Working for Union Pacific - Trains Magazine

If you are a good egg, of even reasonable intellegence and drug free you will probably make it.  About 1 third to one quater of applicants eventually go on board into operating with a class one.  A full 40% don't make the cut just because of the drug test...unbelievable.  Most class one's use a hair test so they can detect drug use a year back.  If you are clean you are a good part of the way there.

Te RR will essentially own you, anytime any day you can get a call, long hours etc.  Your interest in trains may only hold you so long after your spouse has her fill and things get testy at home, sitting for hours at a signal that you have sat at many times before, the cold, train hassles etc.

A couple that are friends of ours on our fire dept had the husband join UP 2-3 years ago as an Engineer out of Denver.  She is very accepting and adapted to him beoing gone constantly.  He had to drop the fire dept and his involvement with our scout troop as he is almost never around.  They are managing OK but many do not, the divorce rate I understand is pretty high.

A word of advise, stay out of operating management....(Trainmasters, terminal superintendants, yardmasters etc etc).  The politics, pressures and unreasonable expectations create numerous health problems for these people over the years, they also get forced to move frequently nad many times to places that no one wants to live.  At UP I heard teh divorce rate amongst operating management types was something about 40%.  I personally knew many who had nervous break downs, heart attacks (two I knew died on the job of coronaries in their 40's).

Don't let on you are a rail buff in your exams or interviews, you might luck out and meet a fellow railbuff but you are more likely to run into a railroader who has had too many negative experiences with foamers over the years and that may result negatively on you even if you are a normal decent guy.