Railyard Workers & Railroad Mechanics - Modern Rail Yard Work

🚂 Do you know what a railyard worker does? If so, I need your help! I'm putting together our slate of Blue Collar 101 programs that spotlight today's industrial workers, and I'd love to speak with train folks! This photo shows my great great great grandfather, Charles Henry Goodale, at the Amesbury, MA railyard where he worked for 40 years for the B&M Railroad. I have a feeling that this 1905 might be what comes to mind when most people think of rail workers and the kinds of work they do - brakesmen, conductors, engineers, and others. Lots of coal dust and grease. But what does that look like today? Companies like Keolis Group, CSX, BNSF Railway, Union Pacific Railroad (shout-out to the Big Boy!), Norfolk Southern, and a handful of others still keep freight and passengers moving around our country. Large diesels power sometimes mile-long convoys of freight cars. Transportation authorities like the MBTA here in Massachusetts maintain repair yards and employ specialized workers that know their ways around these huge vehicles. Deirdre Habershaw - I'd love to chat! Because so many of us are unfamiliar with this kind of work, the expertise, career pathways, and day-to-day operating of these jobs, it's a perfect area to explore for a BC101 session here at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. Blue Collar 101is a public education series based at the Charles River Museum. At a moment when conversations about workforce development and the future of work often happen without workers in the room, this program starts from a different premise: the people who build, maintain, and repair the physical world are experts, and their knowledge deserves a public platform. This will be the first of a recurring series of events, each spotlighting a different trade or type of industrial work, including those that keep our electrical grid powered, water flowing, transit systems running on time, and our modern world functioning around us. If you are or know someone doing this kind of work - even if it's not in New England - please reach out through DM or email me at info﹫charlesrivermuseum·org and help me bring this work to a new, modern audience! Photo credit: B&M Railroad Historical Society archives