I was just wondering how many hours will I be able to get a week at the Cicero yard each week after I finish my Conductor training? Also would it be better to get on the main line for freight jobs out of district? What are my chances of making 60,000 or more my first year? Thank you All:thumbs_up:
==================================================================== First of all, is Cicero "fer sure" your home terminal? I believe Cicero still has a "hog board", they bid their jobs every day for the next days assignment. Being at the bottom of the seniority roster, you will get last pick, if there is anything left to pick. When I first hired out I worked out of Cicero more often than I worked at Eola. I didn't work out of Eola on a regular basis until I had about 1 1/2 years seenie. IF (that's a BIG IF) you work regularly, count on 40 -60 hrs p/week. As for your last question... Not very likely since you will be starting out at 75% of salary. I knew a switchman who made about $90 K working out of Cicero. He is now retired. He had better than 30yrs seniority and he worked MOST of his rest days and sold his vacation back to the company. Your chances of getting a main line freight pool job as a "newbie" are somewhere in the range of slim to none. About half of my conductor class was from Nebraska. They were working coal trains off the extra board while us Chicago guys were still qualifying in Cicero. To give you an idea of the length of our student period, we hit the ground about the last week of September in Cicero and finished up our training, in suburban service,including a rules exam, in the last week of March the next year. My very first assignment after marking up on the board was as a CONDUCTOR on a day commuter train. I had finished my qualifying trips 2 days prior and had taken the rules exam the previous day. I had a uniform cap, a ticket punch and fortunately I had a white shirt and dark tie and dark slacks. That was the extent of my uniform at the time. IIRC I made about 48K in my first FULL year. I didn't lay off sick but I did refuse a couple of calls for jobs I wasn't qualified on, so they gave me a different assignment. I didn't have very much time off at all! Does that help you out? Charlie
Galesburg also had a Daily Mark.You put in a ton of bids ( well the guys with no seniority did) and ou hoped for something!The best was a move up call.I did hostling a lot cause it paid 100%.Hes right about the PITA seniority and 75% crap. Unless your a conductor,foreman or hostler you get 75%. Cicero does have hostlers so there is a plus for you. If you can get on a conductor extra board you could do all right.With the systemwide seniority though you have Eola,Corwith,LPC,Joliet and Cicero in your home area you could work at.Or borrow out at Galesburg ( or anywhere on the Southern tier of BNSF)
The drawback with hostling is that is a very BASIC day! Cicero also had "inside" and "outside" hostler positions. "Inside" was at Cicero Roundhouse and at the Zephyr pit. That just involved moving power around the service area, and fueling. "Outside" hostler would take power to or bring power from other locations ie Corwith, Eola etc. They would also hostle power to and from other railroads ie the BRC. At the Zephyr pit all the hostler did was to move locos to and from the service track and tie them onto trains after servicing. Sometimes it required cutting them away from the train and bringing them to the shop for inspection or maintenance. The fueling,sanding and cleaning at the "Pit" was all done by hostler helpers. IIRC the last hostling job I had was at the "Pit". I didn't do any hostling for about 6 years. As Fireball sez, the trick is to follow the jobs to see where the good openings are. NEVER,NEVER,NEVER take anyones word that they are going to vacate a job or "don't even think of bidding on that job". EVERY rail will tell you that they lost an opportunity to have a good job because they didn't bid it! The BEST job I had as a switchman was at Eola where I worked 1st shift West Yard at Eola(7AM-3PM)as helper.This was over the Christmas/New Year holiday period. I lucked into it cuz I had the seniorty to hold it due to the number of old heads on vacation over the holidays! The foreman had pretty good seniority, he was a personal friend of the day YM so it was an early quit every day!!!! On Fridays we were under strict orders to "stop what you are doing" at 11:30 AM and go to the auto transload area and build a super high priority roadrailer train. A private contractor was doing it, they had their own supervisor who worked with my foreman. I rode the loco to get switches and derails. We put the train together with the road power that had been hostled to the staging area. When the train was together and air tested we brought the train to Eola, to the footpath, where the road crew took over. We went home!!!! We didn't claim a lunch period as a favor to the YM since we got the real early quit. On Christmas day, The YM gave us a handful of short switch lists and told us "When you're done with these, tie up and go home". The foreman & I looked at the lists, looked at each other and said "Let's Go"! The hogger was already out on the power. By 1:30 that afternoon I was at home helping my wife prepare the family Christmas dinner. I LOVE RAILROADING!!!!
Hello Thanks for the info guys. This really kind of puts me in a bad spot, I need to make a certain amount each week so i hope I dont have to find another job to support this one why dont they set the jobs up for us to do multiple jobs so we can all get 12hr shifts? And yes I will be at the Cicero yard according to the YM at the interview. I just want the hours. talk to ya later.:thumbs_up:
Its a Federal statute that you are allowed to "perform service" for no more than 12hrs at a time. Your rest period is mandated. Chances are you might do 12hrs at a crack. It's hard to say. I was hoping that Fireball & I were making it pretty clear to you as should the railroad HR wonks have also done , that you can usually expect to make XXX number of dollars p/year as a new guy. True, there is money to be made but you gotta get some seniority first and bid into the higher paying jobs and eventually get into the engineer training program since engineers tend to make more money than conductors, but even at that...you gotta have some "whiskers"! If history is any indication, there is a good likelihood that you will be furloughed after you qualify and are examined. I have seen that happen a couple of times. One class of 32 people finiished qualifying trips and were examined. All 32 were furloughed the day after their exam. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of them returned. I was a mentor to several of that particular class and there were some damn good students in that group. I was sorry to see them cut off and never return. In the industrial salary range, railroading comes in just about the middle. Once again... hang in there since nothing about railroading is really cut and dried except that they will try to fire you any chance they get and most YMs & TMs are real jerks(I cleaned that up!!) and you wont have much of a life outside of work! Charlie
I didnt mind the one inside job of putting the power togther.That was fun.Fueling sucked,The house mouse job on thirds was a YUCK job.Now outside hostler you could make overtime. That was my favorite gig. On the Hostler Extra board I madea killing ( back in the old days of 8 hours rest) of double backs and time and a half for ALL double backs if doing it a set number of times. Bid ANY AND EVERY JOB!!!!You may get a good surprise.
Working a second job outside of the RR is going to be next to impossible because you never know when you will called to work. Being a new hire you probably won't be able to hold much so put your bids in everyday and be patient. It takes time and it will get better.
This whole system just makes my head spin. My grandpa worked in much the same system for the UP from about 1930whatever until 1975 or so and has explained it to me a couple of times but I am still baffled. It sounds like railroading is a field that eats its young, much like my field.
Hi :thumbs_up:Hello everyone, Well my plan is not to work a second job but to get through the training program I will have to. It does not pay enough. The company I work for now will help me get through that. But when im done with training I will hopefully they will have enough work so I can work everyday or every other day. thanks
