How realistic is this?

>>1037090
Terrible. Watco pays crap and you're better off taking loans. I work for a class I as a conductor and planned to do this for a few years and go back to school. Guess what?

I make too much money to want to go back to school, but the quality of life is pretty crappy so I'm just sort of stuck. Stay in school, take out some loans if you need to, but study hard and don't be lazy. You don't want to be switching at 3 AM while it's pouring rain.

Dont.
The interrupted education isnt worth it. There is a high chancr you wont go back to school.

Get your degree, find a job that uses is. If in 6 months post grad you dont have a job using your degree, apply to a class 1 and work it for 5 years . Live cheap, Save your money. Then find a new job and settle down.

>>1037108
>>1038603
This.
Carefull.
I know people who started working for both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National not as a career choice and the money was just too good to quit from. There was a cost though, they were on the road all the time for extended periods so it took it's toll on relationships etc.

The security of having a decent steady income would be hard for some to quit from when faced with a couple of years of blood, sweat, and tears of school plus financial hardship, then the prospect of the career search and then loan payoff when school is over. But then if your career choice is something you REALLY want you'll do anything to get to it, I guess.

I used to hang with a guy who worked as a cook on the work gangs in summer to pay for the following year of school. After 2 years of his school (biz-admin) his career choice went for shit during an economic downturn and he ended up working as a dispatcher for the CPR. He had hoped to work at Hotel Banff or Chateau Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies when CP Rail owned them. Unfortunately he died in a car crash 2 years later in the Fraser Canyon. He worked nightshift and fell asleep at the wheel.

>>1037090
Class I conductor and engineer here. You can make great money, but you will be appalled at the stupidity and incompetence of management and some co-workers. It is a lifestyle that destroys relationships and any social life. Especially early on when seniority dictates where and when you will work.
>You're thinking: "Not Me!"
Yes, you.
That being said, my carrier does reimburse for college courses that apply within the scope of railroading. So finance, engineering, transportation, etc., generally they will pay for online courses. The thing is, when you just got done working 12 hours and get sent to a hotel to be on another train in 10, with one off day a week if you're lucky, when do you have time to dedicate to school?

tl;dr. You'll get addicted to the paycheck and have no life. The carrier will pay for education but you'll be lucky if you have time to complete one course a semester unless it's something that you an completely phone in.

>>1037108
>>1038079
>>1040597
Around how much money do you make from it? Is it a lot compared to shitty minimum wage part time jobs that college students would otherwise be doing, or is it a lot compared to other adults with careers and all that stuff?

>>1040628
I make $110k-$120k a year.

>>1040628
$100k. But dues, job insurance, health plan and taxes take a huge wet chunk out of that.

>>1040597
I'm an OTR truck driver. I was thinking of switching over to trains.

I'm out for over a month at a time, home for 4 days, then back on the road. Railroads can't possibly be worse for free time and personal relationships than that.

Should I do it?

>>1041542
Well I was actually gonna pull the trigger on getting a CDL before the railroad called, I had the paperwork for financing the training and everything.

I'm not sure how the OTR works as far as the ins and outs and responsibilities that you face so I can't compare the 2 jobs necessarily.
First off, you will be away from home a month or 2 while a class 1 puts you thru choo-choo U. Over half of your classmates won't last a year, the carriers get tax breaks from the government for training the work force and they have to keep the lights on at the school. It's not unheard of for there to be hundreds if not thousands in furlough status yet they're still training new hire conductors. You will be trained by suck-asses who in all likelyhood couldn't hack it out in the field. It will be heavy on operating and safety rules, you will have no fewer than 6 rule books to keep on you at all times (No exaggeration). Railroads care more about rules compliance than moving freight. It is a literal impossibility to follow all the rules and get all the work assigned to you completed. In reality, it's never about safety but about liability. They will dazzle you with company propaganda, and after weeks away from friends and family, it will seem like the very best job in the world. Don't drink the Kool Aid. It's hard to explain, but working in the real world you probably take pride in your accomplishments after a long day at work and can feel good about the progress you've made for the day. Well check that shit at the door when working for the railroad. The rank and file of most class I's have been fucked so hard by chickenshit rules discipline, draconian attendance policies, firings, furloughs, denied pay claims, spiteful management, company greed,and a union that rarely lifts a finger to help because they are in bed with the carrier. There WILL be field level management looking to fire you, they will hide in the weeds and watch you, no exaggeration.

>>1041542
>>1041610
the first 5-10 years you may be on call 6 days a week or stuck with a shitty assignment. 12 hours+ interacting with an engineer working on his 3rd divorce who hates everything: his ex-wives, his kids, the boss, the company, the union, you, the cold, the heat, the rain, the sun, the engine you're stuck on, etc. Either that or you're stuck on the ground for 12 hours switching trains in 3 feet of snow or 105 degree heat. Once you get enough seniority to hold one of the better jobs, they'll send you to engineer school and you be back on call 6 days a week, 24 hours a day on the bottom of the engineers roster.

If you value any sort of autonomy or common sense, the job can be very frustrating. The railroad does not hire managers from within the ranks, rather hire a kid out of college and hold his student loans over his head. So you will be under the constant watchful eye of bosses who have never done your job and do not know how to do your job.

That being said, I made 70k my first full year, the heath benefits are very good, and I wasted my 20's running away from responsibilities. It was nice to find a job making 100k in my 30's being nothing more than a college drop out. As I said earlier, I became addicted to the paycheck.

>>1041610
>>1041612
So much of this. Especially the initiation, training, and rules compliance bullshit. Up to the hack fraud instructors that can't switch there way out of a fucking paper bag. Thankfully in my area it's basically a 100 mile industrial lead stocked with loads of chemical plants and a few over the road manifest and unit bulk trains. It's nearly all switching and most of the managers leave us alone as long as we get the work done and don't tear stuff up. What you really have to worry about is hit squads from far away that don't give a fuck and will screw you.

>>1041612
Doesn't sound too much different than OTR trucking. Just less of some bullshit and more of other.

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>>1041622
Sounds a lot like my territory, my trainmaster is not so bad and tends to look the other way on chickenshit rules so long as we don't do anything painfully obvious in front of him or anything that could legitimately cause injury/damage. He knows who the fuckups are and who are the self-starters. You make him look good and he tends to leave you do your thing. But he is one of the increasingly rare ones who has actually worked as a conductor and hasn't forgotten all the bullshit we go through. The hit squads are a problem though, they never fuck with crews on their own territory if they're smart because that results slashed tires and crews fucking them back at every opportunity. Instead they fuck with the guy who walked 23 feet in front of a cut of cars or didn't check a gap even though he's thrown the same switch 50 fucking times already that day and shadow him for hours until they get their chickenshit violation and another notch on their belt in the name of 'safety'... I like to think I would have no problem pushing those parasites in front of a moving train.

>>1037108
>>1040597
What is so bad about it? If it's spending long hours on a train, I wouldn't mind that. As for social life, I don't have one, so no changes there.