(I'm posting this separately from the Coleman's thread. While his thread inspired me to post my question, it's entirely unrelated to his points.)

I'm looking at moving--perhaps back to my homeland of southern California. I'm currently a switchman for a regional railroad, but the fast tracks of the Class Is seem to hold more interest than the slow, twisting tracks of my railroad, so I've been looking at BNSF, UP, and Amtrak.

So far, I think I would be happiest on Amtrak. I've worked customer service in the travel industry for several years and like dealing with people and passengers.

But I've also been looking at a freight railroad. Before I commit to one, I wanted to pose a similar question as Coleman, but from a transportation employee's perspective. While some posts in that thread seem to indicate that employees at both railroads are relatively dissatisfied with management (it being the Great Evil and all), I seem to get the vague impression that BNSF train crew employees are slightly happier than UP employees.

I only have circumstantial evidence to back that claim up, though, and no direct comparisons from people who have worked with or at both.

First, I work with a former UP employee who says that UP management is very, very strict--every yard movement was dictated by the yardmaster, and you didn't ever line a switch unless the yardmaster told you to, even if it would speed things up or help someone else. (This sort of echoes deal-with-both's point in the other thread.)

I also read an article in a magazine (not sure if it was Trains or Progressive Railroading or Mass Transit) written by a female former employee of the UP on her perspectives of the UP/SP merger. She sang great praises about life on the SP (she started with them) and basically said everything went to pot when the UP took charge--and the UP management always seemed to keep its employees at Level 3 (or whatever it is)--one level away from being fired.

Also, my dad worked for the BN as a track laborer and my grandpa worked for the Great Northern as a freight and mail agent, and both loved their jobs. My second-cousin-once-removed works for the BNSF in Seattle as a conductor and engineer and loves his job, too.

So, these all seem to tilt in BNSF's favor. One of the things UP has going for it is their crew base in San Luis Obispo, CA, which is close to my hometown and family (my childhood home is literally next to the Coast Sub's tracks in Templeton, CA, and so the nostalgia factor is great), although I realize I may not be able to hold a job there for a long while yet due to lack of seniority (and frankly there's more to do in L.A.).

On the other hand, many of our executives are former BNSF managers (more than one of my coworkers refers to us as "the BNSF retirement plan"), and I can see how S.L. Murray says that the BNSF is so confident that their way is the right way and are often inflexible.

But in any case, I'm leaning towards Amtrak if they're hiring (they seem to always have two or three assistant conductor openings somewhere in the country--and I wouldn't mind living someplace like Boston or Chicago or whatever for awhile--I just need a change of scenery from my current location). The biggest downside to Amtrak that I see is their pay doesn't start out very high ($15 per hour), and I'm not sure how much it goes up (ours starts at $18 and approximately doubles after five years). While Amtrak obviously has to switch some cars around, I assume that Amtrak has a higher percentage of road jobs than a freight railroad and so will let me go out on the road sooner and more often.

Anyone have any comments to help me make a decision?