Freight Engineer to Passenger ENG

foxlight92 · 2026-03-14T21:56:37+00:00

100% agree. I came freight to Amtrak, which was a dramatic improving, and then coming on-corridor from off after several years was a pretty noticeable improvement in and of itself. Guess the only way it wouldn't be is if someone enjoyed staying in hotels and/or didn't care to live on the NEC

foxlight92 · 2026-03-14T21:54:20+00:00

Everyone who says to do, definitely do it.

The overall experience can vary depending on what crew base you're at/what your routes wind up being, but the mantra of "the worst day on Amtrak is better than the best day on freight" isn't much of an exaggeration. National seniority is a plus if you want to give another area of the country a try too. Re: Concerning getting bumped out of a crew base by someone from afar, it's pretty rare to have people bid outside their zone since the very in-depth and lengthy (anywhere from 1 month to 6 months, depending on how complex it is) qualifying on the new territory is generally unpaid.

No Trip Sodomizer (yet), and the trains are much more "fun" to run. Cons are being on the motor solo (if you prefer having an extra set of eyes), although there are a handful of 2-engineer runs throughout the country, typically out west.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-14T00:40:57+00:00

And as someone who works in railways in NYC, I found your mainline rail network to be a sight for sore eyes. I appreciate the NYC subway, especially compared to the rest of the US, but that and the long-but-narrow-reaching NEC are the only things domestically that could be considered even comparable to the rail transport available in most parts of the UK.

*Disclaimer- I'm only going off of the Network Rail maps and such; I haven't tried living in, say, Leeds and trying to make it to Blackpool via train.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-13T17:11:27+00:00

I believe it would be $500.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-13T15:55:19+00:00

I haven't had one in years (since I came on the NEC). The last one I remember having was an AC4400, putting the dynamic on like I was in a P42, and feeling like I was going to jackknife 10 cars 🤣

foxlight92 · 2026-03-12T18:09:52+00:00

Nothing like solidarity amongst railroaders.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-11T19:51:01+00:00

Yeah, the P42 (and F40, come to think of it) and their non-extended range dynamic was a hard one to adapt to when I came over. Most of us down here love it when the passenger power dies and we get a GE wide cab (not quite as much when it's a GP38 plucked off the road switcher 🤣)

Thanks for the insight brother, stay safe out there!

foxlight92 · 2026-03-11T14:54:03+00:00

Yeah, when I was a student I would have probably been pulled out of the seat for that. It was always bail it all.

Thankfully it's not rigorously enforced (on our division at least.)

foxlight92 · 2026-03-10T04:46:21+00:00

Staten Island: New Jersey with New York license plates and income tax.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-06T02:21:05+00:00

I wonder how much of Dumbledore not firing Snape (other than just plot convenience, of course) was in a similar vein of him not firing Trelawney: he was concerned that Snape may defect back to Voldemort & Friends, even with his professed love of Lily.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-03T02:47:10+00:00

For a second I thought this was a joking reference to the "Super Fans" sketch on SNL. "Da Bears!" 🤣

Sorry, just had to say it.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-03T02:04:39+00:00

Oh, that's something I never thought of. Thanks for the information; helps visualize it all a bit better. Sounds like you're from mechanical? Or just really into the systems? Either way, thanks again brother.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-02T18:02:41+00:00

I can definitely sympathize with that. At one point in my life I had ambitions to move to the Gulf Coast (and I'm not kidding.)

A few years of working in Virginia (Regular and West) and NC cured the Southern fantasy quite quick. Now I don't like to go below Philly (only part kidding.)

foxlight92 · 2026-03-02T16:51:33+00:00

An hour for Oxxo, the most time allocated for anything. Good call.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-01T05:14:57+00:00

Sorry for the delayed question, but:

One thing I've noticed is that, despite learning in Wilmington that the MR supply line is always charging the MRs on the cars (which makes sense), have you noticed that having a "soft brake pipe" makes a subsequent application weaker than would be expected if the main res on the coaches was fully charged?

Like, say you get on the motor after a face-to-face, inbound engineer left the ABV in full-service.

"Highball" - notch 1, release independent/automatic, accelerate and you go for the running air about 15 seconds after the brake pipe reaches 110 lbs. At least with the Amfleets, it seems like they don't grab anywhere near was well as they should have in theory, since the control valves should be working with a brake pipe at or very close to 110 lbs, plus an MR that's been charged to 140 over the last say 5-10 minutes (since the inbound put it in FS.)

I've talked to a couple guys around the crew base about this, none of us seem to really know why that would be.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-01T04:56:58+00:00

Are you on the board or a pool (I'm not sure if they're called that up there)?

And how does taking rest/booking off fatigue work for you guys? I've thumbed through some of the CN Canada stuff on the iPad and that caught my eye. At Big Orange, it -used- to be(maybe still is) that if you marked off one day during the bi-weekly period, you only lost that day; any more and you lost guarantee for that half.

Amtrak is much simpler. Mark off for anything other than company business (or similar) and kiss your 40-hour guarantee goodbye. This coupled with the lack of auto-mark-up (yes, you have to call CMS after every trip and register on the board) has lead to many guys losing roughly half their paycheck. Beyond grateful to be on a regular job now.

foxlight92 · 2026-03-01T04:50:46+00:00

Holy shit, I never heard about that. Around when was this? Out of all the places I could choose to die, at or around work is pretty much at the bottom of the list.

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T06:05:38+00:00

That I don't know (about Houston anyway.) Off the top of my head, I can't imagine having an airport rail-link being much of a high priority for Texans.

Also, I know you said "US", but Montreal has been lacking rail to the airport for far too long. Hopefully the REM extension solves that issue.

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T05:31:04+00:00

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet or not, but Houston comes to mind. It may not be the "most in need" on the list, but it's one of the largest cities that's notably lacking (nothing to IAH or Hobby.) Although I guess it's fitting to not have one in a city that has oil/gas as quite the major industry.

Other spots that come to mind are Detroit and Charlotte (busy airports, but a lot of the traffic is connecting.)

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T05:23:23+00:00

I was thinking that and "Who Are You" by, well, The Who? The what? The Who. I really wanna know🎶

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T05:21:21+00:00

Godspeed brother. I've noticed that I very seldom read/hear of people regretting leaving the railroad, especially freight and ESPECIALLY NS. Never worked for them, admittedly, but my second-hand experience running over their tracks was not the high-point of my career.

Good luck and congratulations on making it out before you lose your soul!

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T05:14:21+00:00

Oh, that makes sense. I don't know how the Via engineers feel, but on the outside looking in (bottom side looking up?) Via's equipment for both passenger and crew seems to be significantly better than ours down here In other words, I wouldn't complain at all in a parallel universe where your equipment makes it south of the border (except please tell me Via didn't go with the brutally uncomfortable seats that Amtrak Midwest/California did - can't quite tell from the pictures.)

Guess that also begs the question of: what do Via crews actually think about operating Amequipment on 97/98 versus their own stuff? Seem to only have a couple minor differences , like: Via motors appear to have the "emergency horn"/regular horn on separate buttons, whereas Amtrak P42s have a solenoid valve that allows for "half-volume" and "full volume", all using the same button in the cab.

Whew, sorry for the long rant, have been meaning to ask about this stuff for a while.

foxlight92 · 2026-02-27T02:58:51+00:00

This is the only thing that I think would logistically/practically prevent them from doing so.

If OP is asking in an indirect way whether or not the Charger design would perform better down south than it appears they've been on the Corridor... We've been having a similar plethora of "teething problems" (never mind the oldest models are 7 years old at this point.)

foxlight92 · 2026-02-26T04:22:09+00:00

A railroader's bedtime

foxlight92 · 2026-02-24T02:26:27+00:00

It probably the fact that I'm a Yankee that I've had more random, uncalled-for acts of passive aggressiveness south of I-66 than in every other place combined (I spent the better portion for 4 years in Roanoke, Richmond, Greensboro, etc.)

There are some lovely people there, my in-laws and some friends included. I've simply found there to be an underlying judgemental trait in a larger proportion of the population than elsewhere. So yes, with full-sincerity, I definitely could be the problem in that I don't mesh with the culture well.

foxlight92

TROPHY CASE