A Young Boy’s Dream, When I grow up ….

Many a young boy loved trains growing up. Driving a train (engineer) was probably at the top of the list for many a 5 year old – saying “when I grow up I want to ____.”

My FIL was over yesterday to watch the NFL games and he talked about a friend’s granddaughter’s husband pulling down $175K. Thought that might be a stretch …

Well.. average pay sits just north of $120K with top 15% or so above $150K. Not sure if they were part of the recent strike threats or if that was a different group.

Go figure.

I don’t know what the training curve is, but years ago when I was just out of college and working in my first career job, there was an older guy in our office who also had the same dream. He wasn’t exactly happy or cut-out for driving a desk so he abruptly quit one day to join the railroad with the goal of being an engineer. Within the same year, he called another guy at the office and said meet me by the tracks at a specific intersection to say hi. This was in Winona, MN – a big railroad town where trains often came to a complete halt to wait-out other trains switching tracks, etc. Sure enough, the train stopped and my old co-worker apparently leaned out the window of the locomotive and he and my other co-worker they drank coffee and BS’d for about 15 minutes before they had to get back underway. He was loving life. This was within a year of him quitting, I have to think he was definitely in-training and not running solo, but he made his dream happen and fairly quickly.

The only thing about today is that I think autonomous trains are becoming more-and-more common. Not sure if they still need personnel on-board for specific duties or systems, but it may be a dying profession. Perhaps someone else knows more.

Local listing for back home is 80k a year starting 20 k hiring bonus . Damn .

If you only care about money and don’t have kids or a wife it might be a decent job. One of the worst work/life balanced jobs out there. Pretty much on call 24/7 and can’t plan for anything.

It used to be a freight train had a crew on it.
Locomotive was engineer & fireman (used to have to keep the boiler fueled). When the technology became diesel electric locomotives the fireman became an assistant engineer / extra set of eyes.
Caboose was conductor, who had the train’s paper orders ( stop here & pickup or drop these cars off). It was the brakeman who hopped out and maneuvered the switches, air lines and couplers to drop and pickup cars. Conductors were and still are the true “boss” of the train.
Firemen & brakemen were phased out as unit trains became the thing. I don’t know how many people they RRs run on a “local” that stops at grain elevators, etc. now.
I had a field trial / training / hunting buddy who started out with the Great Northern out of Sioux City IA. Went from GN to Burlington Northern to BNSF. Worked SC to Willmar & occasionally to Twin Cities. Eventually was working the switching hump in the Northtown yard in Fridley. He hurt his back and retired back to SC area.
He hated the RR but made a good living.
The big 4 transcontinental RR industry (BNSF, UP, Norfolk Southern & Conex) are trying to remove the conductor from the locomotive, as per Strib last week. Trying to see if a conductor can be summoned by radio & respond in a pickup, if needed, to a situation. There are sensors that will shut down a train if the engineer becomes unresponsive / disabled. Having 2 people in a 1 1/2 to 2 mile long train of grain / coal / crude oil / ethanol etc seems prudent.
I’m not a railroader but my great grandfather came to MN off a Canadian Pacific survey crew & I’ve always liked RR history.

So true on the 2 quality of life posts. Lee had to be able to get to the RR within a matter of an hour when he was on call. On call meant he was getting 1/2 pay.
I recall it was 4 days on 3 off.
To go to a big field trial meant vacation, but then it was the same for me.

Working pretty close to the industry. I know the railroad engineers have some of the highest divorce rates in the nation. Mainly due to the fact they are always on the rail

My story does have an unfortunate ending, my former co-worker who was living his dream died of a heart attack not long after accomplishing his goal. Perhaps the difficulties and stress of the job contributed. I think he had 8 kids, but most had grown up by then, and he smoked heavily.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Perhaps the difficulties and stress of the job contributed. I think he had 8 kids, but most had grown up by then, and he smoked heavily.

Or 8 kids…

A college buddy of mine graduated with a degree in business. He worked a job for 3M that made a pile of money. Girlfriends came and went in his suburban lifestyle with a nice house in the suburbs, a custom harley that he rarely rode, and a healthy bank account – but something was always off when I’d visit.

Fast forward another 2 years and he has a beautiful cabin in Northern WI(I’m talking something pushing a million $) and works on an offshore oil rig in the gulf. I believe he is 3 weeks on, 2 weeks off or something like that making way more than he did with his good 3M job. When I reconnected with him after the life change he said that he hated the suburbs and having neighbors, as well as the 9-5 grind. He’d rather bust his a$$ and then play equally hard for bigger chunks of time. His next venture was buying acreage in Idaho and debating making that his home base instead of Northern WI.

Guessing he doesn’t have a wife or kids.
Oh how my life would be different without those.

buckybadger wrote:

A college buddy of mine graduated with a degree in business. He worked a job for 3M that made a pile of money. Girlfriends came and went in his suburban lifestyle with a nice house in the suburbs, a custom harley that he rarely rode, and a healthy bank account – but something was always off when I’d visit.

Fast forward another 2 years and he has a beautiful cabin in Northern WI(I’m talking something pushing a million $) and works on an offshore oil rig in the gulf. I believe he is 3 weeks on, 2 weeks off or something like that making way more than he did with his good 3M job. When I reconnected with him after the life change he said that he hated the suburbs and having neighbors, as well as the 9-5 grind. He’d rather bust his a$$ and then play equally hard for bigger chunks of time. His next venture was buying acreage in Idaho and debating making that his home base instead of Northern WI.

And now he works on the rail road as a conductor. Or was this a story that came from right field ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buckybadger wrote:</div>
A college buddy of mine graduated with a degree in business. He worked a job for 3M that made a pile of money. Girlfriends came and went in his suburban lifestyle with a nice house in the suburbs, a custom harley that he rarely rode, and a healthy bank account – but something was always off when I’d visit.

Fast forward another 2 years and he has a beautiful cabin in Northern WI(I’m talking something pushing a million $) and works on an offshore oil rig in the gulf. I believe he is 3 weeks on, 2 weeks off or something like that making way more than he did with his good 3M job. When I reconnected with him after the life change he said that he hated the suburbs and having neighbors, as well as the 9-5 grind. He’d rather bust his a$$ and then play equally hard for bigger chunks of time. His next venture was buying acreage in Idaho and debating making that his home base instead of Northern WI.

And now he works on the rail road as a conductor. Or was this a story that came from right field ?

Nope. What he does parallels the lifestyle of RR workers/engineers with similar time commitments and sacrifices.

People willing to put in tough work and be away from home for lengths for time are handsomely rewarded. RR, Oil Rigs, Oil Fields, and the list goes on. In today’s world those people are hard to find.

When I was 5 I was thinking more along these lines.

RR vs. oil rig- not even close to comparable. If you’re on the RR you might not get 2 weeks truly ‘off’ all year total. Are the oil rig guys on call and ready to go to work on a moments notice when they are off the oil rig for those 2 weeks?

Ridin’ shotgun for the Texas Rangers
Go west young man, haven’t you been told?
California’s full of whiskey, women and gold
Sleepin’ out all night beneath the desert stars
With a dream in my eye and a prayer in my heart

I believe Bucky is saying these boys are just like Gene and Roy. Very similar

I think that boy is Bidens environmental rationale for cutting out fossil fuels.
Friggin hilarious – gotta be “real” i bet? I knew some boys who were equally square headed