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Diddle E. Squat wrote: "People don't just walk out of a RR equivalent of flight school and become Amtrak engineers. I bet they average at least 20 years of RR service"

Atomic Punk wrote: "Ill vouch for that diddle my uncle worked for chelse systems for 15 years before he could even get close to and engine and went through all kinds of schools to do it"

Not necessarily true. I've been a locomotive engineer for 23 years, having started with Conrail in 1979, and having since worked for Metro-North and Amtrak.

The Amtrak engineer training program takes about 18-24 months (different from when I went through, many years ago, before Amtrak). They generally take trainmen, but also hire into the craft from the mechanical and other departments.

When the trainees come out of the program they go right to work on whatever they can "hold". In fact, most of the high-speed "Acela Express" jobs from New York to Boston are "owned" by the YOUNGEST enginemen with the least experience. The older guys in our area all live in the New Haven area, whereas the company wanted the high-speed jobs out of NYC. As a result, they ended up hiring and training all brand-new people, because none of the older guys want that kind of work. I certainly don't.

My first "over the road" job was Amtrak trains 178 & 61, in May 1981. I'd NEVER RUN AN AMTRAK TRAIN BEFORE that job. I just got on and went. It really was different in the old days.... (grin)

- John

Yes, perhaps I spoke too generally. I was thinking of the long-haul trains, outside of the Northeast Corridor. Since passenger trains run on a schedule, I've always heard that most places considered it a plum assignment, so the competiton to get hired as an engineer by Amtrak on a line with just a couple of passenger trains a day led to needing a pretty good amount of seniority(experience, actually) and a sterling record for Amtrak to hire you. Especially in areas that saw a lot of consolidation in recent years. But I could see how that might be different in the Northeast or say California with its recent service expansions.

But down in Florida, are there any fairly new engineers? I still would bet they all average at least 20 years. I loved freight RR money, but the hours killed me. Amtrak seemed like a nice compromise, but I had plans outside the RR. I do know a lot of older heads would talk about drifting over to Amtrak when they finally got sick of it all(I think they had flowback rights from Penn Central days, where they would keep their seniority?)