Currently listening to: Atlas Sound-Paralax 
I was thinking the other day, I don’t know if i’ve ever really described in any detail exactly what I do with the railroad. So I thought I’d explain it. First off, there is two distinct areas of work for me, the road and the yard. I’ll talk about the road first.
My title with Union Pacific is a rather generic “trainman” but that can include switchman, brakeman, or foreman/conductor. On the road I am a conductor. Because I deal solely with freight, that means I am not what is traditionally thought of as a conductor. I don’t take tickets or assist passengers. Thats Amtrak or other passenger trains. What I do is facilitate the moving of frieght from one point to another. I’ll walk you through a typical day.
So I’m at home and I get my call to work. This is a 2 hour call though typically its not just out of nowhere as I work in a rotating pool of conductors for my direction. Out of Kansas City we work North (Council Bluffs/Des Moines, IA), South (Parsons/Coffeville, KS), East (Jefferson City, MO), or West (Marysville, KS). We bid on the direction we want to work and work exclusively on that direction. I typically work to Jefferson City. Because its a rotating pool you can align yourself against an estimated train lineup and have some idea when you work.
I show up to work and find my paperwork and meet up with my engineer I’ll be working with. On the road its just me and an engineer. The engineer runs the controls of the locomotive. Thats his only responsibility, I am in charge of the whole train. The paperwork includes a list of the traincars in the train, a general schedule of the train from origin to destination, a work order if there are cars to be added to or taken out of the train at certain areas, and a list of the track condition called a track bulletin. The track bulletin is what I pay the most attention to as it indicates where we might have to slow the train because of some temporary track problem and also it tells us if there will be any men working near the track so we can contact them before we come near them.
After reviewing paperwork we are driven by car to our train, wherever it is in the yard or Kansas City area. There are several crew change points around town. Usually we relieve an incoming crew but sometimes its empty. We then make sure we have supplies for our trip (water, ice, ect). After that I contact the train dispatcher and tell them we are ready to go. From that point we start following the signals we are given from the dispatcher. Its not much more complicated than regular traffic signals. The dispatcher generally routes us the whole way.
Once we take off it then is mostly riding. I do man the radio and keep track of signals in a log which amounts to mostly busy work though if we get delayed i have to track that. Ideally once we leave we don’t stop until we reach our crew change point but thats pretty lucky if that actually happens. We can get delayed for numerous reasons. Sometimes you have to wait on other trains (most common), sometimes the track is being worked on, sometimes our train breaks down (rare). The routes we take range from about 160 miles to over 200 miles. We travel at an avg of 40mph though it goes up to 50ish. A good trip would be about 5 hours. Federal regulation allows us to work 12 hours so if enough delays happen we would have to stop working at that point and get relieved. this happens occasionally, more often on the longer routes or when rail business is peaking.
During the trip we keep in contact with the dispatcher. He mostly tells us if we are going to be delayed more than anything else. Also during the trip there are detectors along the track (about every 10-15 miles) that moniter the condition of the train. I have to log these, they give a status update over the radio. I’ve never had one give me a bad reading yet.
Once we reach our destination we often swap out with another crew. For me in Jeff City its a crew that will take the train on to St. Louis. I then get a ride to the hotel I’ll stay at and await a train home. We get a federally mandated 10 hours rest at the hotel then after that we get a 2 hour call for our train. Usually its around a 16 hour wait period at the hotel. Like at home I’m in a rotating pool of conductors. They call us in order as the trains come in and I have a fairly good idea of what I’ll be called for and when. When I come home there is a greater chance I’ll have more work to do because of the trains we catch more of them terminate in Kansas City vs trains that have any work in Jefferson City. Jefferson City is a pretty small yard, only like 5 tracks. Kansas City is one of the biggest rail yards in the world, 2nd busiest traffic wise behind Chicago.
The types of trains we handle are coal trains (most common-they require almost no work for us they just go from the coal mines in Wyoming to a power plant somewhere and don’t usually come apart), manifest trains (all types of cars going all kinds of places–box cars, tank cars, flat cars, ect), autorack trains (trains carrying cars and car parts), intermodal trains (trains carrying trailers that you would normally see on a big over the road truck), and grain trains. Manifest, autorack, and some intermodal trains require work in Kansas City.
If I catch a one of those “work” trains, once I get to Kansas City the yardmaster instructs us what tracks we will use. A lot of times we just bring the whole train in to one track and thats that. But if it won’t fit in one track we have to cut the train and shove part of it into a 2nd track. Some trains require we add or set out certain cars then put it back together so it can go on somewhere else with another crew. If its a train that terminates in Kansas City, when we are done we remove our locomotives and put them in a service track. Having a “work train” usually adds a minimum of 2 extra hours of work. You don’t want to catch those lol. I’ll explain more about the work I do “on the ground” when I talk about working in the yard.
After we are done I go home and the process starts all over. We call ending our shift “tying up”. After tie up I go back in line in the pool and wait my call. Typically I am gone about 30-36 hours and get 30-36 hours at home.
Questions? Just ask in the comments!
