Working for the RR must not be any picnic. A young friend went to a hiring seminar put on by Union Pacific a couple years back.
First thing the UP man holding the seminar said, "Look around here guys, 22 men looking for a good paying steady job, 18 of you will walk out of here today without filling out an application". And then he went on to explain the why, there are no holidays, days off you can plan for, live by the phone, everything in your life will be ruled by the phone. Most of UP openings at that time were in Maintenance of Way, but there were a couple train crew jobs too. Anyway the guy was right, only 5 guys filled out apps, my friend walked, all he could see was a high risk of divorce.
This is exactly right. Except that years ago, those doing the hiring weren't always so honest about it. And following the train crew shortage of the late eighties, crews doing the training were loath to let the newcomers in on the score because they were ready to end three years of flogging, and they didn't want to scare anyone off.
However - there are benefits to the job that are rare to nonexistent anywhere else. It's true that the divorce rate is high, but individuals' own choices are largely to blame. The BLET president's claim that embargoing hazmat shipments is purely extortion is somewhat hyperbolic. Federal law post 9-11 requires that many of these shipments can't be left unattended. It's not a simple thing to stop 24/7/365 traffic.
Be that as it may, a railroad strike isn't going to last more than three days. The RLA guarantees it. The funny part is that there will be another generation of young rails who get to learn that the Dems won't side with them when they go to the mat.
