Goodby BNSF

Well, I decided to resign from my position on the railroad. I recently had a little boy and decided I want to spend my time with him verses with the railroad. It was a good two years & I enjoyed everyone I met... but for now it's ado.

VENTING!!!

Ahhh.. my guys just don't get it!!! By insulting my position & my (shared) athority they are insulting me.

Ok, background (without names of course), there is a foreman in one of my gangs... he's been out on an injury basically since I started. He had a bad initial experience w/ my supervisor, understandably, the supervisor is not that great at first impressions. Anyway, I figure I get along pretty good w/ most of the guys, granted there are a few where we avoid each other, but I try to be friendly enough and I think they pick up on that. Well, a couple weeks ago (I was not present) the Foreman got irritated w/ my supervisor and felt that he was being singled out... anyway, ultimately the Foreman yelled, cursed, & threatened my supervisor. Well, now they've started an investigation and while I don't know what the men said; I know what they didn't say. Well, I'm irritated by it... I can get that they don't like the supervisor... thats fine... but by NOT stating the truth because their Union & we're Corporate... they are basically saying the feel that ALL supervisors are their enemies... myself included. I truly wonder that if those comments (and I believe my supervisor) had been said to me... would their statements have been the same?

Thats the part I don't think they get... see they don't even like the Foreman! Ever since he came back from his injury the crews have been ruffled, in an uproar... I've had a men transfer away because their foreman's position might come up and they didn't want this guy to replace him. It wasn't even likely to happen but they dislike him that much... and then to go misdirecting things like that... it's galling. Whats more, in all likelihood, he'll probably be sent to anger management and come back... he has a long past history of cause disruptions, ignoring rules, biligerent to supervisors, injuries, etc. ARGHHH!! I'm still upset, but I have other things to do...

Catching up

Wow, April was a crazy month... actually most of May so far has been too. I was working on a bridge down in Pasco for most of April, but I'm happy to say we've finished that project. It was crazy, I think I spent maybe 3 weeknights at home that whole month. The second week of May was nice, I got to spend the whole week at home... shocking I know. Of course, the following week I was in Fort Worth, and this week I was at a Committee meeting in Austin. The committee meeting was something I really wanted to go to, and since it was at least in the same state as Ft. Worth I just stayed over the weekend. I have to say it was kind of nice, I went to church and caught up with an old high school classmate. Him and I had not really been friends, aquaintences, but not friends. Now, though we've both grown up a lot and I found out we have quite a bit in common, though I think he's a lot smarter... he's doing lab work on DNA before he goes to med school, he tried explaining some of it to me and I have to be honest and say I was completely lost. Anyway, his wife actually grew up in the town I currently live in so she and I had a chance to talk about some mutually known places.

Austin this last week was nice... but I think I've already wrote about that...

This weekend should be interesting, unfortuantly I do not get Memorial day off, we have a bridge to pull out (putting culverts under it) and the only time the transportation department would give us the 10 hr window needed was Monday. Though I heard the company management is talking about allowing officers (myself included) equivalent time off if we are requried to work a holiday. That would be nice, especially if I'm allowed to pick it, I can chose some weekend both DH and I have off allowing us the opertunity to go camping or at least for a weekend getaway.

Committees can be interesting

I got to spend this couple days involved with the Steel Structures committee for AREMA. It was actually interesting. Before this week, I had only gotten involved with the Education & Training committee, also lots of fun. I got to meet quite a few guys and a couple other women who love bridges as much as I do. It was great, yesterday we took a field trip to the University of Texas - Austin to look at their structures lab. That in itself was fascinating, but after that we took a bus tour of interesting bridges in the area, including a long precast segmented bridges that were basically viaducts they were so long. And, they took us to Austin's signature bridge, the Pennybacker bridge, apparently it's a great nesting place for the local cliff swallows, their nests looked like oversized wasp nests. It's also creating a maintenance hassle for the crews, they are not allowed to work on the bridge when the swallows are nesting in the spring.

Yesterday evening we had a reception with a presentation on the bats under the Congress Ave bridge... followed not suprisingly by watching the bats emerge later. I found out alot of info about bats I didn't know before... like they account for 1/4 of the species of mammals in the world. Or, a colony of 150 brown bats can protect famers crops for almost 33 million or more rootworms each summer, reducing our reliance on pesticides which is great for everyone. Unfortuantly, on this trip I completely forgot my camera so I won't have any new pictures to post, but those bat emerging pics would have been really neat. I may contact someone else and see if I can get copies of their pictures from this week.

Update: I was able to get photos from another member.

Portland

I spent a couple days in Portland earlier this week. This was one of my favorite pictures from a top the tower. I have another I will add that shows the whole bridge. I have to admit, even though there are things that frustrate me, for the most part I love my job... especially the perks, like getting to see views such as these. Oh, my cohort said on some of the clearer days he can see Mt. St. Helens.

Interview

Well, I promised to get some information about how my interview went so here I am. It wasn't that bad to be honest, though it was very intimidating. My interview panel was comprised of 6 people, the average here is 2-3 people. It could have been worse though, two of the guys where people I had met before and one of those was the individual who originally interviewed me when I joined the company. They had some interesting questions… like they asked if I would be ok in an office environment… I can actually see that being a problem for some people. They also asked things like, "Where did I feel I would have the most conflict if I were to be offered the position?" or "What would I do to help them deal with my lack of experience?" I did tell them upfront that I honestly was not interested in the position in Gillette, but I am still interested in the position in general. Gillette is just too far out in the middle of nowhere for my tastes, and honestly I was afraid it would make DH miserable.

I am currently in Vancouver, BC. It's kinda different I've only been to Canada once before, and then we came up to a specific reason (weekend away w/ DH). This time I'm up here for work reasons. We're looking at some of the bridges we have out here in this territory. The local supervisor has a handful since most of the bridges up here are wood and their quickly degrading in the salt water. I guess his steel ones are too, but he's more concerned with the wood bents. He's also got some REALLY long wood bridges, I believe one is over 148 spans long, granted their short spans since their wood, but still…. He's been up here a lot recently, a little over a month ago the government inspector (I think with Transport Canada or something like that) saw a report on a particular bridge and decided to take it out of service, on a Friday afternoon… the crews spent the whole weekend trying to get the bridge back in service. Lets just say the supervisor says he's lost a lot of sleep over that bridge. Maybe I'll get some pictures added when I get home. We'll see.

Conundrum

I'm not sure what to do… I'm facing an interesting situation. I was invited to an interview for a new position with BNSF last Wednesday… I've agreed to the interview mainly because I know I need the experience, but I’m not sure if I really want the position. I don't know if I'm ready to move on or not. I've only been in the assistant position for 3 months, and I've only lived here in Spokane for 9 months. The position is referred to as a Maintenance Planner, the idea being to coordinate all the maintenance-of-way activities (stuctures, track, and signals). I feel it would be a good developmental move because I would get experience with the other departments in engineering, outside of my stuctures experience. Yet, I think my manager would prefer for me to go into a Structures Supervisor position, and to do that I will need more experience.

I still don't feel comfortable when I'm out with the gangs, I feel like there is sooo much that I honestly don't comprehend. At lunch yesterday one of the gangs is trying to correct some alignment issues on a bridge and they were having a hard time getting their adjustments to stay when a train went over that section… so John (the supervisor) was offering suggestions and ideas for equipment that they might use to help.. I didn't understand a single thing he was talking about… I felt so completely inadiquite. But, isn't now, when I'm young enough that they assume I know nothing about railroading (which is basically accurate) the best time to be learning all this information. After I've been here for 5 years or so I'm sure my gangs would expect me to have a broader knowledge base than I would if I were to go into the Planner position.

On the other hand, I do understand the Maintenance Planner position. Granted there is stuff I'm sure that I will need to learn, but I've been filling in for our planners here in the Northwest and while I'm not great at it, I'm decently adept. And, if/when I get a planner position I'll have my own territory and I'll be there day in and day out, verses here for a week, gone for 6 weeks. I'll get out and meet my front-line supervisors (FLS's), learn their territory, etc. Also, this would allow me experience with other departments, I would get a general knowledge of time frames and time management from the track and signals side which I won't get by staying in the Stuctures department, I only get experience with bridge here.

Again something else I have to keep in mind is my husband… He wants to move, but he's not sure where too… and we both want children soon. Granted everyone is like "Oh you guys are young enough, wait awhile." But, to be honest I want to have them while I'm young and my body can heal quickly. Taking that into account, do I really want to put myself into a situation (as a FLS) where I will be 7 month pregnant responding to an all-night derailment near a bridge of ours? Do I want to be on-call while nursing a 6 month old? I have to think about all these things and it's a bit overwhelming at times. I love my job and I love my life, but before long I'll need to start making some hefty decisions.

Oh, btw the picture is on a bridge at Sandpoint, ID.

MT Group

My case study group from my summer in Fort Worth, TX in the Management Trainee program for BNSF Railway. I'm the one in the white hat, I was the only one who had started work before our training session so I already had my safety gear.

Job status

So here I am as one of those few female rairoaders... though I don't have it too bad. The guys treat me good and I have yet to experience any discrimination... not that I expected any, but one can never be too careful.

This is me in my funky safety glasses waiting for the train outside Greensboro, NC. We were in the yard tower above the Amtrak station.