Constantly out to get you - Conductor CPKC Employee Review

2.0
Oct 8, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay, pension and benefits at this company are great. Day-to-day coworkers are awesome (other conductors and engineers)

Cons

Management has a quota, they are required to give you a fail on something out of the 3 rule books you are supposed to have memorized. They actively hunt you like you are prey, stalk you in personal vehicles and company ones, set up red flag tests, some have even hid in bushes wearing camouflage. The demerit system makes no sense, you and a coworker could both be failed for doing the exact same thing and one of you may get a verbal warning while the other receives 10-30 demerits. You work on a 60 demerit system after that you are a fireable employee. You have to go 365 days with out receiving a single fail no matter the size to have 10 demerits removed from your record. A retired employee told me while I was in training “they’ll (the company) will rush to qualify you, then spend the rest of your career trying to fire you.” Management will actively break the safety rules and turn a blind eye to you doing the same when it benefits them and getting a “priority train” over the road but when it’s the end of the month they seem to heavily enforce the rules. The ATMs they hire usually have 0 experience working the ground and those are the guys coming up with your switch lists, the plans make zero sense and they have no clue on how the operations actually work out in the field. I could go on and on about this company and its faults.

Explore other reviews about CPKC

5.0
Dec 20, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great pay, and benefits, good environment,

Cons

First 3-5 years stressful until you get familiar and understand how railroads work.

1
2.0
May 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lots of opportunities to provide value

Cons

Poor leadership at the C-level. CIO has no control over the direction of the IT landscape beyond what is dictated to her by the CEO and other business owners. The IT environment is almost solely controlled by the demands of the business at the cost of being able to manage and adapt to needs. 20 years behind the market in the adoption of cloud technology. Existing cloud strategy was built by engineers pressed into the role of architects and learning as they progressed along. No automation or DevOps presence whatsoever outside what the platform teams use to simplify their own workloads. Remote work is considered a 4-letter word and is extremely frowned upon as anything other than an as-needed and pre-approved option. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are still done using backups and shadow copies of key infrastructure, and those key systems are decided upon at the time the tests are planned instead of testing the company's infrastructure in its entirety. Data centers are geographically separated, but are significantly disparate in what is physically hosted and accessible. Recognition and rewards are overtly encouraged, but are covertly handed out based on the level of visibility and impact to the business and stakeholders. Senior leadership constantly touts open-door policy and approachability, but give off vibes and impressions opposite of the overt policy. The company puts on a show of being diverse and inclusive. Case in point, the hiring of a female CIO. The problem is that working within an 'old boys network' leadership, it doesn't matter how inclusive and diverse the company appears because those elements are never given the opportunity to show their value.

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