The Railroad

So my husband works on the railroad as a conductor. I don't talk about it a lot on my blog because of the jargon. It's hard to stop and explain all the words that are used in railroad talk.

So I'm going to start this post. (11/29/08) And every time I want to tell a story about the railroad I can link to this post and add to it if I need to.

So here's some basics:

On each train (these are all freight trains) there is an engineer and a conductor. The engineer drives the train and the conductor does everything else. Trains break down or have things go wrong frequently so sometimes the conductor doesn't have to do much & sometimes it's a LOT of work. If nothing goes wrong between point A & point B then all he has to do is mostly paperwork. When things do go wrong on a train (which I only minimally understand lol) Drew often has to walk the entire train. Sometimes they are two miles long one way, etc. It's a big deal when there's a foot of snow on the ground. LOL

So now that I want to think of vocabulary I'm having a hard time. (Oh, and don't ask me why. I do NOT know why they use some of these terms!)

High Ball - "let's high ball!" means "let's leave now". (Silly. I know.)

Engineer - drives the train

Conductor - in charge of the train itself

Local - these men are also conductors and engineers but they work within one local train yard. In Drew's job he travels back & forth between to towns. He works with two local crews - one on each end.

Bumped - This requires some pre-explanation...

The railroaders are divided by seniority & "craft" (whether engineer or conductor or local). It takes more seniority to be an engineer.

So whenever they "cut the boards".... crap. See how hard this is??

Cut the boards - sigh.

Boards - okay - the boards are split by location and craft. So there is a Rawlins Conductor Board, Cheyenne Board, etc. And the same for the engineers.

There is also an "Extra Board" for each local and craft. This extra board is used if - for example - a conductor calls in sick (which is called "laying off". UGH.) then a conductor from the "extra board" is called to take his turn.

Turn - your spot on the board.

If you are still reading this - heaven bless you.

So he has a turn. He's a on board.

Okay so whenever they cut the boards you can "bump" into a board you have seniority on. Bump just means you take a spot - and sent there are only a certain number of spots you "bump" someone off the board. So you can bump or be bumped. lol

Laying off - is just calling in sick

What the world traditionally calls "getting laid off" is called "cut off" on the railroad - I think because your turn is literally CUT from the board.

Okay. That's a good start right? I can always add to this when I get going.

*******************

This last year has been a mess with the railroad.

Because of the way seniority works - the first few years you work for the RR are gonna be hard as you go on and off the boards based on how busy they are. We were expecting this and during the summer/fall - which is traditionally the busiest time - you prepare for winter - which is the slowest.

Anyway, this last summer there were floods, mudslides, derailments - and just as the railroad is recovering from all of that? The economy tanks. Awesome.

So Drew only worked about half of last year - just on & off.

We've survived and done okay. We have more debt than we started the year with and that was certainly not my plan. lol

So hopefully this year will be better!

Can you believe I started this post last November???

oops. lol