What did you do working in the real railroad industry

Elect, Eng house loco maint. Diesel & Elect.

I was the Signal Maintainer for Chicago Ridge South territory.  Frank, whose desk was next to mine had Chicago Ridge North territory.  We worked together quite often to cover both territories.  Combined, we handled all of the signals and railroad crossings and Chicago Ridge interlocking from Landers Yard, Southwest to Brisbane Illinois on the Norfolk Western becoming Southern before I moved on.  That was back in the early 80’s.  

I hired on at Norfolk Southern/Triple Crown back in 1990.  Started at TC HQ in Fort Wayne and was relocated to Detroit shortly after.  Our office was at NS Oakwood yard where our area saw both truck and rail ops.  My primary job was to arrange the highway deliveries and pick ups and get the rail traffic routed correctly.   Most of the traffic was JIT auto assembly freight for the Big 3.  There were times when I'd see TC train 254 on the bridge over Dix-Toledo road just outstide the yard on my way to the office and I'd think "It's gonna be a long day".  I still work in intermodal logistics but working at Oakwood with the Triple Crown roadrailers was a pretty cool experience that benefits me to this day on my current job.

1970-1973 Locomotive Fireman, Santa Fe Railway, Los Angeles Division, San Bernardino

1973-1984 Locomotive Engineer, Same Location

!984-2007 Road Foreman of Engines, General Supervisor of Train Handling, Assistant Superintendent, California and Texas

Well, did not work directly for a railroad. But did spend many years in a steel mill operating an overhead crane which loaded "thousands" of coils and slabs of steel in railroad cars both open type and most with lids.  The slabs generally went into gondola's, CSX generally handled the switching into/out of the mill. Was a great job, sad news is the mill is now a gravel parking lot.

When I was 18, I started working for AT&SF, in the Topeka Shops as a Freight Carman Apprentice. Learned a lot about all the mechanical aspects of building, repairing freight cars. Topeka was also a freight car factory back then,  I helped build thousands of new cars of all kinds during my time there. (Little or no car work there anymore, it's a locomotive shop now, all of it). I especially enjoyed air brake work on the West Rip track, working outside summer and winter because the air was a little cleaner. I wanted to switch over to engine service, so applied for a craft transfer, and after a couple of years, I became a Middle Division Fireman, working west out of Emporia to Newton, Ark City, and/or Wellington. After firing on the road for about 9 months, I went into a 6 months training program, which included six weeks at the Topeka Simulator class.  When that was complete, I was promoted to Engineer. I continued working out of Emporia until September of '88 when the run-through agreement moved our home terminal to Kansas City, but continued running to the same away terminals, just not changing crews at Emporia anymore. Retired with 42 years at the end of 2010.