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A typical shift

There is no typical start time. You are on a call board and the phone rings with about two hours' notice, day or night. You book on, review the train paperwork and the tonnage, test the brakes, then take the train out. Hours of watching signals, reading the track, handling throttle and dynamic brake on grades, and talking to the rail traffic controller. The run ends at an away terminal where you sleep in a bunkhouse or hotel, then you work a train back. Holidays and birthdays land wherever the call board puts them.