# my year with union pacific



## shockcell (Jan 26, 2010)

I graduated college in 2004 from temple university in Philadelphia pa, Not really knowing what in the hell to do with my life I filled out an application as a switcher with union pacific railroad and managed to get job under the only stipulation that i must move to green river wy. Well about a week later I arrived to green river wy armed only with my passion of cheap beer. went through the whole bullshit training program with lasted about 4 months and bypassed the switcher position and managed to become a brake man on a regional line. Part of the job description of a brake man is basically be the engineers trainee in hopes of one day earning your class 3 license, which in doing so they partner you up with licensed engineer and you follow them around on your shifts. the man they partners me up with soon became one of my best friends, if anyone from rock springs wy is reading this im sure you have probably heard of this man, the one we call "boomer".....

from day one boomer told me he was a slacker whom could have cared less about his job and would rather have fun, my first impressions were bleak to say the less. as time went on we moved to a local line which consisted of us moving emty cars to local trona and coal plants in the area.. we did this for about a week before we started what was known as the "party train"... now boomers deal was he didn't want to work and would rather get fucked up and have fun, me not really knowing any better went along with this and will admit it was fun. Everynight i would pick boomer up and we would go pick up two bottles of booze and head to the yard, once we had our bills of layding i would figure out a game plan and boomer would call up about 3 different girls and they would hop on the locomotive with us while we made our runs drunker then anyone could ever imagine. now the whole time this went on we would always pass drifters and train hoppers along the rout at speeds to high to jump on at, one night boomer was fucking one of his girls down in the bathroom and i was stuck with at the controls drunk as all hell and with 2 other girls whom could hold a decent conversation and i decided to pick one up. 

you have to understand in order to stop a train at speed on the main line you have to radio in that you are stoping for one reason or another, well i did but the only issue was by the time we stoped we where about a quarter mile away from the drifters so i had to make up some sad excuse of a story of why we had to reverse on the main line, which it worked and i managed to pick up 2 drifters. once they where on board and told me their story i fell in love and low in behold, i quit my job a few months later and did the same thing!!! 

so when people say drifters are uneducated, I say fuck that because I hold a masters in business development and a minor in Information technology infrastructure..............sorry its not a good story but there really is more to it...........


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## Beegod Santana (Jan 26, 2010)

Dude that sounds like my dream job. Driving a unit around drunk with a bunch of pretty ladies and stoping to pick up the hobos... I don't know why you ever quit. I woulda done that shit till they sued my ass.


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## Pickles (Jan 26, 2010)

That's awesome! I recently found out that my stepdad (who's now a lawyer believe it or not) used to be a hostler in Eugene and Oakland Yds. I haven't gotten the chance to talk to him about it yet, but I'm stoked to find out more about his experience.


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## BelCh (Jan 26, 2010)

Dude, dream JOB ! 
I hope you can find your way back into it when your ready, I know if I had that job
I dont think I'd quit ... But thanks for the post ! 
Atleast we know it's not compleatly impossible


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## NickCofphee (Jan 26, 2010)

Holy shit! My momma always told me never to get into a car with a drunk driver, but she didn't say anything about drunk train operators! That's a little scary though.....

Good story!


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## Tad (Jan 26, 2010)

yeah damn, that's scary. welcome!


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## macks (Jan 26, 2010)

Would like to hear some more stories from this job, sounds great. Welcome to the forum!


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## 614 crust (Jan 26, 2010)

Damn I'd love to have a job with the railroad. I don't think I woulda quit. Anyway nice story and welcome to the forum.


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## mksnowboarder (Jan 26, 2010)

Neat. Everyone here seems to have hopped trains, and as a result would like jobs with the railroad. You did the exact opposite. That's neat in my book.

mike


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## finn (Jan 26, 2010)

You gotta love union jobs. Myself, I would love that job if it weren't in the middle of nowhere. Nice story!


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## Pickles (Jan 26, 2010)

I'd love that job regardless of where it was! Trains, beer, and hobos?! Shit!


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## shockcell (Jan 26, 2010)

thanks for the replays, one day i will go though and rewrite this story, there is a lot more to it but just dident really feel like writing at the time.... I did find this movie which is entertaining to watch, it me coming into my first hook, at the end boomer says, giver hell bobo, blast this fucking hook

me on a locomotive Video by infidel - MySpace [email protected]@[email protected]@http://mediaservices.myspace.com/Services/Media/Embed.aspx/[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@Services/Media/[email protected]@[email protected]@aspx/[email protected]@[email protected]@6818855


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## bote (Jan 26, 2010)

that´s a good story in my book, welcome. You probably know lots that people here (me) are interested to hear


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## wokofshame (Mar 2, 2010)

green river is a suck-ass little hellhole for the major part so i can see.....
guys back in the day before randomized urine testing, pre-employment hair testing, and DOT post-accident testing, there were drunk hoggers all over the place... think of any job you've ever worked at that had almost no supervision, happened in a remote place, didn't interact with the public, and ran a lot of the time at night- i know at every job i've ever held that fit that description i've had a beer or two on the job.
my friend who started on CN 40 years ago has told me stories about an engineer he'd run with when he started out that would be cracking beers and coughing when he did or making some other noise so try to cover up the sound of the can-tab popping, slouching way down in his chair so he couldn't be seen behing the control stand.
another guy would farm all day and run trains asleep all night with the throttle notched in, just passed out cold. he had trained himself to wake up when he entered the yard limits.

good story man


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