Septa conductor/engineer vs Freight conductor/engineer

supernova1972 wrote:2 week pay period.

Ok thank you.....

I guess my real question is which one of these opportunities will give me the better lifestylewith my family? Wife and kids.

Freight has the worst hours in life-style for low seniority guys, but I would recommend is after a few years as a freight conductor, look into getting on somewhere as a passenger engineer. A lot of commuter railroads and amtrak hire from other railroads. Engineer school will be easier and if you time it right you won't loose a whole lot of seniority. If you work septa you will sleep in your own bed every time you sleep. But some passenger engineers I know say railroading is so much easier to learn and work if you have that freight experience.

GE45tonner wrote:Freight has the worst hours in life-style for low seniority guys, but I would recommend is after a few years as a freight conductor, look into getting on somewhere as a passenger engineer. A lot of commuter railroads and amtrak hire from other railroads. Engineer school will be easier and if you time it right you won't loose a whole lot of seniority. If you work septa you will sleep in your own bed every time you sleep. But some passenger engineers I know say railroading is so much easier to learn and work if you have that freight experience.

Septa has a 2 year assistant conductor program. Then you get "placed" into either the locomotive engineer career track or full time conductor career track. Also just a FYI the CSX job I received a conditional offer for is in Philadelphia and from what I have been told there are no sleeping in hotels for that specific location.......

It's actually half of a month. Where I work, the pay cycles end on the 15th and the last day of the month... But, back to your original post... you will have to decide which one works better for you. The nice thing about freight, it that it doesn't talk! You don't deal with the general public. You also have a choice of road and yard jobs. Yard jobs work 5 days/week and have a regular schedule with days off. If you work on the road, you are on call. After consecutive 6 days, you get 2 days off. Regarding money... don't worry about it. There is panty of $$$ when you work for the railroad