Workin' on the Railroad

One thing about working for the railroad is all the great scenery you see along the way. One of the more enjoyable trips I took was from Stockton to Keddie, CA through the Feather River Canyon. I was on train H-KLFRRB1-27A on October, 28th 2006. This particular train originated in Klamath Falls, OR and it's destination was Riverbank, CA just outside of Stockton. Our lead unit was the BNSF 4411 regular over the road power. Our day was a good 12 hours. We went into emergency 4 times do to an air hose on the 73rd car from the head end... I had a few long walks that day! After the air hose problem was fixed we got underway and just north of Sacramento, CA a lady in here truck, hauling a horse trailer decides to try beat our train at a crossing, she obviously noticed we were coming at her at a pretty good clip and decides to back up... she barley clears us with inches to spare. I thought we were going to hit her and placed the train into emergency. This ended my trip for the day as we went DOL on our 12 hours. My crew was taken via van to Stockton, we tied up and I went home.... what a fun day!

Hire Out Date

I decided to start up a blog about what I do for a living. I work for the BNSF Railway as a Freight Train Conductor out of Richmond, California taking trains from Richmond to Fresno down the Central Valley of California. It took me quite a while to hire on with the railroad, it was my lifelong goal to someday be riding the rails and it came true. I hired out June 12Th, 2006 for the BNSF. I went through a rigorous 13 week training process with lots of testing, reading, and field work and on that 13Th week had to pass a 280 question test with a 90% or better to keep my job.