Passenger Engineer Trainee

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
W

willyvee

Train Attendant
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
21
Hi everyone,

I've been an inactive reader of this forum for years and I've learned so much from all the great people here and the discussions they bring about. I'm hoping that some of you could chime in about Amtrak's Passenger Engineer Trainee positions.

Even though I'm a college graduate now, with a civil engineering degree, I can safely say that being an Amtrak locomotive engineer is still my dream job. I don't want to be stuck in the office behind a computer for the rest of my life.

The qualifications Amtrak lists for this position are surprisingly vague and few in number. The only solid qualification seems to be a bachelor's degree in an unspecified field. It seems Amtrak is willing to (and maybe has before?) hire people "off the street" as the saying goes. With the number of positions they post, which seems to be on average one per week, it seems to me like they would have to?

Although I've sent out many applications, I've never received any form of contact. Save for a few emailed rejections, most of my applications spend their time in an eternal "pending" status only for me to see they are no longer hiring for that position many months later.

My real question is: Where do I go from here? Amtrak seems to have no human resources contact information available, and telephone numbers I've found online lead to dead phone lines, so I'm pretty much left in the dark here. My only wish at this point is to be able to talk to someone at Amtrak for the dual purposes of getting my face seen but more importantly finding out what Amtrak is really looking for in a Passenger Engineer Trainee candidate. I'm posting here because I have nowhere else to turn, lest I keep sending applications into the ether.

Do any of you on this forum have any information about or experience with this position? Is there someone I can contact, if even just to chat? Does Chicago or some other midwestern city have a human resources office which I could walk in and talk to someone? Or, should I become a conductor for a class 1 first?

I appreciate any and all information you might have to offer!

Thanks,

Will
 
As soon who works for Amtrak, it is not easy to get hired here. Just as a Lead Service Attendant it took me 5 years. More applications are received than you'd believe.

And it's very rare for an engineer to get hired off the street. Start out as an assistant conductor, or even LSA (listed online as OBS trainee), put one year in, then it's easy to move to other positions.

Good luck!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Amtrak Forum mobile app
 
Amtrak does hire straight to engineer with no prior RR experience on occasion, but most jobs go to internal candidates and current outside railroaders. I've heard most engineer and conductor postings receive hundreds of applications. Keep putting the applications in. Put them in for every location and every posting if you're willing to move. Also put in for other jobs, especially Asst. Conductor and On Board Service jobs. I know people in mechanical that have moved straight to engineer and many who started in OBS, went to conductor and now engineer. Put in for everything and just try to get in the door. Then it becomes much easier to make moves (not necessarily easy, but easier than from the street.)

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
Very good advice from my coworkers. Personally, I think it would be VERY hard to start off the street as an engineer, because of the MASSIVE amount of things you have to learn!. Much better to start in a Conductor position and "learn" Railroading before continuing on into the Engineer position
 
I'm trying to figure out where you're getting the Bachelors degree part from. Listed in the education experience section is "Some college or vocational".

I can attest with Triley. I filed hundreds of applications over a span of at least 10 years. I just hired as a reservations sales agent last Friday. So that gives you an idea of how challenging it is to get your foot in the door.

I suggest trying to get in as an AC first. Learn things. Freight railroads don't hire you as an engineer first. You're hired as a Conductor first and when your seniority comes up you go to Engine school.
 
willyvee said:
Do any of you on this forum have any information about or experience with this position? Is there someone I can contact, if even just to chat? Does Chicago or some other midwestern city have a human resources office which I could walk in and talk to someone? Or, should I become a conductor for a class 1 first?

I appreciate any and all information you might have to offer!

Thanks,

Will
Click to expand...

I miss the days of a human resources offices.

If you have a military background, it will help the cause. You need not be a conductor to become an engineer. However, it would help if you obtained a "rules qualified" position. This includes track personnel, dispatchers and block operators, so keep an eye on those positions as well.

As previously mentioned, the competition is tight. At one point, there were 482 applicants for 7 positions.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
willyvee said:
Even though I'm a college graduate now, with a civil engineering degree, I can safely say that being an Amtrak locomotive engineer is still my dream job. I don't want to be stuck in the office behind a computer for the rest of my life.
Click to expand...
In case you never get that dream Amtrak job, I will just suggest that you can explore the more *fieldwork-oriented* side of civil engineering -- getting out there on the jobsites, surveying, sampling, overseeing, etc. And there's an awful lot of civil engineering in railroading, too. Considered Maintenance of Way?

One other thing: if you don't want to be stuck in the office behind a computer your whole life, *don't* apply for a dispatching job! (It's actually my idea of a wonderful job, but obviously not yours.)
 
Project Management is an area that is both in and out of the office. Amtrak uses many Project Managers in all different areas of the company. This could IT, OBS, Operations, Maintenance, etc. Again you would really need to know how Amtrak is run, the rules and procedures, as well as railroading.
 
Thanks to everybody for your helpful replies! Here are a couple updates:

About 3 days ago I finally was allowed to take a personality + literacy and math test for a PET position in Chicago. We'll see how it goes, considering I flunked the personality assessment for Manager Trainee position several months ago.

As far as Assistant Passenger Conductor Trainees, they seem to want considerable customer service experience, of which I have none. The closest thing I have to customer service is several years of college level tutoring while in university. In fact, when I answered "no" to the question asking whether or not I had 3 years of customer service experience, I got an immediate rejection. Would quitting my current job and working as a bank teller for several years help my case?

I am also applying for BNSF conductor positions in various locations, and have been invited to take assessment tests upon application submittal. Maybe this is the way of getting into the railroad workforce?

I also appreciate your helpful and insightful tips. I have no idea whether or not the same things will become "boring" to me or not but I'd like to say no as my current job is pretty boring anyway and I find it hard to be bored when doing something I'm truly passionate about.

Thanks!

Will
 
The personality test is standardized. It's the same questions.

Amtrak does seem to be looking for people with customer service rather then RR experience. Also being a Vet is a major plus.

But one thing I can testify to is that BN is on a major hiring spree. Another member of AU was just offered a conditional offer of employment at BN. I suggest trying to hire with another railroad and get some time in and then try to come over.
 
Acela150 said:
The personality test is standardized. It's the same questions.

Amtrak does seem to be looking for people with customer service rather then RR experience. Also being a Vet is a major plus.
Click to expand...
From what you are saying, it sounds like Amtrak, like many other corporation's in customer service, might be taking a page out of former Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher's book...

In it he preached the theory that you cannot teach personality, but can teach a job....

So he says to hire based on no experience in a particular field, but someone with a positive personality, and then teach them what they need to know, for whatever job they are hired for, provided they have the necessary aptitude for it.

That could go a long way in helping to improve the Amtrak 'corporate culture'....
 
Teaching people how to be a Conductor to give car counts, how to shove a train while telling your engineer what he's good for, and much more isn't an easy thing to teach. I can think of two people who worked at NS with me who were the worst railroaders that I'd seen and the crew base had seen. One of which was able to acquire a RCO cert, which was the worst thing they ever did. Less then a month after he got his RCO cert he put multiple tanks of crude oil on the ground when he threw a switch against the move and the other RCO man ran the train through the switch and didn't realize it until the car were on the ground. The guy who the switch against the move hasn't worked for NS or any railroad since.

The other guy once told an engineer he was good for 50 cars on a track that can only hold 30. That engineer didn't make the move cause he didn't trust him. Would you? I won't tell you where he is now. But honestly IMO, it's not a good fit for him.
 
There are many face to face customer service careers: retail, food service, banking, outside sales, transportation, etc. I will tell you, having customer service experience is very important when being considered for a position that will interface with the general public. When we hired people to work with customers who were having a problem, they had to have experience with a reference. The big question was how did the prospect handle the stress of an outraged customer? Could they return the "Hulk" back to the normal person they had been. We needed people who could handle the stress with out cratering or getting into a fight themselves. They needed to know something about the industry, but we would teach them the job.
 
Working for Amtrak is not only about operating trains. There are many more careers that are challenging and involve being in the field at least part of the time. A few months ago I rode with an Amtrak Safety Engineer. However, his job is not about operating trains safely, but about designing trains so that they are more safe when operating. He currently is helping develop the designs and specifications for the new Acela IIs. That requires him to ride Amtrak trains throughout the country, both in the locomotive cabs and in every different kind of car, observing what conditions might put the locomotive or cars into unsafe conditions and develop ways to avoid or lessen the impact of such conditions. His background had nothing to do with railroading, but was as an operating safety engineer in nuclear power plants. So think outside the train box.

I forgot to mention earlier that he also assists in accident investigations to determine if an equipment issue, a possible design flaw, was involved with causing the accident.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Latest posts

Back
Top