Pros
In all honesty there are only three reasons to work for BNSF. The first is the pay. Few jobs that I'm aware of allow someone with no more than a high school education to make the kind of money that we do. Second the benefits package is also quite good. Third are the other people in TY&E (Train, yard, and engine) service. The people who do the actual work of moving freight are masters at making the best of a less than satisfactory situation.
Cons
The is a gulf of immense proportions between TY&E and managment especially front line supervisors, i.e. trainmasters, terminal managers, etc. It is quite amazing how hostile the attitudes of some of these supervisors are toward the employees who work for them. It is most definitely an Us vs. Them mentality. The great majority of the TY&E personnel simply want to do their jobs and go home safely to their families, but the frontline supervisors tend to treat us as though we are incompetent children who are a nuisance to them. The term "trainmaster" used to mean something because the company used to promote through the ranks and if you were a trainmaster it usually meant you had years of actual TY&E experience. Now the company mainly hires from outside the industry or straight from college and thus the people making the decisions have very little, if any applicable knowledge of the jobs they are supervising. These same people are the ones preaching that "no job is more important that safety" and yet do everything in their power to lobby for one man crews. I would like someone to explain how one man working twelve hours by himself in control of thousands of tons of hazardous material is safe for anyone?