical Manager Trainee job at CSX. Any interview tips? I know safety is huge but what else? What can I expect to get asked? edit: Don't mention any interest in trains whatsoever. I know that's big thing, too. vains fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Oct 15, 2012 |
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Oct 15, 2012 20:53
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Actually the mechanical side of the railroad is pretty chill and relaxed. They are not nearly the Nazis that the transportation side is. What do you even do on the mechanical side? Just repair and maintenance on cars and engines?
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Oct 15, 2012 22:50
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bytebark posted:Lots of times railroads will tell you to bring certain things to interviews. They'll phrase it like this: "Please bring the following things with you to your interview: A scientific calculator, three sheets of college-ruled notebook paper, and two sharpened #2 pencils." Do not disregard these instructions, and bring whatever they ask you to bring exactly as the instructions specify. The first thing they'll ask you is if you have these things, and if you don't, the interview won't happen and they'll throw out your application. The requirement for you to bring those things to the interview is a test of your ability to follow instructions. I've read this advice about bringing random stuff elsewhere. This is an online interview but I imagine the next one(assuming I get one) will be like "bring a brandy glass full of brown m&ms." BrokenKnucklez posted:Mechanical is fixing cars and locomotives. I was a Marine so I think I can handle it but who knows. Is the pay comparable to NS?
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Oct 15, 2012 23:50
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Is it uncommon for guys who are mechanics or conductors(or whatever) to get promoted into management/supervisor roles? Say I wanted to be a Trainmaster(management trainee-transportation or whatever), would I make myself more competitive by having previously been a conductor? (or Mechanical and having previously been a freight car repairer etc)
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Dec 5, 2012 04:36
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Just so you know... pretty much all management is despised. Even with ground experience, your crews will still pretty much hate you.... That's fine. I can live with that. I'd just like to get my foot in the door with a railroad and then move into management. Correct me if I'm wrong but, the pay is shittier(in low level management) but the job security is top notch and you still get RR retirement. As far as I know, Norfolk Southern has never laid off management.
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Dec 5, 2012 06:24
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I've got a phone interview with NS for a transportation manager trainee job. Even though the job probably sucks, I'm pretty excited about not getting told to fuckoff straight up by NS for the first time.
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Dec 13, 2012 04:18
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Got an interview coming up for an Operations Supervisor with CSX at an Ohio terminal and one with NS for Management Trainee-Transportation. Pretty loving excited about it except for the whole 'eating poo poo from upper management and labor while working the worst shifts in bumfuck egypt, USA for 3-5 years' part of it. How bad of a job is dispatching? Judging by the starting pay it sucks pretty bad/is hard but who knows. vains fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jan 12, 2013 |
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Jan 11, 2013 22:07
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What exactly do transportation managers(on NS in particular) do? I expected it would be like: go to terminal, deconflict train/maintenance/track work schedules, set schedule for employees, ensure proper train makeup. The recruiter said it would be more like: you own this section of track. You are responsible for everything that goes on in this section of track. In that same vein, what do trainmasters/yardmasters do?
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Feb 24, 2013 05:59
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Veins McGee posted:What exactly do transportation managers(on NS in particular) do? I expected it would be like: go to terminal, deconflict train/maintenance/track work schedules, set schedule for employees, ensure proper train makeup. The recruiter said it would be more like: you own this section of track. You are responsible for everything that goes on in this section of track. Got to the last round of interviews for the job. Anyone have anything they can say about the job?
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Feb 25, 2013 20:35
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BrokenKnucklez posted:The recruiter lied. Basically your going to work about 60 hours a week for a meager salary when the train crews you supervise will work less, earn more, and enjoy better benefits. You can and will be called at all hours of the day and night and live on little sleep. The crews will hate you for not having any ground experience and the superintendents will bitch up a storm on a regular basis. I get that management and labor have a pretty antagonistic relationship. I've read about crews bitching about managers hiding in the weeds in order to hammer people for minor rule violations or being retarded or whatever in the series of articles by Tucci(I can't find the link right now). I appreciate your response, but I'm trying to get a handle on what the job actually entails.
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Feb 27, 2013 02:01
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Obviously you have never worked in an industry that has no schedule, your on call, and could work at 2 am one day then 3 pm the next, bad train line ups, and in general you can't even poop strait.... even bursts of micro sleep.... its a harsh industry. You still have mandatory crew rest though, right? Like you can't work a shift X hours after working a full shift. How is working in a (inter-modal) yard? I guess for new guys it sucks because you're working weekends and nights but its gotta be a little better than working on the road(as far as having a normal life goes).
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Mar 8, 2013 04:12
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9axle posted:And there is the problem. You are entitled to 10 hours of uninterrupted rest after you complete a shift. But you have no idea when the next call is coming for your next train. You don't know if you are going out as soon as your rest period is up, or is the next day. They sure do love talking about safety though. At the NS management interview I went to, they had a safety brief about exiting a room and designating people to perform CPR and/or direct EMTs to the emergency.
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Mar 8, 2013 23:11
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I start as an ops supervisor in an intermodal terminal on Monday. I'm pretty excited but I would have preferred to do transportation. If you're not a piece of poo poo retard, is it possible to switch departments after some time on the job?
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Mar 16, 2013 16:51
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2nd day on the job and my tenuous grasp of railroad organization was shattered once again. I thought yard masters were the yard counterpart to trainmasters but apparently not.
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Mar 19, 2013 23:34
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InterceptorV8 posted:Sorry for it being hard to see I drove through some at grade crossings without arms on a 55mph road in Ohio. Of course, I was stuck behind a school bus who stopped at every crossing. I'm at corporate headquarters for a week and a half of orientation/
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Mar 25, 2013 06:18
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BrokenKnucklez posted:1. We had a rail car that was shipped back and forth between 3 yards for about 3 weeks. If your wondering how I know this is because I worked the job that was to go between those 3 yards and do a pick up and set out of cars. The car is very noticeable, it had a D9 Cat bulldozer painted on the side. It was on our work order to do so, so I just complied. I told people that had the power to do something about it, but they really could care less. Is it a foreign or TTX car?
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Mar 25, 2013 19:58
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There is a rule for everything. CSX mandates that all computer chairs have 5 or more casters.
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Apr 3, 2013 13:52
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Today, the middle of the 3 cranes at my terminal was down. The yardmaster knew this, was in the intermodal office watching a train pull cars under the cranes, was asked to shove the cars to the north end of the working tracks, but decided that doing the job 90% of what was requested was good enough. We had to waste 20minutes moving equipment so that we could work the south end of the train. You know...instead of spending 1 minute to shove back another 400ft. Heaven loving forbid you ask the yardmaster to use the road crew or his yard crew to do any switching or make any cuts cause that's not going to happen. He's going to cram every foot of car that he can on one track. I'm becoming more and more amazed that the railroads make any money.
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Apr 7, 2013 03:19
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BrokenKnucklez posted:They make money by complete accident. We have some yard masters that really are dumb as hell. They can kill 2 hours of switching easily by just making a couple of dumb moves. As a yard guy, I work with the MOW guys when I can. I'm intermodal, not MOW. And no nickname yet, not as far as I know.   Cut of intermodal cars blown over in a freak gust of wind.
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Apr 7, 2013 03:43
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9axle posted:I bet there is more to this than you are saying. Maybe he wasn't authorized to give the yard crew o/t, maybe they needed head room on the main and he couldn't get it from the dispatcher. Maybe the yard crew was switching another part of the yard. And you drat right, he had better not ask me to switch his yard if I am a road crew. I am on a trip rate, not hourly. None of those things are/were the issue. The train was 1700 ft long. The processing tracks(underneath the cranes) are 2300ft. The train was already on the processing tracks. He didn't want to shove back another 400ft because he doesn't understand or use the safety equipment that prevents a container from passing over a human. The yard crew couldn't have been anywhere else in the yard because there is no yard power. Besides that, the terminal only handles intermodal cars(therefore, most of the train building is done underneath the cranes). The issue is a lovely corporate/organizational structure where the yardmaster doesn't report to the terminal manager. Who do you work for that you aren't hourly? I thought all the Class 1s paid crews by the hour.
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Apr 8, 2013 02:06
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Road guys are generally trip rated and the more ground you cover in less time the better. For companies that love talking about safety so much, this seems kind of dumb.
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Apr 8, 2013 23:13
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I don't know poo poo about your agreement. I actually don't know poo poo about much of anything at all, hence why I'm asking questions. I've worked for a railroad for all of 3 weeks so I'm still trying to understand a lot of what goes on and why it happens. Maybe I'm missing something, but paying by the trip vs by the hour seems to emphasize the wrong thing if you purport to be big on safety. I know that if I'm getting paid by the job, I want to get it done as fast as possible so I can clock out.
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Apr 8, 2013 23:58
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I got to ride around in an engine today while they were doing some yard switching. It wasn't all that thrilling or anything but I'm starting to get an appreciation for why things take forever on the railroad. This engine is interesting because it has a 3rd seat in the cab. vains fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 22:25
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9axle posted:They all do. Oh well the crew thought it was weird. They could have told me that it was weird that there wasn't a flat screen and an xbox in the cab and I would have believed it.
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Apr 16, 2013 03:48
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bisticles posted:I was out trying to grab some early-morning photographs along the river when this rolled by. Hudson River? Pretty sure that is in New York state since that train is somewhere in northern Ohio right now.
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May 3, 2013 04:52
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bisticles posted:Yup, on the West side of the Hudson, across from Poughkeepsie. I'll actually see some of those cars around noon tomorrow at my terminal.
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May 3, 2013 05:27
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kastein posted:Yeah now I can't stop watching videos of those and I want to build one. Dammit. CSX doesn't even operate in Maine or whatever frozen northern tundra you live in.  
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May 24, 2013 08:15
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kastein posted:I do not live in Maine, fortunately. I'm in Massachusetts... a slightly less northern frozen tundra. CSX operates in Mass., just not any further north really. CSX is investing a lot of money on the east coast up to NYC in anticipation of the Panama Canal widening and is building a new terminal(or rebuilding an older one) in Massachusetts somewhere. BN and/or UP guys: How do you number/letter your trains? I've had it explained to me before but I don't remember because it was my 2nd day on the job.
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May 25, 2013 05:21
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kastein posted:That's probably the Franklin Street terminal in Worcester that you're talking about them rebuilding. They've been working on it for several years now AFAIK, I know they've finished digging out the side of a hill and building a new retaining wall there. Good to know they're actually putting money into stuff, my sources were probably misinformed on that. http://www.railworcester.com/ This it? I know that CSX is investing pretty heavily into intermodal and upgrading/expanding infrastructure(ex. double stack clearance up the east coast and across to Chicago) to support intermodal operations as coal volumes/revenue continue to decrease. http://www.nationalgateway.org/background vains fucked around with this message at 05:41 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 05:39
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Rabid Anti-Dentite! posted:Q CHISBD6 23L that's a train running right now Q = guaranteed priority intermodal CHISBD = Chicago to San Bernardino I think that train originates at my terminal. I currently see a BNIC and a SSEA train from BNSF and I know I get a GNKR. I think all 3 of those trains terminate at Corwith or Cicero on your end. How long does it typically take an intermodal train to get from Seattle or LA to Chicago?
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May 26, 2013 06:50
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BrokenKnucklez posted:A= auto rack Thank god for foamers. I learned more about how CSX train symbols are assigned from railfan.com or whatever than I did through work.
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May 26, 2013 07:48
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Long day today, a yardjob hit a semi at one of the crossings on the terminal. I was sitting in the office and I heard the engineer lay on the horn and then a loud thud. I drove up there expecting to see a mangled truck with gore dripping out of it and a derailed train. Thankfully, the engine hit the container in the rear 1/3, punched a hole in it with the knuckle, and tipped it on its side. Dehydrated corn from the container was everywhere. It burst out of the container like the cloud of sweat that gets knocked off a boxers head when he takes a hard punch. 3 hours of paperwork, witness statements, railroad police, phonecalls, and a late train but no injuries. I'll post some pictures and a video(if I can get it) once they've had enough time to circulate around. The container was a lot more intact than I would have thought. Total writeoff but I expected that a ~600k lb train would have hosed it up more.
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May 30, 2013 06:50
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MrChips posted:OK so I'm no foamer but I did notice something odd today.  BN and UP power on a CSX terminal
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Jun 14, 2013 04:41
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One of my trains is delayed 2 hours because there was a portashitter on the mainline.
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Jun 20, 2013 09:52
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2 train CSX derailment caused by a sinkhole underneath the tracks in Upstate New York, 2 non-lifethreatening injuries.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:38
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NoWake posted:Holy poo poo, I covered for the Roadmaster of this very subdivision for about a month last August. This line is very, VERY busy with most trains running close to the track speed of 60/80mph. It's miraculous there was no loss of life, and thank god it wasn't an Amtrak coming through. The mainline tracks in NY are inspected at least every other day, and I can tell you personally that the inspectors of the Fonda sub are on the ball. The tracks themselves were in great shape last I came through, but the culverts I can't really speak to. Not much mud or standing water, anyway. The tracks run right along the Mohawk River, a sinkhole could have opened up from a hard rain coming down the hill... but inspectors are always required to patrol during/after a flood watch. I'm not in the area anymore, maybe a watch wasn't issued? You don't have PMs but if you give me your email I can tell you what I see in NOW+all the pictures I have of it. BrokenKnucklez posted:What was your job title? Anything management wise on the RR is always stressful. Its the guys that work in the crafts (te&y, mow, signal, etc) are usually the least/no stress jobs. I think he said he's a Roadmaster. This section of tracks is coming out of NYC and handles all the port traffic and all the traffic to the rest of the North East. vains fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 18:25
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Motronic posted:The "no air pressure left"/parking brakes are spring brakes just like on trucks as far as I'm aware. It would be fairly insane for them the be anything else. Yeah, you need air pressure to release the air brakes.
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Jul 7, 2013 23:29
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Do the air brakes on British trains work the same way as the triple valve setup on American brake systems? gently caress if I know. This was in Canada. They have to have the same or similar brake setup since we interchange equipment with CN/CP.
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Jul 8, 2013 00:01
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