It amazes me that very few people have any idea what I do for a living. The most common response when I tell people I work for the railroad as a conductor is, "Oh, so you drive trains?" It's easy to understand the misunderstanding, but think about this way, engines are run by engineers. That's a much easier way to remember it, yeah?
So what does a conductor for the railroad do? "Oh, so you take tickets then?" Nope. I work in freight service. There are no passengers on freight trains. Well, I mean there are train hoppers and hobos still, but we don't take tickets from them.
Think of railroading as something analogous to United Parcel Service. You have something you want shipped and we ship it for you. The only difference is you are usually sending Aunt Martha in Louisville a really lame Chistmas gift, while we're delivering 10000 gallons of liquid chlorine to a customer.
How does it all happen? Well there are basically three types of jobs on the railroad. Road jobs, Yard assigments, and local switchers.
Let's say you own a huge cake factory. You need very large shipments of flour and corn oil to keep your plant running day to day. Somewhere on the other side of the United States there is a company that produces these items in large quantities. The goods get loaded into tank cars and box cars at that warehouse and then a local switcher picks those loaded cars up from the customers siding and brings them back to our yard. While that switcher is at that siding he also leaves behind empty cars to be loaded. These switchers go out daily and may serve as many as ten different types of industries in a day.
Back at the yard my engineer and I take the loaded cars the switcher brought back and block them into trains that are headed to other cities. One of these cities is where your cake factory is. Another train that we are building may be delivering auto parts to a different city. And another train may be bringing trash to an incinerator in a completely different city. We block the inbound cars into what will later become road trains.
Once the trains have become blocked in order of what cities they are destined for a road train is ordered to take the entire train from our yard to it's final destination. While enroute this train may make pick ups and set offs along the way. Let's say for example a train leaving Newark, NJ heading westbound to Harrisburg, Pa. may stop off at Allentown and drop off a block of cars slated to go to local industires there. It may also pick up cars that are heading to Harrisburg. Kind of clever, huh? And very efficent.
That's the basic gist of what we do as railroaders in freight service. I find it to be an interesting job, one that keeps my mind occupied while I'm there performing service. And while I commonly joke about it being like playing with toy trains for a living, the real matter is none of us take the equipment that we work with for granted. In the blink of an eye a train can cut you in half if you aren't careful. There aren't scratches and bruises on the railroad when you get hurt. There are loss of limbs and sometimes loss of life.
We ship hazardous materials, radioactive waste, trash, chemicals, explosives, among other things. We run this stuff through your backyards. Sometimes people wave as we pass. Other times they drive their cars around the gates in front of a speeding train rather than wait the 5 or so minutes it will take for us to pass. Sometimes these folks make it and other times they don't. We have to deal with these factors day in and day out. It can really be too much for some people. It really takes a special breed to work the long hours in difficult conditions like we do. In the winter, just as in the summer freight trains still have to move. Things need to be delivered, regardless if it's 75 and sunny or 20 degrees out and two feet of snow. It may slow us up a bit, but it doesn't stop us.
UPDATE 11/10/05
So, just how often do these crossing incidents happen? Am I over dramatizing the whole thing? If I said that in the past 8 years I've been a part of a crew that has had three accidents, including one today, would that surprise you? If I told you that's only a small portion of the many ones I have heard about. At least once a month it happens somewhere in our district alone.
Today's incident happened in a split second, not giving my engineer any time to react at all. Approaching a yard crossing at about 10 MPH a truck driver with his wife in the cab along side him decided he had enough time to cut around us. WRONG. At only 10 MPH our engine nailed the tailer he was towing and it hooked on to us. To stop our train at that slow speed took more than 100 feet. All the while this truck was attached to us and the couple being dragged along with it. Amazingly neither of them were hurt.
The irony in all this was that this driver had been involved in a similar previous incident in our yard just one week earlier and was supposed to be banned from entering our property. I doubt he'll be coming back any time soon.
So what does a conductor for the railroad do? "Oh, so you take tickets then?" Nope. I work in freight service. There are no passengers on freight trains. Well, I mean there are train hoppers and hobos still, but we don't take tickets from them.
Think of railroading as something analogous to United Parcel Service. You have something you want shipped and we ship it for you. The only difference is you are usually sending Aunt Martha in Louisville a really lame Chistmas gift, while we're delivering 10000 gallons of liquid chlorine to a customer.
How does it all happen? Well there are basically three types of jobs on the railroad. Road jobs, Yard assigments, and local switchers.
Let's say you own a huge cake factory. You need very large shipments of flour and corn oil to keep your plant running day to day. Somewhere on the other side of the United States there is a company that produces these items in large quantities. The goods get loaded into tank cars and box cars at that warehouse and then a local switcher picks those loaded cars up from the customers siding and brings them back to our yard. While that switcher is at that siding he also leaves behind empty cars to be loaded. These switchers go out daily and may serve as many as ten different types of industries in a day.
Back at the yard my engineer and I take the loaded cars the switcher brought back and block them into trains that are headed to other cities. One of these cities is where your cake factory is. Another train that we are building may be delivering auto parts to a different city. And another train may be bringing trash to an incinerator in a completely different city. We block the inbound cars into what will later become road trains.
Once the trains have become blocked in order of what cities they are destined for a road train is ordered to take the entire train from our yard to it's final destination. While enroute this train may make pick ups and set offs along the way. Let's say for example a train leaving Newark, NJ heading westbound to Harrisburg, Pa. may stop off at Allentown and drop off a block of cars slated to go to local industires there. It may also pick up cars that are heading to Harrisburg. Kind of clever, huh? And very efficent.
That's the basic gist of what we do as railroaders in freight service. I find it to be an interesting job, one that keeps my mind occupied while I'm there performing service. And while I commonly joke about it being like playing with toy trains for a living, the real matter is none of us take the equipment that we work with for granted. In the blink of an eye a train can cut you in half if you aren't careful. There aren't scratches and bruises on the railroad when you get hurt. There are loss of limbs and sometimes loss of life.
We ship hazardous materials, radioactive waste, trash, chemicals, explosives, among other things. We run this stuff through your backyards. Sometimes people wave as we pass. Other times they drive their cars around the gates in front of a speeding train rather than wait the 5 or so minutes it will take for us to pass. Sometimes these folks make it and other times they don't. We have to deal with these factors day in and day out. It can really be too much for some people. It really takes a special breed to work the long hours in difficult conditions like we do. In the winter, just as in the summer freight trains still have to move. Things need to be delivered, regardless if it's 75 and sunny or 20 degrees out and two feet of snow. It may slow us up a bit, but it doesn't stop us.
UPDATE 11/10/05
So, just how often do these crossing incidents happen? Am I over dramatizing the whole thing? If I said that in the past 8 years I've been a part of a crew that has had three accidents, including one today, would that surprise you? If I told you that's only a small portion of the many ones I have heard about. At least once a month it happens somewhere in our district alone.
Today's incident happened in a split second, not giving my engineer any time to react at all. Approaching a yard crossing at about 10 MPH a truck driver with his wife in the cab along side him decided he had enough time to cut around us. WRONG. At only 10 MPH our engine nailed the tailer he was towing and it hooked on to us. To stop our train at that slow speed took more than 100 feet. All the while this truck was attached to us and the couple being dragged along with it. Amazingly neither of them were hurt.
The irony in all this was that this driver had been involved in a similar previous incident in our yard just one week earlier and was supposed to be banned from entering our property. I doubt he'll be coming back any time soon.
VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
fenchurch:
Are you up for doing the body worlds exibit after Mutter? It's $15. Mutter is $10, and Rodin is a suggested donation of $3.
mandarin:
It is not 2 feet from my work. I'm bummed! It is probably about 45 minutes from my work. BOOOO.