Obs training?

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Royjr

Guest
Hi, I was hoping to get on board amtrak as an obs employee. I was wondering a couple things, first off, what does the training consist of? I've seen varied reports, some say its 3 weeks at the DE training center, others say its 3 weeks at a major crew base (each one of these in addition to training trips from your assigned crew base)

Secondly, I'm sure this gets asked a lot, but how long does it typically take to get an invite to interview or the dreaded "we welcome your application to other positions". I applied to 2 obs openings within the last 2 months, one of which had a status date change a couple weeks after I applied (still says "under review") the other has the status date the same as when I applied, does that mean someone reviewed me? Might be a good sign since I wasn't rejected ;)

Lastly, I know for conductor/engineer jobs you need to be able to get to your crew base within 2 hours notice, does the same apply for obs? It doesn't say that in the job description. Would I be on the extra board?
 
I'll do my best to answer some of your questions.

1.With OBS jobs you will goto Wilmington for a set period of time. Then on the job training out of your crew base.

2. It varies. I can tell you that your application goes through a program that filters out apps. I had applied to various jobs within Amtrak. OBS, Conductor, Trackman, Lineman, etc. Once or twice I got an e-mail saying thanks but no thanks about 12 hours after I filed the app. Others 6 months. There isn't a set amount of time. I can tell you that from my experience the less time it takes to get a reply the better. I applied to a Class I railroad and got an e-mail that told me to come to a hiring session in about 7-10 days after the application and the session was in another 10 days. I did get hired with that railroad.

3. Yes. You'll need to be within 2 hours of your base, doesn't matter if it's snowing, raining, or the sun is beating down.

4. Yes, you'll be on the extra board for a while until you can bid off the extra board to an assigned job.

I can add that I believe that OBS jobs collect RR retirement.

I was told to keep applying until I get an e-mail asking me to show my face. Amtrak never e-mailed me asking to see me. But Conrail Shared Assest did, 2 testing sessions, and 2 interviews. Didn't get hired there but it gave me great experience. The class I that hired me sent me 2 emails for testing sessions. One I couldn't make as I had just had a major surgery performed. The other is when I got hired. Most AU'ers know that I want to work for Amtrak. But right now I'm glad I have a foot in the door of any railroad!
 
I have some good insight, as I just completed training earlier this winter.

Training consists of just about everything under the sun. Service standards including service recovery, accounting, and safety are the major points. You will also be trained in CPR and first aid, and some instruction on the equipment/area you will work. For example, with my crew base working on the Acelas and Regionals, we had to be trained in tunnel evacuations, and how to assemble the evacuation stairs for the Acelas (since they are built only for high level platforms, and have no built-in stairs. You will also cover food safety/FDA guidelines, and uniform and grooming, in addition to some other things. I can't speak for all training sites, but since my class was trained in Washington, they shipped us up to the "test kitchen" in Wilmington, where we learned proper cooking and plating techniques, in addition to taste testing menu items from the NEC cafes, and first class menu.

As far as training goes, I am uncertain as to what locations it is done in. DC, NY, and Wilmington, I know for sure. I also know they do training in Miami as well, simply because my instructors had stories from training there. Training is approximately three and a half weeks (this may depend on the position hired for LSA, Coach Attendant, Sleeper Attendant, etc), Monday through Friday, though class may be required on Saturdays if the class falls behind.

I can't speak to the length of time to get invited to an interview, as I had been applying for five years, and interviewed once but had to walk away during the interview due to personal things I had to take care of. Once correcting them I was encourage to reapply, and I continued to do so for years until I got frustrated and reached out personally to a recruiter, and just got lucky.

The call periods are a bit different for each craft, and even more so by crew base. Typically each crew base has two call periods per day, and yes, they can technically give you as little as two hours notice to report. Realistically, I've only received an assignment for the same day once, because of a bad snow storm, and they wanted to get as many people as possible positioned at various major stations to speed up the resume of service following the storm.

And yes, you will definitely be on the extra board. How long you are on the board however, completely depends on your crew base. i.e. How many people are on the board ahead of you, how many people retire/change crafts (making more assignments up for bid), etc. In same major crew bases you may sit for years on the board. In my crew base, people have managed to get jobs as early as six months in to their career. It's all luck of the draw.

Oh, right. We had training in DC for the three and a half weeks, had two days in Wilmington, and then headed back to our crew base and did on the job training. Did a few Regional cafes, Acela cafe, Acela club (as EIC, and assist), and Acela cart service as well.

Good luck! If you'd like some more info, let me know and I'll message you.
 
Thanks, you guys really gave some good information. Current LSA, how many people were in your training class? Were you all one crew base only? Or Were you grouped with others from the same geographic area, or were you guys really from all over?

Also did you have any relevant experience that may have made you look good? Restaurant/hotel etc.
 
It was suppose to be twelve I believe, mixed between my crew base and WAS (eight for us, four for them). WAS received enough transfers to fill the vacancies and decided they didn't need to hire anyone, so we took advantage of the extra space and hired ten.

I had very little restaurant experience, and there were two others that had absolutely no restaurant or hotel experience. What most (all but one, who went to a technical training school specifically to become an LSA) had though, was a lot of good customer service experience. There were a lot of people with restaurant, bar, or hotel experience however.

The main things they will look for will be good customer service, safety is a biggie (taut how you've never had a major injury on the job, if this is true), and also note if you are or have been CPR/first aid certified (you will have to go through training again anyway - we had someone who was a former EMT turned bartender who needed to go through the whole thing still).
 
Thanks again, a couple more questions, how long did the interview process take from invite to training start? I happen to know that there's a training class starting the last week of April (this was listed on a recent OBS posting, not one I applied to though) but I guess it could be the same class, they're probably getting ready to hire for the busy summer season, but I'm wondering when they'd start calling people in to interview for that class.

Also, (only if you feel comfortable answering) how do you go about reaching out to a recruiter? My experience (in any company) is that recruiters/human resources don't really like to be bothered, and information on contacting them seems to be non existent. Looking on twitter, whoever runs the @AmtrakCareers often says to inquiring people "let me reach out to the recruiter for that position", would this be ideal?
 
Well, I went in for the strength test around the beginning of September, interviewed about three weeks later, went to have my physical a week later, and then started training about two weeks later. So, about a month and a half.

Twitter is a good way to try and get in contact with them, using exactly that handle. LinkedIn is also another good way. AmtrakCareers is active on that site as well, and if lucky, you may be able to track down a recruiter at your local Amtrak HR office.

Just out of curiosity, what crew base are you looking at?

And if I can be of further assistance, don't hesitate to let me know. I don't know what other info I feel giving publicly as I do not want to be identified, so consider creating an account and I will PM you from one, and we can discuss things further if you would like more info. Pay, benefits, a little more in-depth info about how things work, and whatnot.
 
Looking at the northeast, anywhere from Washington to New York. I live about midway between those 2, so could probably make it to either one within 2 hours. But thanks so much for your insight.
 
What is the lodging like in Wilmington for the train dispatcher training?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top