Western Railroad Discussion > Women Railroaders

I'm doing a project on this topic. I am having trouble finding info and pictures of current women in railroading. I find many on Women in WW I and WW II. Can you help me out?
Thankx

i think if you go to friends of b.n.s.f. you can find out there are a lot of women in train and engine service on the b.n.s.f.

Gary Wamhoff
Laramie, WY

A former rail, Linda Niemann, wrote a book about her experiences. She started railroading in the 1970s, when few women were doing it.

http://www.amazon.com/Rails-Womans-Memoir-Linda-Niemann/dp/1573440647/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4

Amtrak has quite a few women conductors and some engineers. I've seen the Coast Starlight come through here sometimes will a all
girl crew. Engineer and both conductors!

pb
Oxnard CA

Here's a possible website- http://www.womeninrailroading.com/ Don't know if it's got current women in railroading.

mapboy

BrPlboTrmp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm doing a project on this topic. I am having
> trouble finding info and pictures of current women
> in railroading. I find many on Women in WW I and
> WW II. Can you help me out?
> Thankx

While waiting for an Amtrak detour in Tehachapi 3 years ago, I ran into a woman conductor who came out of the cab to do a rollby. I asked her if I can put her in the picture of the two trains meeting (at Caliente), and she said OK as long as the photo don't get posted publicly. Might consider the privacy angle while you are doing your project.

Quite a few women railroaders here, which would be the San Francisco Bay Area, in Northern California: 4 Amtrak engineers, countless Amtrak conductors, a UP engineer, a UP conductor, and a BNSF conductor/brakewoman out on the main lines, just off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more. I was told a woman piloted the Amtrak engine between Oroville and Emeryville for the westbound Feather River Express which ran in August. I did hear her talking on the radio while doing an air test at Portola:

BrPlboTrmp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm doing a project on this topic. I am having
> trouble finding info and pictures of current women
> in railroading. I find many on Women in WW I and
> WW II. Can you help me out?
> Thankx


NS has had female crews for years, some are quite pretty!!

radar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A former rail, Linda Niemann, wrote a book about
> her experiences. She started railroading in the
> 1970s, when few women were doing it.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Rails-Womans-Memoir-Linda-Ni
> emann/dp/1573440647/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4

Linda has a Phd in English from UC Berkeley. She retired from the railroad in 1999 (IIRC) to become a professor of English at Kennesaw University in Georgia. The chemo and radiation treatment for her breast cancer left her physically unable to handle the brakeman duties.
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Just out of Lacrosse, WI, we have about nine or ten women working here. Some have transferred in and out between terminals over the years, but on average, it stays around ten.

The Iron Horse

There's a female working the yard jobs in Vancouver, WA for BNSF. Down here in Las Vegas, we have a female engineer working locals based out of the Valley Yard. A few years ago, there was a TV spot featuring Metrolink's training of a female engineer. And the Cumbres & Toltec also had one.
SP's first female engineers were hired around 1972. One of them was particularly attractive.

I've been curious, what's the conversation like in a female-female road meet?

loopy7764 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's a female working the yard jobs in
> Vancouver, WA for BNSF. Down here in Las Vegas, we
> have a female engineer working locals based out of
> the Valley Yard. A few years ago, there was a TV
> spot featuring Metrolink's training of a female
> engineer. And the Cumbres & Toltec also had one.
> SP's first female engineers were hired around
> 1972. One of them was particularly attractive.
>
> I've been curious, what's the conversation like in
> a female-female road meet?

Heard a female hogger work on the east/northbound Roper bound manifest at Arden Yard on 9/4/11. Wonder if she was the same person, and if she actually piloted the train out of
Arden Yard?

There was a female-female road meet out here in California at Newark Yard not too long ago. Conductor on the local job was talking smack with the engineer on the ballast train, which I was chasing. Entertaining enough that DS 58 chimed in: "we got double trouble?"

Women in "non traditional" positions in railroading is a good description. There were always women in clerical positions, and many worked as telegraph operators and station agents and train dispatchers.

Oddly, the first breakthrough into "non traditional" jobs for women on the railway I worked for was when the cook on the outfit (camp) car on a tie replacement gang asked to be trained to operate a track machine. She spent a summer working on the tie gang, and then transferred to the car repair department (this took place early 1970's).

She spent a full career in the car repair department, becoming first a laborer, then an apprentice and later a journeyman. She is a tough, no nonsense woman. She encountered very little workplace prejudice either in the track department or the car repair department.

I wish I could say the same was true of women entering the "running trades" (engineers, switchmen, trainmen and conductors). I don't know which side of the traditional workforce (employees or managers) gave them a tougher time. Still, several toughed it out through the late 1970's into the present day, where women train crew members are much more commonplace.

Hiring practices differ from railroad to railroad, and the other railroad in the area had many more women train crew. I think my employer was shamed into hiring a few. Heck, they only started promoting Catholics in the 1950's and they started hiring "visible minorities" for train crew about the same time they hired the first women.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/11 20:29 by eminence_grise.

There are several female hoggers on Amtrak 5 and 6 in Nevada.