MY JOB
I am employed by CSX TRANSPORTATION, which is one of the largest railroads in the eastern half of the US and I am in the Communications Dept. I have been with CSX in that capacity for the past 25 years. Prior to joining CSX I was employed by a Motorola two-way radio shop and prior to that I was a professional firefighter ( IAFF local 1715) with the city of Cumberland, Md. While with the fire department I worked part-time during my off duty hours for the same two-way shop.
The communications dept at CSX has the responsibility for the installation and maintenance of all communications and related equipment. Since I have been employed there I have "GAFFED" a few telephone poles while maintaining the old "pole line" system that ran along the RR from tower to tower - in this PHOTO I am replacing a broken insulator in a "transposition" bracket used to reduce hum by putting a slight "twist" in the line. I have plenty of horror stories about that part of my job during the winter months in the mountainous terrain just west of here. The great FLOOD of 1985 just about destroyed parts of our system, and took weeks of hard MUDDY work to restore. I have maintained the old 6 GHz analog MICROWAVE SYSTEM (the site shown HERE was located on Mt Davis - the highest point (3213 feet) in Pa. and that was a real thrill in the winter!!) as well as repairing telephones, intercoms, dispatcher consoles, and installing vehicle radios. I spent 12 years on the BENCH doing component level repair on the locomotive radios. More recently I have been involved with PC and networking issues, TOUCH SCREEN dispatcher radio consoles, as well as AEI (automatic equipment identification) sites that read the train cars by activating a passive "tag" on the car with an RF field as the train passes and then reading the tag info and reporting all moves to a central location. Our group still climbs TOWERS and sometimes poles to install antenna systems and communication cables. HERE I am using a bucket truck while a co-worker is on a snorkel lift as we move our cables so the pole can be replaced.
When I first came to the RR, I was amazed at how antiquated and behind the times the equipment was. There were still telegraph keys in some of the towers, mechanical selectors, even old "candlestick" type telephone transmitters on scissor mounts. About 10 years or so ago, things started to change and now we are deploying the latest technology almost faster than we can keep up with it. We now have SATELLITE links to remote locations, almost all radio sites and signal control sites now use IP based connectivity with the latest VoIP technology. A laptop with the proper cable has become as essential in our work as the Bird 43 wattmeter. Here a group of newer employees are taking a technical CLASS in Cincinnati, Oh.
I have spent considerable time in the last 3 years as the training coordinator for our group. This involves TRAVELING out of town to attend training classes and then putting a class together for our group. Much of our time is spent looking up tech info and KEEPING RECORDS. There are 5 of us currently employed at the Cumberland, MD shop - when I started there in 1980, there were 9.
