Railroaders' Nostalgia > Two stories of the "not so bright".

Many years ago I was working as a carman at
the Seaboard Air Line shops in St.Petersburg
Florida.I worked second trick and we had to
service the "Silver Meteor" for the next morning.
Some of the usual duties were,oil the bearings
change wheels,change brake shoes,air and signal
hoses as an example.Another thing to do was test
the signal line.But that is not the real story.
I heard,at one time a guy attached a water hose
to the AIR line.Don't know how he did it or why.
I do not have to tell you the problems that caused.

At sometime in my job I was the RIP foreman.I had
a crew changing out a friction bearing wheel.I told
another man to clean off the journal,so the crew
could finish the job.I had other things to do and
went to that task.Not long later,one of the crew
came and told me they were still waiting for the wheel.
Upon checking,I found the guy cleaning the journal
on a ROLLER BEARING journal.DUH! Anyone else plagued
by "how did they get a job guys"?

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

Remember when the Section Foreman at Chipley, Fl on the L&N sent a fairly new man to Marianna, Fl to "Unspike" a switch. Old heads know that is to pull one spike that holds the points closed and can not be thrown by the switch stand.
After an extended period, the foreman sent another man to check on him and the new guy had almost totally unspiked the switch.
Lucky no trains had run before it was repaired.

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, Or

Railroads have long loved hiring the dumba$$ types, for what reason I am not sure. Now days the other large companies and corporations have fallen for it too with the explanation that they don't have time to train so just hiring until you find someone that can do the work.

And therein lies the root of most of these problems. Lack of training. Railroads are notorious for not training employees properly, and sometimes not at all in some crafts and in some tasks. Then they wonder why people do stupid things. Let's face it, railroading is esoteric. To expect someone off the street to even understand the jargon alone is asking a lot.

Can't blame it all on lack of training. When I was a Carman in Topeka during the 70's, they had an apprentice program. We went to school once a week. Some learned quickly other didn't. I always felt that biggest problem, for all crafts, was hiring a person with absolutely no aptitude for that career field. I worked in mechanical, and as an Engineer in the transportation dept. In both areas, there were people who should not be working on those jobs. They didn't understand any of it going in, and picked it up slowly if they stayed around that long. For that we can blame the people who hired them in the first place.

A lot of companies will hire someone, give them some basic training and expect their co-workers to fill in the rest.

Posted from Android

Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

Two more instances come to mind. Both involved freight cars "getting away".

The first instance was handled by a trainman using his portable radio to chock the wheel of the escaping car. That one worked but it certainly didn't do the radio any good.

The second instance was handled by a trainman using his foot to chock the wheel of a car. That one didn't work. The car got away and the trainman lost his foot.

LocoPilot750 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can't blame it all on lack of training.

Didn't blame it ALL on lack of training, but it's a huge problem. Carriers hire people all the time who know absolutely zero about trains/railroading then expect them to be experts after some basic training. I constantly see new people with that deer-in-the-highbeams look as they try to wrap their brains around the jargon and terminology alone, and while pondering some weird term they just had blurted out at them, they miss everything else. I had a dispatcher trainee once ask me in earnest if I knew the difference between "permission" and "authority". This person actually didn't know and they came from train service!!!

That being said, there is no shortage of un-trainable dolts but in my experience, due to professionalism of the crafts due to the certification standards today, many are weeded out during the initial training period. It's pretty clear after a short time who in a class can be trained, and who can't. Back in the day though, there were a lot of total dopes running around out there.

ALCO630 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A lot of companies will hire someone, give them
> some basic training and expect their co-workers to
> fill in the rest.

This worked better in the days of larger crews. With a newbie in a two man crew, the old head is working his a$$ off and the newbie has to be motivated and pay attention to learn anything . . . Same in about any hands-on craft.

RailNet802, out

At Amtrak I was amazed that they would hire a person to work on the trains as a coach attendant, sleeping car attendant or waiter, and these people had NO skills in meeting and greeting the public; no one trained them. In addition, some were so lazy or angry or whatever, that they ignored the job, got into fights with the public, or disappeared.

I would get some of these people in my dining car. I would write evaluations, after attempting to train them in their jobs. It got frustrating when there was no change on the part of the employee. So finally, I would write them up, and recommend them for work in the commissary or baggage room, or some place where they did not have to interact with the public. Some were simply not cut out to work in the public sphere. They needed a solitary job with few communication skills, such as tossing baggage or filling orders in the commissary.

At Amtrak this was a battle I constantly fought, they wanted me to operate fork lifts and man lifts. About half the time they would keep your forklift license up to date. however they absolutely refused to do a decent class on the man-lifts. The training they offered me was 5 minutes with someone that was pretty good with it that consisted of this lever takes it up and down, this one goes forward and backwards and this one goes right and left. and 5 minutes of practice between 2 tracks of an inspection pit.

Needless to say I retired very shortly after that

CB

ALCO630 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A lot of companies will hire someone, give them
> some basic training and expect their co-workers to
> fill in the rest.
>
> Posted from Android