CrazyLoco

There are a few factors... East Side Access/Grand Central is supposedly going to open in a few years...4 years give or take. Ronkonkoma has been double tracked and after the triple track project between Hicksville and Floral Park is completed, service to KO will improve from hourly to half hourly plus express trains during peak times. These changes will result in more jobs that require a larger roster. At the same time, the Locomotive Engineer roster is top heavy (10% of the roster can retire today). For about the next 20 or so years, engineers will be reaching their retirement year. The addition of new jobs coupled with a year over year retirements is the reason for the hiring. Good luck to ya!

It's not in your best interest to tell yourself that you're having trouble or that you can't do it. It is not productive or helpful to be hard on yourself for feeling like you're "not getting it". Just because you went over the material and then fail a self practice test doesn't indicate failure...you are not there yet. You cannot allow yourself to operate with a self defeating mindset. If you do, you will fail. You have to come to terms with giving yourself time. I can understand the sense of frustration and urgency but you need to put in the time. Time is the key to this whole endeavor. If you make mistakes, errors, keep working on it. Give yourself time to keep working on it. Rework your flash cards, try things a different way. Keep inventing or thinking of how to overcome your mental obstacles. The more you work it...the time you allow yourself to keep trying and trying...then at some point it will fall into place. Don't allow yourself to get in your own way. Don't make excuses. Excuses don't help you. As apt and corny as this sounds, you gotta have the mindset of the Little Engine that could.

Hello all...I've been wanting to contribute to this forum for a while. I work here and hear things and from what I heard, they will be hiring locomotive engineers every year for years because there are some engineers that can retire now with the rest rolling year over year. If you think about it, it takes about two years from open house, becoming a trainee, and then qualify as an engineer but one day for an engineer to retire and leave. For those in fear of what training is like, all the studying and the possibility of failing out, your success is really a test of your determination. If you want something, you have to work at it. It is as simple as that. And you have to be a little fearless...a big risk for a big reward. It's a mental game...like showing up in jeans and a shirt vs. feeling overdressed by wearing a suit to each step. One is better than the other. From what I understand, it is an up and down process. You have your good days and bad days like any occupation. If you want to be an locomotive engineer, just set your bar high and meet your own lofty expectations. Don't let yourself fail. Someone told me it's like learning a foreign language. You could be fluent in 2 years if you immerse yourself. Learn the basics vocabulary, phrases, verbs. Speak strictly in the language...don't fall back to your mother tongue. Struggle through it. Eventually, you'll start to speak more easily until you gain a strong foundation from which gaining mastery is a natural by product of being fluent. It's not easy at first...but it gets easier with practice.