Newbie conductor/brakeman

everyone usually under the circumstanses pitches in.. why drag it out.....i will say in my formative years it was just the opposite where the most experienced guys kept their mouths closed and let the newbie as you say call a conductor pilot to help him it was all hims in those days get the work accomplished. a different time.........conrail john

Yes, there were some really hateful railroaders not that long ago.  Everything -- everything, including actual skills and rules knowledge -- was on-the-job training.  After five student trips (unpaid) I had to spend three years as a Fireman in order to have enough road service (yard service didn't count) to be eligible for promotion to Engineer.  Two Engineers, in particular never spoke to me (or any other Fireman with less than ten years of experience) whenever I worked with them, except to ask for my pocket stamp for the time slip.  Another, when we tied up for rest in Los Angeles, told me what restaurant he ate in and that he expected me to eat in a different one.  Most, though, were congenial, and a few were genuinely friendly and showed me useful things.  Many of the Engineers would allow the Fireman to run the engine half of the time, if the Fireman was presentable in his habits and showed some interest.  I saw Yard Foremen who followed inexperienced Helpers (Yard Conductors and Brakemen to you who are from the east) criticizing them non-stop, in the most demeaning terms.  The only way those poor Helpers could get it to stop was to get better at railroading skills.

And, in the steam era, it was worse.  Some mean old Engineers would intentionally beat the Fireman out of steam and then criticize him.  The Air Brake Supervisor who gave me my Air Brake oral examination for promotion engaged me in conversation later and revealed that the first time he had ever run a train on the main line was after he was a promoted Engineer.  That was in 1943.  No train handling experience at all before his first paid trip as an Engineer!

Nowadays, the railroad gives training classes first, instead of sending new Brakemen out into the jaws of mean old men.  And there are only a few grouches out there today, because, when you have a two man crew, you have to get along with, and depend on, each other.  Most crew members are congenial and much more humble than the little kings of the past.

Thanks for your replies! What prompted this was observing switching in Cedar Rapids (flat) yard.  Watched as the train pulls a cut, moves them to another track, picks up another cut then shoves it to the train being made up, get another cut, finally putting the first cut back on the consist and after five minute wait (air brake pump up?) off they went.  It was almost like a graceful "dance" the way everything just seemed to flow together.  And I would assume the reason for certain order was making it easy to set out cuts along the way.

Two Engineers, in particular never spoke to me (or any other Fireman with less than ten years of experience) whenever I worked with them, except to ask for my pocket stamp for the time slip.  

Above  is a quote from Tom's great  post

 Tom's post brought   a smile to my face thinking back at one of my early  trips as a newbie  baggage man. When I finally  found the baggage car after being turned around and confused  in the bowels of Toronto union   station,  the Conductor is waiting and wants to know if I had ever worked this job . NO  I had not, but I did  work the Baggage Car on the  Super once...  He asks for my stamp and says  " You shouldn't be out here if you've never worked this job"  and heads back to the coach..."  To top it off. I have more than one  baggage car , two of them   and they're  full with everything from mail, medical supplies, baggage ,valuables , canoes., food,  Even a safe with lock & key. This train was (not anymore) a life  line  for the small towns in northern Ontario  up on the ONR( Ontario Northland Railway.)

I guess the Conductor did  a double take when he stamped the ticked book, I had the same last name as him.  Turns out he  was one of my dads cousins whom I never met... After that he was very friendly  go figure...

Most of the older guys would help the younger if they wanted help.  Retired Engineer ns

As a conductor with NS, first of all, the engineer does not train the rookie conductor.  You go thru a training period where you get trained by a conductor.  You stick by his side or you do what he/she tells you to do.  If you have questions you ask the conductor and usually not the engineer.

Now that I've said that, some engineers will give advice to a new conductor and some won't.  I've worked with both.  Maybe, I got lucky because about 98 % of the engineers I worked with were very helpful but that other 2 % were a**h****.  I remember 1 engineer, in particular, that I almost punched in the face and I was ready to get fired for it and I didn't care.  It would have been worth it.  But, I was able to restrain myself.  There's always one in the barrel.

Rick 

What found amazing was that conductor trainees would come back from training in McDonough, GA without having been instructed on the proper way to hold a lantern!!!

Great thread for this Sunday morning read.  Have I been one of those "little kings" at times?

In the early 1980's I was marked up on a board containing about 40 engineers and firemen, and 120 trainmen. When you get 160+ guys together in one place, there will be a near perfect bell curve, starting with a few sore-heads, and moving upward from under-achievers to your average worker, and finishing with a few rock stars and genuinely nice people who will impart their knowledge and help a new person.   It may not be true anymore, but the youngest man on the extra board usually wound up working a lot with the people everyone else hated, so they would lay off any calls to work with them.  That happened to me.  And the men in question taught me many things...their methods were harsh but memorable.

The with-holding of information and treating newbys badly is part of the American Labor movement. Pilots will treat co-pilots like dogs, truck drivers will not help a new man learn to use the clutch properly or back a trailer, boat captains will not teach their mates to navigate. This is not unique to the railroad industry. It just seems like there are a lot of creepy-crawleys in the world who learn a little skill and refuse to share what they have learned.

Tommy posted:

The with-holding of information and treating newbys badly is part of the American Labor movement. Pilots will treat co-pilots like dogs, truck drivers will not help a new man learn to use the clutch properly or back a trailer, boat captains will not teach their mates to navigate. This is not unique to the railroad industry. It just seems like there are a lot of creepy-crawleys in the world who learn a little skill and refuse to share what they have learned.

Its called "job [in]security"!

In my "twisted" way of thinking, helping out, teaching the ropes etc makes you a stand out, a leader/mentor, and more likely to advance your career, than not.

On my first day in NS's Enola Yard, the utility brakeman they put me with made it a point to let me know that I was nothing more than "an extra $10 a day"- the amount a conductor made when he had a student assigned to him.  Beyond that, he probably said 5 words to me the entire day.  Luckily he was an extra man, and the regular man on the job was much better.  Most of the crews I worked with were decent and willing to help, and a small percentage were just jerks.  

Engineers, though not directly responsible for training student conductors, would usually answer questions and offer advice when asked.  As with conductors, there were a small few who wouldn't so much as speak to a student, and others who were only civil once we had tied up at the end of a run- but for the most part I worked with a good group of seasoned railroaders.

The penn central merger produced penn central employees. The prr men hated the nyc men so as a new hire with no roots i kept my nyc pedigree to myself when called for a job on the red side..anyway in those days you as a pc man were looked on as a ugly step child and if you could get some one to talk to you maybe you could learn something, with about seven yards of different sizes apiece it took time to even learn the property. On top of that the prr side worked slowwwwww and the nyc guys were always in a hurry ! today the new guys have it alot easier believe me ! 45 years still standing !! go PC and Conrail too!!!

rrman posted:

Tommy posted:

It just seems like there are a lot of creepy-crawleys in the world who learn a little skill and refuse to share what they have learned.

In my "twisted" way of thinking, helping out, teaching the ropes etc makes you a stand out, a leader/mentor, and more likely to advance your career, than not.

The way I looked at it, nobody comes to work as a new employee knowing how to run a train.  I know I sure didn't.

Working with some full-time soreheads had given me a desire to never be like them.  The more I could share with the Firemen I worked with, the better they might be as Engineers.  They would be working on the same territory as me, opposing me on single track (or multiple main tracks) and the better they could be at their work, the safer it would be, both for themselves and for me.  It was not that I was the reincarnation of Casey Jones, but I did teach some of them some things I had learned from good Engineers, and other things I had learned from my own close calls and errors in judgment.  Better they should learn from my mistakes than to have to make the same ones I did.