Pros
+Great pay considering lack of education requirements +Plenty of advancement opportunities +Wide variety of assignments and work locations +Decent health insurance +The future of Railroad Retirement is more promising than Social Security +Some members of management are team players and are not just interested in their next job.
Cons
-They weren't joking about being on call 24/7... Unless you work an assignment with regular start times( yard jobs or locals) family life and planning will be very hard. These assignments tend to pay less than those that work on call. -There's a very prevalent "them VS us" attitude between management and TE&Y employees -The company is in a never ending battle to reduce the power unions and cut employee benefits(not that most companies aren't doing this).