Once the cargo is delivered, the conductor will likely spend the night in a local hotel or motel before traveling back home. He may already have a train upon which he will make the trip or he might await a call to confirm his assignment on a train. There is an element of uncertainty involved and freight train conductors must be flexible and patient when it comes to these assignments. This can be hard on people with families or other responsibilities back home.
When conductors get “rides home,” they may be the conductors on duty for the trains to which they are assigned or they may be “deadheading.” A deadhead is a crew member who is just along for the ride. During this time, the deadhead conductor is still considered “on duty” although he or she is not responsible for the conducting duties.
Someone who is at home in this type of position might be carefree but responsible. They may enjoy the freedom of traveling through the country without having a supervisor looking over their shoulder while remaining vigilant and authoritative whenever necessary.
A Day in the Life of a Passenger Train Conductor
Passenger train conductors may also start their days very early or very late depending on the train schedule. When their day begins, their initial duties are not all that different from those of a freight train conductor. He or she will review the paperwork for the trip, including timetables and any other instructions from the dispatchers. The conductor then reviews this information with the train crew, making sure everyone is up to speed on the scheduled movements of the train.
Most passenger conductor roles will also require you to conduct a physical inspection of the train, checking for safety violations and generally making sure it is ready to receive passengers. Some shifting may be required as passenger conductors assist in the coupling and uncoupling of train cars. During this time, the conductor will also assist in checking brakes and making minor repairs.
Once the train is ready to go, the conductor manages its departure as it goes to pick up its first load of passengers. As the train stops to let the passengers on, the conductor opens the doors and ushers them onto the train. He or she might also assist them with luggage or direct other crew members in assisting them. If relevant, he or she also ensures that passengers locate the correct train car. Finally, the conductor closes the door and instructs the engineer to depart.
While en-route, the conductor takes tickets, answers questions, and handles passenger emergencies. The conductor also makes announcements relevant to train conditions, schedule delays, and upcoming stations. When not handling the passengers, the conductor is reviewing timetables and keeping an eye on the track.
Passenger questions and complaints can be varied. A passenger conductor should expect to be met with potentially antagonistic passengers. He or she should also expect to answer the same questions repeatedly as passengers arrive and leave. Finally, conductors may be forced to eject passengers from the train who haven’t paid their fare.
This process repeats as necessary until the train makes its final stop. Passenger train conductors usually find themselves back home at the end of the day (albeit usually after a long shift). However, some might find themselves spending the night in a hotel or motel as they wait to work or deadhead their way home. This entirely depends on the length of the route.
Someone who is at home in this type of position might be patient but authoritative, willing to listen to passenger complaints without giving in to unreasonable requests or allowing passengers to ride for free. They may be friendly, poised, and eager to serve.
Physical Risk
Train conductors, whether for freight or passenger trains, may not find their job as dangerous as that of a police officer or fire fighter, but make no mistake. When working with heavy machinery every day and traveling at high speeds, you face no small amount of risk. While this should in no way discourage interested people from the profession, it’s worth understanding what you might be facing if you become a conductor.
Most of the risky activity associated with train conducting involves shifting (called shunting in Europe). This is when the conductor aids yard crew in moving and attaching cars.
During this time, conductors may find themselves walking on ballast. As was previously mentioned, ballast refers to the bedding upon which train tracks would be laid. At first glance, ballast doesn’t look all that dangerous. In fact, it just looks like small stones. However, it can be hard on the legs to walk on for extended periods of time. What’s more, ballast can sometimes be large, making it hazardous to walk on, especially in poor weather.
Shifting can also involve riding ladders on the sides of train cars. Although it is no longer policy to have conductors get on and off these cars while they are still moving, this can still be a risky activity. It may not look it, but the ladders are high off the ground and a fall from one could cause injuries.
Not all safety concerns have to do with shifting trains. Many trains transport hazardous or highly flammable materials, such as oil. Proper adherence to safety standards is particularly important in these cases as a collision or derailment could result in explosions, fires, and massive loss of life. Unfortunately, some railroad companies have taken to cutting corners, so to speak, in an effort to meet high demand. As a result, some trains may be too long or use outdated equipment. It is important for conductors and engineers to understand the dangers posed by their particular train and take all possible precautions.
Fortunately, passenger train conductors do not have to worry about hazardous materials. That being said, transporting people can come with its own risks. Typically, passengers will be reasonable and adhere to the train’s rules and regulations. When a passenger becomes frustrated or uncooperative, the biggest concern for the conductor is just the headache he or she is likely to have at the end of the day. However, it is possible for a passenger to become belligerent, and a prepared conductor should know how to diffuse a potentially explosive situation. He or she should also be familiar with the proper protocol for handling aggressive passengers, unattended bags, or any other concerns related to passenger safety.
Compensation
Train conductors tend to make a decent salary right out of the gate. This is partially due to the potential dangers of the job and partially due to the long and odd hours they may be working. Although these factors are consistent across state lines, salaries may vary depending on location and the train company in question.
We will be talking about conductor compensation in terms of salary. However, conductor positions are “non-exempt.” In other words, they are hourly positions and not exempt from overtime. Therefore, when we are talking about annual salaries, we are really referring to the effective salary a conductor would make in a year based on his or her hourly earnings. What that conductor actually makes in a year may vary depending on the number of hours worked.
Starting salaries can be harder to pin down than average ones. What a company offers for a starting salary depends on a wide variety of factors. Different companies offer different pay scales. These scales may fluctuate according to location and the cost of living in that location. Finally, salaries may depend on experience. However, a quick glance at available train conductor jobs reveals a low end of roughly $45,000 to $55,000 for new recruits (that’s between $21 and $27 an hour give or take).
According to Glass Door, railroad conductor salaries range from about $45,000 to $88,000 nationally, averaging to about $66,238. However, Glass Door also presents salary ranges and averages by company, drawing from reports of specific salaries to generate that data. With 63 salaries reporting, Union Pacific pays it conductors between $40,000 and $100,000 annually, averaging to about $64,774. Also with 67 salaries reported, BNSF Railway pays its conductors between $47,000 and $105,000, averaging about $74,426. While Glass Door did report on the average salaries for other rail companies, many of the sample sizes were too small to be reliable.
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics as of May 2015, train conductors and yardmaste
rs earned salaries ranging from $38,450 to $77,940 (or $18.49 to $37.47 an hour), averaging to about $56,760. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics also tells us that the states with the highest average wage for railroad conductors and yardmasters include New Mexico, Arizona, Mississippi, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, and New York. The states with the lowest average wage include Colorado, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
Although salary can be somewhat of a moving target, it’s clear that people in this line of work can expect a reasonably comfortable living. What’s more, conductors (as with most rail workers) enjoy good benefits. These include health insurance, disability insurance, family assistance programs, and pensions. Like salary, benefits may vary and depend largely on the unions.
Train conducting can be a terrific and lucrative line of work for anyone with or without a college degree. However, remember that these benefits and pay scales do not come without a price. Before they’ve thoroughly established themselves, conductors often find themselves working weekends, holidays, and more.
Chapter Six: A Look at Railroad Disasters
Since we’re on the topic of modern working conditions, it behooves us to take a moment to talk about exactly how dangerous railroad work can sometimes be. This is not the kind of job where a workplace accident results in a bad back or a broken leg, although both those things can happen. Railroad accidents can be deadly for crew members, passengers, and bystanders. What’s more, hazardous materials can have devastating environmental impacts when spilled. While train accidents are rare, they do happen and they are very serious. It’s important to understand how much damage trains can do, especially if you’re considering going to work for a railroad company.
If you look at the list of American railroad accidents on Wikipedia, you might feel a bit heartened. Sure, there are several dozen there, but they date back to the mid-19th century. Surely other industries have seen more accidents in a year than these railroads have seen in their entire existence. First, these are not listing every broken bone, only times when the train crashed. It is possible to injure yourself on the railroad when doing nothing more than walking on ballast. Second, you’ll notice that the accidents in the first sixteen years of the twenty-first century total nearly as much as the entire last century. In other words, these accidents are becoming increasingly more common and are, therefore, of greater concern.
Runaway Hazard
If a derailed train weren’t bad enough, the damage done by these accidents is sometimes increased thanks to the hazardous materials on board. Back in the early days of the railroad, trains might have transported coal or iron. Sure, these materials were heavy and a train carrying coal would certainly do some damage if it tipped over, but there’s a far cry between heavy and explosive. These days, freight trains might carry such flammable or explosive materials as oil and various petrol chemicals used in manufacturing. Even fertilizer can be extremely dangerous when involved in a train accident. This makes freight train accidents exceedingly dangerous not only for those on board, but also for people in the surrounding area and the environment. When a train spills oil into the surrounding area, it is, in effect, an oil spill. In June of 2016, a Union Pacific train crashed in Oregon, spilling about 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the surrounding country and, subsequently, a nearby river. You need only look up the dozens of news reports and documentaries featuring oil drenched birds and fish to appreciate what this means. Wildlife along the river grew sick and died while the river itself was rendered uninhabitable. Of course, oil doesn’t need to find a river to do substantial damage. The breached train cars caught fire and oil leaked into the top soil surrounding the accident, killing plants and hindering further growth.
This is hardly an isolated incident. In November of 2015, a train car carrying crude oil spilled when dozens of such cars derailed in Watertown, Wisconsin. While one car resulted in significantly less oil being spilled than in the more recent incident, it was still enough to warrant the evacuation of a nearby town. Admittedly these accidents are far less likely to result in human deaths than passenger train accidents. But they are common, with at least seven such crashes having occurred in North America during 2015 alone.
Lac-Megantic
One of the deadliest North American train accidents in recent history and the deadliest in Canada to not involve a passenger train took place on July 6th, 2013 near the town of Lac-Megantic in the eastern townships of Quebec. The train belonged to the Montreal Main and Atlantic Railway (MMA) and was manned by a single engineer.
The engineer parked the train uphill from the town of Lac-Megantic before turning in for the night at a motel in town. According to his statement, he had applied the main brakes (air brakes) and hand brakes. However, there was some debate after the accident over the validity of this claim and the engineer was later accused of having applied on air brakes and not even enough of those. (The minimum required number of air brakes according to MMA policy was nine and the engineer was accused of having only used seven.) In either case, he stopped the train, leaving the engine running to keep pressure on the air brakes. If the locomotive were to be shut down, the air brakes would no longer be effective.
That is how it came to be that a train carrying crude oil was left running and unattended uphill from a small Quebec town in the middle of the night. Of course, this sounds bad but, short of the controversy regarding the brakes, this was all well within MMA regulations at the time.
Somehow or other, the train went into “distress.” In other words, the lead locomotive, the one left running to ensure that the air brakes continued to function, was starting to smoke. Something was clearly wrong and numerous passersby reported having seen the smoke and been concerned about the state of the machine. How the engine went into distress is still a mystery. MMA claims that the train might have been tampered with when left unattended and unlocked. However, these claims have never been substantiated. It was also reported that the engineer was made aware of the state of the train and, after communicating with dispatch, was told to leave it until the morning.
All that really matters is that the engine shut down sometime during the night and the brakes went with it. The train picked up speed as it rolled downhill along the tracks. As it neared the downtown of Lac-Megantic, it’s speed was so great that the train derailed and collided with the town. Given the volatile nature of the train’s contents, many of the cars exploded and half of the downtown was destroyed. Later, forty-two people were confirmed dead and another five were missing and presumed dead.
The engineer faced charges of criminal negligence under the allegation that he had not set the appropriate number and type of brakes. However, MMA also came under fire for lax policies that aided in bringing about the disaster. They’ve since required that all trains containing hazardous materials be supervised at all times (day or night). They’ve also made is mandatory for two train personnel to be working a route instead of just one, requiring a conductor to accompany each engineer.
While we can’t know exactly what happened that night, we can learn something essential from this tragedy. Train personnel have a very important job and one that demands care and attention. Perhaps the engineer, like all of us, was exhausted after a long day. After all, he was alone on that train. When we can’t wait to get out of the office, maybe we leave a few emails for tomorrow and rush through the report we need to finish, making some minor errors. So maybe we can sympathize with him. That doesn’t change the fact that, on a train, there are no minor errors. If he was lazy about applying the brakes, eager for his day to be done, he’s not looking at a slap on the wrist and a little extra time spent crunching numbers the next day.
Early Train Accidents
While it is important to appreciate the devastating impact of freight train accidents, there’s no denying that the vast majority of deadly accidents involve passenger trains, and this is as much an issue today as it was over a
century ago when trains were still new. Despite increasingly more stringent safety precautions and other policy changes, there remains the potential for human error and mechanical failure.
There is some inconsistency regarding the first deadly railroad accident in the United States. If you were to go by, say, the History channel, you would see the 1832 Granite railway accident credited as the first. However, there is some record of accidents occurring in the United States before that time, including the 1831 boiler explosion in South Carolina that killed a crew member. Regardless, the Granite railway accident was likely the first derailment, the culprit behind most deadly train accidents.
On July 25th, 1832, a group of non-railroad personnel were invited to witness the transportation of heavy loads of stone. They, perhaps inadvisably, did this from a vacant train car. When the cable holding their car snapped, the car and everyone in it fell thirty-four feet down a cliff. One of the four visitors died, while the others sustained injuries.
The first head on collision that resulted in the deaths of passengers occurred in 1837 on the Portsmouth and Roanoke railroad. A passenger train collided with a freight train that was hauling lumber near Suffolk, Virginia. Dozens were injured, but the accident was particularly notable because three daughters of an important local family were killed.
Early train accidents increased in fatalities over the years. The Shohola Train Wreck killed sixty people when a train carrying confederate prisoners across country during the Civil War was in a head on collision with another. A few years later, in 1867, the accident that became known as the Angola Horror killed forty-nine people and seven years after that, in 1876, the Ashtabula River Road Disaster killed ninety-two, making it one of the deadlier train accidents in US history. However, despite how obviously tragic these events were, they weren’t the worst the US had seen.
Conductor- The Heart & Soul of the Railroad Page 4
