Union Pacific finds area jobs hard to fill

Working on the railroad all the livelong day isn't as popular as it used to be even with pay that reaches into the six figures.

And Union Pacific Railroad finds the labor market particularly tight in northern Nevada, where it recently launched an advertising campaign to recruit train crew members.

John Bromley, an Omaha-based spokesman for the railroad, said the company hopes to hire 30 people in Sparks and 10 in Elko during the first half of this year.

They'd join a staff of 176 at Sparks and 48 at Elko.

Those new employees, Bromley said, are part of a major hiring push by the railroad.

It plans to hire 3,000 employees system- wide this year after hiring 2,400 last year.

Part of the problem, he said, arose because the Union Pacific didn't expect the economy and rail traffic to rebound as quickly as it did during 2002.

At the same time, large numbers of train crew members opted to retire.

A demographic bulge in the railroad's workforce brought a wave of retirements in recent years.

Even more chose retirement after the federal Railroad Retirement Board decided that workers with 30 years experience could retire with full pay at age 60.

While jobs on the railroad once were among the best to be had in many towns, Union Pacific finds itself recruiting hard to fill its vacancies.

"We're kind of out of sight to most people," Bromley said.

Some possible candidates, he said, are put off by unusual work hours the railroad runs 24 hours a day as well as the requirement to be on call.

"It's a tough lifestyle for some people," Bromley said.

Recruitment is all the more difficult in the small labor pools of communities such as Elko or places such as Sparks where unemployment is low.

Candidates need to be at least 18 years old, fit enough to pass a strength test and drug-free.

They receive four months of training and start work as a conductor at about $40,000 a year.Within two years, Bromley said, many conductors are earning in the area of $80,000 a year.

If they're promoted to engineer, they can earn $100,000 or more a year.

The Union Pacific train crews at Sparks and Elko are responsible for rail traffic between Salt Lake City and Roseville, Calif.