I just wanted to let everyone that might be interested know that the Union Pacific railroad is hiring for Mechanical and Transportation people. Mechanical you work on them, trasportation or train service you drive them. I'm a Machinist here in LR. I know that some guys and gals on here have been, and may be, losing their jobs so I thought I would pass along the word. If you have ANY questions feel free to ask. I've been with them nine years and can tell you whatever you need to know. Heres a link for you to look at where they are hiring and for what postitions. Railroad Jobs
railroad is a good industry to be in. i worked for Alabama Railcar for a few years in the paint shop. wish i woulda stayed with it. highest paying job i ever had. the work conditions sucked. i did inspections and worked stencil shop. i was the only one skinny enough to get down in tank cars to test linings. if it ws 100 degrees out you worked in 100 degrees if it was 10 degrees you worked in 10 degrees. never had an employer take as good a care of me as there though. and besides i've always loved trains...ken....
"Individuals with felony and/or misdeameanor convictions may not be hired." does that mean they WILL not or they might hire you?
Hey, I just wanted to say , I think its really cool you posted that up there. I wish I was a little closer [ Los angeles haha ] . Jobs in this city are hard to find. L
[ QUOTE ] Hey, I just wanted to say , I think its really cool you posted that up there. I wish I was a little closer [ Los angeles haha ] . Jobs in this city are hard to find. L [/ QUOTE ] they do have some LA positions open.
Union Pacific, Burlington Nothern/Sante Fe, and Canadian Pacific have been hiring around Chicagoland for the last several months. I believe they still are. They can't keep up with the hiring, retiring work force and increase in traffic are the culprits. They are good jobs w/ nice pay and benefits. But, beware the amount of time they EXPECT ya to work. It's a big trade off. Joel
[ QUOTE ] Union Pacific, Burlington Nothern/Sante Fe, and Canadian Pacific have been hiring around Chicagoland for the last several months. I believe they still are. They can't keep up with the hiring, retiring work force and increase in traffic are the culprits. They are good jobs w/ nice pay and benefits. But, beware the amount of time they EXPECT ya to work. It's a big trade off. Joel [/ QUOTE ] As for as the time they exspect you to work, that only applys to the Transportation side. Those guys CAN be on the road alot, not all of them are. BUT, nad this is the kicker, a guy who just hired in can knock down $75,000 in his forst year, thats a no shit deal. I work for the Mechanical side of things. Like I said, I'm a Mashinist and belong to IAM 325, we work five days a week, eight hour shifts and there is no forcing you to work overtime, but there is a lot of it if the person wants it. Plus the benefits are great. We have the best insurance you can imagine. Seymour, "Individuals with felony and/or misdeameanor convictions may not be hired." does that mean they WILL not or they might hire you? They WIL NOT hire a convicted felon, sory guys......the misdeameanor part doesn't mean they will not hire you, I've never heard of anyone not getting hired due to that, but BE HONSET, If they find out you lied about that, they will not hire you or will fire you once they find out. Lowsprings, what does the "skill craft battery exam" consist of? they have few positions for Los Angeles County. That test is a joke. One of the questions was "If you have a ball in the center of the bed of a truck and you turn right, which way will the ball roll?" Let me let all of you in on a little secret...... You WILL NOT, and I repeat, WILL NOT work yourself to death on this job!!!! Yes you might have to get out in the cold once in a while, but it's nothing you cant handle and it's not for a long time. I'm sure of you have heard that railroaders don't work theirselve to death....well, it's true. So when I say this is a good job, I mean that in many ways. My Dad railroaded for 32 years till he came down with welding induced Parkinson's. I've been their a little over nine. They insurance is great, they will pay for most of your colledge if you want to get a degree in anything, and doesn't have to be railroad related. They pay is good. We are making a little over $21.00. We just got a raise and can't remeber it to the penny. And the railroad retirement package is really good. You see, I do not pay into Social Securety. All of my money goes into RR retirement. And once again, you are not going to do a whole hell of a lot of work. Anyway, I'll get off for now, but like Peter Pan of Chicago said, the majority of the the guys there are retireing daily and they need to up thier work force. Their last BIG hiring spree was in the eraly seventies, so those guys are getting ready to leave on the 30/60 plan. Meaning with 30 years of service and and 60 years of age they can retire with full benefits.
I'm a locomotive engineer for the BNSF railroad, here's a link that shows some of the jobs that are now available with BNSF. https://secure.recruitingcenter.net/clients/bnsf/PublicJobs/CanViewJobs2.cfm?search=yes I can't give any specific recommendations for jobs except in transportation. The conductor trainee job is a 13 week training program that is part classroom and part on the job training. the pay you while you are in training but I don't know how much. Once promoted, new hires start at 75% wages when working a brakeman position and 100% when working as a conductor. this increases 5% per yr until you are earning 100% although, more than likely you would be mostly working a conductor position at 100% wages. wages are the same whether working in TX, WA, CA or anywhere else on the system. atleast that what I've been told. Although you will have system wide seniority, you will be required to sign an agreement that you will remain at the location that you were hired out for 5 yrs. this is to keep people from moving away from where they hired out and keeping that location from running short of manpower. The railroad doesn't care about your social life, and it seems like most of the work is nights and weekends. You will be on call 24/7 with 1½ hr notice to allow you time to get to work. You would work on a first in first out basis so you would have an idea when you were going to work by looking at lineups on when trains are due to arrive at your home terminal but that is no guarantee they will run at that time... basically you become a whore for the railroad, but the pay isn't too bad The average conductor around here is making abt. $75,000 to $80,000 a yr. to some this sounds like alot of money, and to others it isn't, but i guess it all depends on where you are living and the cost living there. I just read the post about living in N. CA. this would be a shitty job there but here in Lubbock where cost of a 3-2-2 home with abt. 1800 sq ft is abt. 90,000 to 110,000 it's pretty decent wage. although we don't have the ocean, mountains, big rod runs, we are centerally located ......smack dab in the middle of frikin nowhere. I was talking with my supervisor last week and he told me that BNSF is supposed to hire abt. 20,000 people in the next 3 yrs. but he'd rather lie to you than tell you the truth, so your guess is as good as mine. Goodluck, Richard
Thanks Richard for the info for the guys. Your about the transportation side of it. It's more fora single guy. He can knock down some srious cash in no time. But on the Mechanical side we are not on call 24/7 and it's only 5 days a week, 40 hours a day. If anyone else on here are railroaders, please feel free to give your input.
What an interesting post. My first job here out of school was with the railways here. I eventually became a signalman. Really enjoyed reading this post. Geoff aka Whodaky
I worked on the Southern Pacific RR for 14 years in Yuma. Az. Then got cut off. They closed the yuma office and the only job I could hold was a midnight in down town L.A. I STAYED IN YUMA. I will be 62 on Dec. 18. and they will start paying me off. LATER
1LowLasabre: You are right about the mechanical side, I forgot to add in my original post that I was speaking of the Transportation side. a54Studebaker: Yup, you summed it up, alrighty. Around Chicagoland, all I hear is how guys are expected to work all the time. They mark up at some ungodly hour and run till dead(12 hours). Then two to three hours being dogcatched( van ride back to Initial Terminal). Then the TM says "Can ya make it eleven hours and fiftynine minutes so we can use ya in eight hours?". Brother! As a twenty year Amtrak employee, seventeen as a Locomotive Engineer, I don't have it so bad. We have scheduled trains and yard jobs. Even working the 'Extra Board" you can gauge pretty well on how your gonna work. Still your tethered to a cell phone 'cause ya never know if your gonna catch a recrew, extra train, or someone marks off late or the caller screws up. We had a young guy recently leave us for the Canadian National/Illinois Central. He's been there braking for three months. I talked to him the other day and he's made $32,000 already. They are hourly like we are. He works seven days a week, on call. Fourteen hour days( 12 working, 2 to 2&1/2 hours deadheading back to where he started. Eight to ten hours later, back on a train, sometimes recrewing the same train he tied down twelve hours earlier. He says he's getting tired and it got old fast. The Railroad says no taking off or face discipline. Well, he said he did the other day, he'll find out if there's gonna be a investigation. I hope not. He's a talented, fun kid and he was a helluva switchman. But where do ya go from here? I'm not saying don't try it out. These are the last of the good paying/good benefit American jobs. You don't need a college education, just common sense and tenacity. The big trade off is the money/benefits verses no free/family time. It's a hard life and the Roads keep pushing the envelope and the hands of time. Great post! I wish I knew more about Hot Rods though? Joel
In my youth I worked at the railroad. In about 1970 the C.B.& Q and the Great Northern merged and in order to appease the Unions they guarenteed every one working on that day of the merge a lifetime job. No downsizing B.S. Well to make a long story short I got fired later on for Stealing Time ( Sleeping) but have regreted that since . Friends who stayed on are now starting to retire at a mighty high compensation package.
JOECOOL, that surprises me to get fired on account of that, especially when the entire industry was still drinking on the job on almost every property up until the early '80's. We just had a Conductor do 30 days for that last year. Joel
I been with CPRail for 24 years and sounds like you USA guys got way better benefits and wages than we do .... the one real good thing we do have is our pension 13 years to go!!
[ QUOTE ] I been with CPRail for 24 years and sounds like you USA guys got way better benefits and wages than we do .... the one real good thing we do have is our pension 13 years to go!! [/ QUOTE ] Only about 30 left here! You know that the Transportation guys have job insurance that they pay for. If you get fired you still get paid, then you just come back to work. Some guys have multible policies and they actually make more money when they are off. And yes, they do come back. You can get it on my side, but it's REALLY hard to get canned over here.
"They WIL NOT hire a convicted felon, sory guys......the misdeameanor part doesn't mean they will not hire you, I've never heard of anyone not getting hired due to that, but BE HONSET, If they find out you lied about that, they will not hire you or will fire you once they find out." Union Pacific does not look at felonies or misdemeanors after 7 years, and Drug Possession felonies or misdemeanors are not looked at after 5 years after the conviction. The guidelines are here: http://www.unionpacific.jobs/careers/questions/background.shtml.
always wanted to be a railroader...all of my friends got jobs with the BN and Sante Fe out of Iowa..kept applying every time I heard they would be hiring...story was not hiring today the I would leave and they would hire a bunch...finally quit applying. Too old for railroadin now.
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