My youngest son, who is an engineer on a Class 1 phoned this evening, sounding quite disgruntled. I asked, "Where are you?" And he replied, "Dead on the law, 90 miles out, waiting for a cab..."

"Bad day?" I asked.

There followed a snarly dissertation on his overlong train, too heavy for its junky power, stalling, two of three units down. Dead FRED, a dynamiter somewhere about 6000 feet back. 43 miles in twelve hours. As he wound down he paused, and said thougtfully,

"So, dad. Let me get this straight. You're actually a fan of this stuff?"

Working in the bowels of it day in, day out can jaundice one. A bad day can especially skew the perspective. I like to watch freight trains go by. But it is getting more difficult to do so without also thinking of operating costs; regulations and safety issues; asset utilization; car hire; etc.

A bad day on the railroad is still better than a good day in a cubicle, illuminated by florescence.

"The easiest way to end up hating the railroad with a passion is to work for them."

Related to me over thirty years ago; obeyed diligently ever since.

The good news is: by the time he got home, he was laughing about it. Stopped in for a few minutes to play with his little daughter, kissed her goodnight and headed for home. He said that he knew he was going to have a bad day when they went past the first detector and it reported that he had 100 extra axles. 25 autoracks that were supposed to have been cut off before he got the train. He said "And the day went gracelessly downhill from there."

Alex, you are very right. Before my 4 year stint with CSX I lived and breathed railroads. Now the only thing that I do with railroads is read this forum.

I'll admit I'm not a professional railroader because I like to plop my keister in front of a computer, work regular hours etc. My volunteer time has taught me how exasperating railroading can be. We all know big machines going fast are inherently fraught with peril.

But seriously, there ARE worse jobs, MUCH MUCH worse.

Soldiers and Police get shot at, Firemen can be called to drag 50 pounds of stuff up tens of flights of stairs. Nurses get to clean poop and indescribable other bodily expulsions and deal with surly doctors, both can be sued by lawyers with time on their hands to second-guess split second,no replay,not enough info decisions. Corrections officers get to keep our less civil folks secluded from the rest of us.. and there's a ton of jobs explored by Mike Rowe that flat out SUCK. The "garbage man" gets some misery,no?

Seriously, given other choices today,where else can a high school graduate expect to get a job with above average pay and benes, reasonable security-especially given the railroad employment census.

And those of us in offices face the annual exercise in servility known as an appraisal. (for the uninitiated, I suggest reading Dilbert)

Work is a four-letter word for a reason. Unfortunately,unless you are a Kennedy or other member of various parasitic political royalty types, you'll probably have to do something distasteful or even hideous.

I know perpetual indignation is part of the railroad culture, but perhaps,like kicking cars,it belongs relegated to the past.

Thank god, I was always a passenger fan. The railroads could never beat that out of me. The best part of railroading is the passenger trains, always was, always will be. But the freight roads have really gone down hill. Just ask their customers!

Freight doesn't talk back, as one of my Brothers often says.

Truer words have never been spoken by several people in this thread. There is a reason that railroads were among the first industries ORGANIZED in this country, because they suck, they all suck and it just matters which one sucks more than the rest. Thats the word I was taught and have lived by. Don't get me wrong I like trains but I hate railroads. They use us and abuse us. I like preservation but realize the "good ole days" SUCKED just as much then as they do now. Someday someone will reminisce about the way things "were" aka "now" and my reply will be those days sucked. Railroading is by no means a glorious job never has and never will be, but there are few of us who realize it going in.

Doug, your son has a beautiful way with words. I've never heard a bad day summarized more succinctly, or with more wry humor. As a writer, I doff my cap to him.

Wow. We must inhabit parallel universes. All of the indignities I've witnessed have come at the hands of those purporting to serve passengers ...

If one asks freight customers around here who have shipping experience from the 1970's and ship by rail now, one can truly understand the meaning of the words "rail renaissance." I don't know any freight customer who wants to go back to pre-Staggers.

One also must be careful to distinguish from the services provided by the railroad as an entity to its customers, and the labor experience within that entity. It is more complex than "sucks."

Someone once told me that one can walk around offended by the things that human beings do to one another, or one can choose to not let offenses poison one's spirit. I have chosen the latter, and it wasn't because I always received plum assignments. I've been used and abused in all kinds of different vocations and environmments by pea-headed bosses. And I still say that a bad day on the railroad is still better than a bonus day in a Dilbert cubicle.

There, I cede the soapbox to the next citizen ...

I passed along your comments, and he grinned and said thank you. He added the caveat that he cannot read RyPN or he'd lose his membership in "The Grumpy Railroader Anti-Foamer Society".

I'll let it go at that.

There was quite a bit of "florescence" above my office at the railroad. . . . But I'll still second Steve's comment from my cubicle.

Ryan

Many years ago I was chatting with a young man who was a brakeman on a well-known shortline. He told me that his previous employment was a computer-related job at a financial institution, where they'd have him working lots of overtime with little or no extra pay. His workplace was the proverbial fluorescent-lit cubicle. Now, he said, "I'm out in the fresh air, and if I want to go fishing, I just call the DS and they'll get someone off the extra board." Of course a short line that only has one train a day and weekends off is different from a Class-I that runs 24/7, but the fresh-air aspect is the same. I remember hearing about a truck driver whose wife finally got tired of his "Six Days on the Road" schedule and talked him into taking an inside job. Wanting to keep peace in the family, he stuck it out as long as he could, but eventually the wife agreed that he was miserable. She decided that a husband at home for a few days was better than no husband at all, and wished him "Godspeed" as he headed back to his "big rig". I suspect there are a lot of railroaders who may cuss and complain, but like the trucker, they'd be climbing the walls if they were stuck in an office.

Yep. Railroading sucks at times, but it still beats the heck out of a real job. Still no better way to make a living, other than perhaps Powerball Winner. Even then, most of us would STILL find something to complain about.