I'm Back!!

Well, as of the first part of september, I'm back to work. I was pretty discouraged in my last post. It got ugly, and I was out of work on and off for nearly a year. Being cut off really sucks. It's humiliating and embarrassing. But, I'm okay and making money. I was cut off for less than a week a little bit ago but was quickly put b ack to work.

The railroad is turning nicely right now and I am loving it. I just got a five percent raise and I'm making some good money. I just missed fireman training this time, but a guy with seniority this sucky can't expect to get that kind of stuff.

I'm going to post scary situations and near death experiences on this blog, hopefully i can stay employed for as long as possible.

Sick of the Railroad

I lost my job with the railroad today. I don't like the railroad anymore. I have a college degree, maybe I could do something with that, worthless though it is. Stupid railroad.

My railroad wife

My wife has been very supportive since I started with the railroad in 2006. She likes the retirement plan and everything. She doesn't mind the job either I guess, I'm gone half the time when I'm working. She doesn't even complain when money is tight, she doesn't get discouraged when I come home and tell her I'm cut off again. She is always there. I'm the one that doesn't have the patience so she ends up putting up the the railroad and me at the same time. She's like a rock. If I didn't have her I would be up a creek. Sometimes I don't treat her like a should, so she pipes up. She doesnt' care what the railroad is doing and she shows tremendous strength with everything. She won't tolerate being mistreated though. Come on. a person can only stand so much, right? She's my railroad wife though, so she needs some consideration, some love, and understanding. She really doesn't ask for much.

The railroad is notorious for breaking up marriages. When I got hired they asked us if we were married, and the ones that answered in the affirmative they asked if they were happy. They said if your marriage sucks now, it will end with the railroad. I know guys that have been married six times or more! I don't want that to be me. I think if I lost my sweetie it would make my life very dark indeed.

If you've read my other posts you'll soon find out how frustrating detectors can be on the railroad. One time we got hit by a detector that said we had dragging equipment 18 cars back. I wouldn't have minded, but our train happened to be on a very steep hill. So steep, that I had to hold on to the cars as I went back to keep myself from falling about 150 feet through sage brush almost straight down to a big thing of mud. I started back, making my way to that stupid car. About halfway there I got brave and thought it would be faster to just walk. No sooner had I let go of a car that I tripped and fell down the hill into the mud. (It was snowing, and 2am). My engineer had seen it happen and laughed at me on the radio. So I walked in the mud until i could see the 18th car, and then I started to climb up the hill, grabbing sagebrush to pull myself up, in knee high snow. I was thinking to myself that there better be something wrong with this car or i'm going to freak. Well, I got up the the car, and upon inspecting it thoroughly, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. I was disappointed, but relieved that I didn't have to deal with any problems.

Now I had the problem of getting back to the unit without taking all day. The engineer said I could walk between the two tracks and that he would tell me if a train was coming so I could get out of the way. I got on the other side of my train and started to walk between the two tracks. Keep in mind that if a train came while I was walking, it would pass within 3 feet of my train.

When I was about 200 feet away from the head end of my train, I saw another train bearing down on me coming in the opposite direction. Knowing I didn't have time to run up there, I had to lay down on my belly right next to my train and wait for the other train to go by. It was going pretty fast and loud, and I was scared, but it went by and I finished walking up the the front of my train.

I haven't posted on my blog for a long time, mainly because I am lazy, forgetful, and sometimes don't care. Most of what is on my mind comes from my job. I am a freight conductor on the union pacific railroad. This is a fun job, one that is in my blood. I am the fourth generation to work for this railroad on my dad's side. My dad currently works as a locomotive engineer on the same set of rails as I work on, which is the same set of rails that my grandfather worked on, as well as his father. the railroad has changed a lot since my grandfather worked on it, but it hasn't changed that much from when my father started in 1978. I am typing this at about one in the morning because i can't sleep.

Lots of fun stuff happens on the railroad. I'm full of stories, which my wife doesn't like to hear, mainly because I forget which ones I've told her, and I repeat a lot.

my dad called my up today to tell me what happened to him on the job this morning. On the railroad, you don't work a fixed schedule. Sometimes you go to work at midnight, sometimes in the afternoon. this morning he went on duty at about two. His run as about s 350 miles, and just as he was about 100 miles into his run, he said every time he hit the throttle fire would come out of the smokestack on the third unit. It then started to spew oil, which caught fire and engulfed the entire locomotive. This is dangerous because a unit can hold 2500 gallons of fuel. I didn't ask him how the fire was extinguished.

sometimes you have to do dangerous stuff when you are a conductor. the most dangerous thing I have ever done happened a couple months ago. At certain locations on the track there are detectors. They can tell if your load is tipping, if you have a hot axle, or if you have dragging equipment. If it detects something wrong, it will come on the radio and anounce the problem and which car it is on.

at 3 in the morning, we went over a detector that told us we had dragging equipment on the sixth head car. It's my job to get my tool kit, and my lantern, and walk on back. I also have a radio i can use to talk to the engineer with. Well, when I went back to the sixth car, there was a one hundred pound piece of the brake rigging that was disconnected on one side and dragging between the rails. I needed to wire up the dragging side, and to do it, I needed to crawl underneath the car in between two wheels, bench press the steel bar, and wire it up. As I was doing that, another train came by me on the other track going 70 miles an hour. keep in mind i was four feet away from the other track so when it went by it it was kind of scary. did I mention the track I was on had a foot of snow on it? after half an hour and two trains, I was done and went up to the lead engine covered in dirty snow, half frozen, and glad it was over.

I think I'm going to use this blog to talk about my job, so maybe I can give my wife a break.