Profession: carriage conductor. Insider
Working as a train conductor is a difficult but interesting profession. Many people have had this dream since childhood - to work as a conductor. The profession is steeped in romance and fantasy. Surely everyone has their own original story about the train conductor.
Any adult citizen, even those without higher education, can apply for this position. What kind of profession this is, why it is attractive and difficult, will be discussed further.
Qualities you need to have
To go to work as a guide, it is important to have certain personal qualities:
Advantages and disadvantages of the profession
A guide, like all professions, has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include:
- the need for the profession in society;
- high on branded trains;
- no age restrictions;
- a large number of different benefits.
The disadvantages of the profession are:
Where and how to study
To find out about the vacancy of a train conductor, you need to contact the nearest branch of the railway station.
The passenger depot trains personnel to service the wagons. For the device, you must contact the HR department with documents. Typically the list of required documents includes:
- passport;
- certificate or diploma;
- employment history;
- a statement that can be written on the spot.
After the documents are accepted, an interview is scheduled with an HR employee or manager. During the interview, it is important to show yourself as an open, sociable person without bad habits. If such an impression was made and the candidacy was approved, the applicant is sent for training.
Train conductor training lasts three months, training is carried out every day, a full 8-hour day, except weekends. Once the training is completed, examinations are conducted. First, they are accepted. Then the future train conductor is sent to practice - on the first flight, paired with a qualified employee. During the voyage, the student keeps a diary where he records all the events of the journey. It will need to be submitted to the training center. After the trip, a final exam with tickets is taken. When passing the exam with a score of more than three points, the student is considered enrolled in the state.
At the end of the training, the conductor is given a certificate of completion of the course. In addition, to get a job you will need to undergo a medical examination and obtain a health certificate, as well as certification for occupational safety. All documents are provided to the HR department.
Career stages
Immediately after completing training, a train conductor has the third qualification category. And there are four of them in total. The first two are for the cleaners of the passenger train. The third and fourth are for guides. The fourth can be obtained after advanced training. Such conductors usually operate in
A train conductor can rise through the ranks. To do this, you need a higher education or completing a course for foremen. Just below the foreman is the train mechanic, but this position is only for men.
There are also such career levels as shift manager and station manager.
Beginning of work
After training, the guide is ready to start working. He is given a special uniform, which must be kept clean and tidy. A photo of the train conductor demonstrates it.
At the beginning of the first work shift, the contractor forms a team. The guide may be asked which direction he prefers. Perhaps your wishes will be taken into account, but this is not at all necessary.
Flights are:
- long-distance (more than 24 hours);
- local (up to 12 hours).
The local train service schedule is 10 working days, then 10 days off. In long-distance carriages, the schedule is determined by the number of days on the trip.
Before the departure of the flight, a planning meeting is held, where the necessary documents are read out to the conductors and their readiness for the flight is checked. At the planning meeting, the teams are informed about the composition of the teams, given instructions, and asked to sign the necessary logs.
On flights crossing the border, the conductor needs a passport.
At the planning meeting, the conductor is assigned a carriage in which she will need to work. Once in his carriage, the conductor meets an employee there who has worked his shift and is about to go home. The carriage is being accepted. Every little detail is taken into account, because the conductor is personally responsible for the entire carriage.
At a certain hour, the conductor begins boarding. Here it is important for him to act strictly according to the instructions. If passengers express dissatisfaction, the conductor cannot meet them halfway, since he is limited by instructions.
You also need to be very careful when handling tickets. There are fines for any mistakes in the work, so it is in the interests of the conductor to comply with everything and be responsible.
Explorer functions
The work of a conductor includes two directions. The first is service work with passengers. This includes:
The second area of responsibilities is related to car maintenance. The conductor ensures the external and internal cleanliness of the carriage entrusted to him. The carriage is wet cleaned twice a day and the toilets four times. Garbage is removed. When the carriage arrives at the station, the conductor wipes the handrails and loads coal onto the train.
In winter, the conductors clear the carriage of ice and also defrost the toilet and washbasin using boiling water. Their responsibilities include maintaining the required temperature in the car.
The conductor has financial responsibility for all the property entrusted to him (dishes, bedding, all equipment for work), as well as for all breakdowns and damage in the carriage.
Wage
The level of a conductor depends on the number of hours worked. The standard for a month is 176 hours. In addition, odds, bonuses and other additions may be added. On average, a conductor earns from 10,000 to 25,000 rubles per month. In winter, the average salary is 15,000 rubles, in summer - 25,000 rubles.
There are also employees who manage to earn up to 55,000 rubles per month, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Privileges
Despite the low level of wages and high workload at work, many strive to go to work on the railway. This is primarily due to the benefits that each conductor of long-distance trains has, and the conductors, of course.
These include:
- free delivery from the depot to the station closest to your place of residence;
- annual discounted round-trip rail travel for yourself and two minor children;
- one round trip on your own road.
The trade union can award referrals for treatment, as well as a camp voucher for children. Conductors receive free medical care in special railway hospitals. In difficult situations, the company can pay for the employee’s treatment.
Every five years, good bonuses are provided for loyalty to the chosen cause. They can be 3-4 monthly salaries.
After 20 years of service or more, a conductor retiring also has the right to preferential railway travel.
If you are still interested in working as a train conductor, positions are always open, you just have to want it.
A train in Russia is more than just a means of transportation. Due to the size of the country and the hyper-centralized railway network, covering even a short distance turns into a long journey, during which the reserved seat becomes your home - with slippers, homemade food and good (or lucky) neighbors. It seems that with the construction that has been talked about for the last 10 years, all this will become a thing of the past. But the high-speed future has not yet arrived and the conductors remain the masters of the railway. As part of the “Insider” column, “Inde” asked a former passenger train conductor about the behind-the-scenes of the profession.
Beginning: student team and Moscow reserve of guides
I studied at KFU in the humanities. He participated in the activities of student brigades (these are the successors of the Soviet system of construction brigades) - through this line it was possible to find some work for the summer. We called it virgin soil. It was possible to go to construction, pedagogical agricultural teams, but I did not want to build the Vostochny cosmodrome, or be a camp counselor, or pick tomatoes in Crimea. I purposefully chose to work as a guide and went there immediately after my first year - I liked the prospect of communicating with people and a change of scenery. Over three full summers and two winter holidays from working by train, I visited Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Anapa, Sukhum (these are the extreme points of my travels). In general, Russian Railways requires additional conductors precisely during periods of increased passenger load - that is, during the summer and winter holidays. By the way, I celebrated the New Year twice on a train - not on the way, however, but during a daily stay in Smolensk. We walked around the city with our colleagues, heated the carriage, set the table, and listened to Putin on the radio.
“By the way, I celebrated the New Year twice on a train - not on the way, however, but during a daily stay in Smolensk. We walked around the city with our colleagues, heated the carriage, set the table, listened to Putin on the radio.”
Before the first summer season, I was sent for three months of training. It was conducted by an employee of the student organization, who himself worked as a guide for five or six years. During training they talk about everything - about labor protection, the design of carriages, first aid and service rules. After the courses, I went to get a job in the reserve of passenger carriage conductors (conductors are included in the “reserve” units, which, in turn, belong to certain depots) Moscow-Oktyabrskaya. I, a freshman with a keen sense of social justice, didn’t like it there - they kept us busy all day, there were a lot of students, they treated us rudely - everything was reminiscent of a queue at the military registration and enlistment office. At the same time, personnel guides came there on their business, and the attitude towards them was incomparably better. As a result, I worked in the Moscow reserve for two summers, the rest of the time in St. Petersburg. In the summer, about 1,500 student conductors passed through the St. Petersburg reserve (because St. Petersburg has the largest carriage section in Russia, and trains leave from there in many directions).
First flight and professional life hacks
Everyone’s first flight is a trainee one, that is, a beginner travels with an experienced guide. Although if there are not enough guides, they can immediately send you on your own. The trainee flight is always short-term, for a maximum of three days. My first was Moscow - Murmansk on the branded train "Arctic". Then the main shock happened to me - on the very first day I saw all the dark behind the scenes of the conductor’s work.
My mentor was an adult and very enterprising woman who seemed to make money out of everything. Firstly, she traded in “Chinese”, that is, she sold dirty linen (I don’t know why it’s called that - probably because everything Chinese is associated with poor quality). She took the laundry after the passenger got off, checked it for obvious dirt and hair, tidied it up a little, packed it in a bag, sealed the seams with a lighter and sold it as new. I knew about such stories, but did not think that this could happen on a company train. Later I learned that this practice is widespread; a conductor can earn about 10 thousand rubles on linen alone for a long flight. My mentor also sold tea and food: you buy the same “Greenfield” in the store, which is sold by Russian Railways, and sell it at train prices (a bag of tea is 45 rubles, that is, you beat off the price of the entire package by selling three bags). She also took money for smoking between carriages and deceived drunken passengers - she sat down with them, chatted them up and handed them several lottery tickets. Experienced conductors also turn situations in which passengers flirt with them to their advantage: they persuade suitors to buy tea, chocolate, souvenirs, etc. Men, wanting to show off in front of the object of their affection, can buy an entire tray of sweets and give it to the conductor. It is clear that she will not eat it - she will take the money and put everything up for sale again. And the conductor in the “Arctic” transported “hares” - the reserved seat carriage on this route is rarely full, so there are always places for free riders.
“She took the laundry after the passenger got off, checked it for obvious dirt and hair, tidied it up a little, packed it in a bag, sealed the seams with a lighter and sold it as new. I knew about such stories, but I didn’t think that this could happen on a branded train.”
All this, of course, is illegal and is punishable by disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. But the practice has been around for a long time, and everyone just turns a blind eye to it. True, they say that now it has become much stricter with the “hares”. Auditors monitor compliance with order and job descriptions. These are Russian Railways employees who board the train at certain stations and check how things are going on the train. Checks do not occur on every flight and, in theory, should be unexpected - so that no one has time to prepare. But in reality, the conductors know in advance where the auditor will sit (usually these are large junction stations). As soon as he is on the train, information is transmitted along a chain from car to car - while the auditor is with the neighbors, you can have time to hide some minor violations. They still don’t find any serious ones, because the area is highly corrupt - the head of the train always has money brought in by the conductors, and there is always room for a bribe and a table for the inspector. As a result, the inspector will walk through the train (although sometimes the check is so nominal that it can be done without an inspection), make a couple of comments for the disorder, draw up several reports, but will not see anything serious. Although “Chinese tea”, illegal tea products and “hares” are serious violations that entail dismissal without the right of reinstatement at work in railway transportation (they won’t even hire you as a switchman on the tracks).
Salary and additional responsibilities
The conductor is paid hourly. Three years ago, when I worked, they paid 76 rubles per hour (now it seems like 86 rubles). At least over the summer, according to the employer’s conditions, I had to skate 450 hours - this is a completely doable task in two and a half months. For example, the flight Moscow - Anapa - Moscow - Murmansk - Moscow takes 10 days. You travel with a partner, a 12-hour shift, and in the end we were given 110 hours for it. The basic salary is small, but there are bonuses for night work and trips to the Far North, bonuses for record sales of tea products, souvenirs and other things. It seems that 76 rubles per hour is not enough, but the maximum I received over the summer was 120 thousand rubles. For a student this is a very decent amount. In the last year I received 70 thousand rubles - the crisis took its toll. That year, all the conductors complained that they were underpaid, their hours of work were shortened, and everything was cut whenever possible. Moreover, it was in the St. Petersburg reserve, where there was always a complete chaos, so, having received my money, I did not bother to find out anything - it was more expensive for myself.
Selling souvenirs and related goods on the train is a separate responsibility of the conductor. The required sales volumes are not specified anywhere (although the conductors say that there are standards in the internal documents of Russian Railways) - they are set by the train manager. During the flight we had to sell seven Russian Railways lottery tickets. The standard amount for souvenirs and tea products is calculated according to the formula 20-30 rubles per passenger, that is, from the carriage the conductor must give the train manager 5000-7000 rubles. As a rule, I succeeded. No one accepts back unsold goods, so the conductors reimburse the remaining amount from their own pockets. Because of this system, funny precedents arise, such as the “boiling water tax”, which is taken exclusively from foreigners. Foreigners don’t buy anything on the train: they either have everything with them, or they simply don’t eat it. But everyone drinks tea and coffee, so in pursuit of profit and beautiful reports, some conductors charge foreign passengers an average of 50 rubles per glass of water. They say that the Chinese have long taken this kind of tax for granted and meekly hand over money for free boiling water.
We also reimburse the cost of linen stolen by passengers (1,500 rubles per set) and cup holders (about 2,000 rubles per piece) from our own pockets. And according to the instructions, the conductor must pay the passenger’s travel expenses to his station if he forgot to drop him off. But this has never happened to me.
Safety precautions and old rolling stock
Conductors are the nerve of the entire train. We are the first to record violations and emergency situations, and then report them to the headquarters car (in addition to the train chief’s compartment, there is a room for Interior Ministry employees, a room for storing linen and a radio point). Each carriage has a fire warning system; it works even when the train is stationary. But the automatic fire extinguishing system is installed only in the conductor’s working compartment, because there is an electrical panel there. Fire on our trains is a very dangerous thing. The carriage burns to the ground in an average of seven minutes. The instructions in case of an alarm are as follows: the conductor runs into the compartment where the signal is coming from, looks to see if there is a fire (the system is very sensitive and reacts even to vaping). If it is really a fire, then the second conductor along the chain sends information to the headquarters car, the first pulls the stop valve, puts out the fire with a fire extinguisher, and the second takes passengers outside from the back of the car (that is, on the opposite side from the oncoming tracks).
The conductors also check the bearings with which the carriage bogie clings to the wheel pair. If they overheat, the carriage could derail. At a stop lasting more than 15 minutes, we must check their temperature with the back of our hand - there are a total of eight points with bearings on the car. If it overheats while driving, the system notifies the conductor with a squeak. According to the instructions, in this case you need to pull the stop valve, but no one does this. The stop valve is an extreme measure; after using it, you need to fill out a bunch of papers, write several explanatory notes, and if in the end they establish that there were no grounds for stopping the train, then you will be fired. Therefore, usually when alerting the system, I called the train electrician. As a rule, he grumbled that “everything is always a mess in these old carriages,” and turned off the warning system.
Russian Railways has a lot of old cars. They say that the most dead trains are sent to the Urals and the South. But in reality there is no such pattern - everything depends on the reserve that serves a specific direction. I have never worked at the Kazan reserve, but I know from rumors that we used to have good cars and trains, and then they all moved to the Moscow reserve and everything old remained in Kazan. Flights Kazan - Moscow are formed in Moscow from new cars, and for flights that are formed in Kazan, outdated equipment remains. For comparison: the Nizhny Novgorod reserve (it, for example, forms the Kazan - St. Petersburg flight) is very good (therefore, it cannot be said that only Muscovites are lucky).
“There were times when we manually scooped out the contents of the toilet to clear the blockage.”
Fortunately, I haven’t had any serious technical problems with the carriages in my life, except that the dry closet got clogged. Passengers manage to throw everything there, even socks and rags. And one day I quarreled with the carriage cleaner. He did a bad job - in some places after him it became even worse than it was. I did not sign the cleaning document, that is, I left him without earnings. As a result, he threw his sock into the dry closet, relieved himself there and completely spat on nine compartments.
In the new carriages, the dry closets are automatic and can simply be reset. If this does not work, an electrician is called and he disassembles the device. There were times when we manually scooped out the contents of the toilet to clear the blockage. But the worst thing is that in winter both bio- and ordinary toilets freeze, so they need to be filled with boiling water every hour. In general, there are a lot of holes in the car - these are sink drains, a titanium drain (boiling water dispenser). And they all need to be poured hot.
Working in winter has its own specifics. You need to sink the carriage, and this is hard. All unbranded trains are still heated with coal, and you may be given very poor quality coal that hardly burns. Coal is stored in the vestibule, in special pockets. 20-25 buckets are provided per flight, but if the winter is cold, you may need twice as many. In winter, all guides walk around with black, cracked hands. But those who work on holidays have higher salaries: in two weeks you can get a month’s summer amount.
Passengers: bad, good, children
The conductor is the face of the company; we are the first and often the only representatives of Russian Railways that the passenger encounters. It is important to make a good impression even when landing - say hello, help with things; then at the beginning of the journey, walk around the train and talk politely to everyone. My experience tells me: the conductor gives his best in the first two hours of the flight, then the impression you make works on you.
I have identified several types of passengers for myself: young people under 30 (you can always negotiate with them), grandmothers (they behave with you the same way you behave with them), redneck men (it’s difficult with them: they smoke, drink, they don’t listen and swear), families (as a rule, they are closed in on themselves). I don’t like those who force themselves on friends and sit on my ears. They can come for tea and get stuck in your compartment for an hour - but you can’t send them. At the same time, most often they count on some kind of privileges (usually permission to smoke). Some - especially girls - almost sit down in the official compartment to chat, although this is prohibited.
I usually took the approach: smoke and drink, but don't bother others. He allowed smoking in the vestibule during minute stops. But people tend to abuse trust. Once I had a conflict with two bullies: one kept running around to smoke, I made comments to him, even threatened him with the head of the train; then the second one came up and started threatening me and filming me on his phone. Then I saw that my business card was missing from the door of my compartment, and the tea products were missing from the table. Of course, we called the police, but then it turned out that the bullies themselves were from the authorities, and nothing was done to them. I still feel offended by such impudence. True, the badge was returned to me.
One summer, on a flight to Sukhum, a guy was actively trying to become my friend. He wrote out his gratitude to me in the book of reviews and suggestions, bought tea products for a good amount and, of course, drank a lot (but didn’t get rowdy). In the south there is a five-hour sanitary zone along the sea and an hour-long control on the border of Abkhazia and Russia - I warned everyone in advance so that people had time to go to the toilet. The man was sleeping at that time and woke up while the border guards were inspecting the train. He asked to go to the toilet, but I could not help him. Then he found a five-liter bottle, did all his business there (everything happened quite loudly in the vestibule - the passengers understood what was happening) and returned to the place exactly as the border service officers entered the carriage. When the train started moving, my partner freaked out and said that we shouldn’t clean up after him - let him take everything he owns with him. To my surprise, the man easily agreed. So he went out to Gagra, holding out his hand with the bag in which we hid his bottle.
I always tried to keep my distance from passengers, but travel novels for two or three days are a common practice. This often happens to young girl conductors, especially when they see beautiful, broad-shouldered demobilizers. Once I was transporting a wagon of demobilization. They drank continuously all the way - I don’t even know how you can have time to start an affair in this situation. My task boiled down to the role of an educator - collecting bottles on time, making sure that no one started vomiting and walking under themselves, in extreme cases, taking them to the toilet and pushing passengers out at the right stops with their things (which was not easy: they didn’t want to leave such fun) . It was also difficult to transport cadets of one secret power structure - the carriage was empty, they occupied two compartments and drank hard all the way and shouted Allegrova’s songs. The whole carriage was littered!
But the worst of all are the children who go to the South. The adult chaperones don't care about them, so they are left to their own devices. After them there is a lot of garbage in the most unexpected places - on the third shelf, under the pillowcase of the mattress and pillow, in the luggage compartment. And one day a group of children decided to wash their hair in the toilet all at once and used up the entire supply of water in the carriage. It’s an eight-hour drive to the nearest “gas” station, and there’s no water anywhere: empty titanium, empty toilets and sinks. That's how we drove - the whole carriage had to run to the next one.
One day, a 14-year-old boy from an orphanage went out to the store in the parking lot to buy vodka. He was scooped up by the cops, and those accompanying him came to their senses only two hours later. He was put on a catch-up train, and we had to drive slowly, behind schedule. A couple of hours later we picked him up. But this doesn't happen often. A straggler is a lot of paperwork. According to the instructions, the conductor with two witnesses must describe his property and hand it over to the train manager. Then either the passenger catches up with the train, or at the next station we give his things to the assistant station manager on duty.
The secret life of the conductor and the secrets of the dining car
Russian Railways does not provide conductors with money for food - they buy everything themselves. Usually my partners and I went to some Auchan before the flight, and sometimes passengers leave their food. If it's not something suspicious or perishable, we accept it. We take food that doesn’t need to be cooked. Although on titanium this is quite possible: you put a small saucepan with porridge, potatoes, sausages or chicken on top (there is a convenient niche there) and wait. True, it will take a long time to prepare, up to 12 hours. But we have a refrigerator and a microwave - by the way, passengers can also use them.
At night, the conductor doesn’t have much work - you read a book or newspaper forgotten by the passenger. At stops, according to instructions, it is forbidden to get out of the car, but during long stops we still walked around the city. For example, before Murmansk there is the Olenegorsk station, where two thirds of passengers get off. Already there you begin cleaning, so that by the final station there is not much left to do. And in Murmansk you go out into the city: to a store, a cafe, buy souvenirs or even go to a museum. Although in general there is nothing to do there at all, and in five to six hours of parking you have time to see everything.
Guides are most often single people working for slaughter. From flight to flight seven days a week. Their whole life is a railway, all their social connections are there, all the benefits and tricks. 60 percent of conductors are drunkards. Once I was transferred to another train because the conductor who was supposed to board the flight arrived completely drunk. They also drink on the flight. By the way, conductors lag behind the train much more often than passengers (they either stay in the store or smoke for a long time). In this case, they are simply taken to their place on another train. They may even arrive ahead of their train - for example, if they board the Sapsan. However, I also met guides by vocation who worked from the heart and honestly. These are, as a rule, adult women 45-50 years old: they are attractive, everything is neat, clean, and they themselves are kind. There are entire dynasties of conductors on the railway - husband and wife, mother and daughter. On one train, the head of the train was a woman whose husband worked there as an electrician, and whose daughter was a conductor. They also took their dog with them.
Now I have an office job, but I constantly watch the guides from the side. In general, in my experience, the worst passengers are personnel conductors. They cling to the staff, grumble, make endless comments (“why haven’t they washed the floor”, “why is it so dusty”, “turn off the lights already”, “open the toilet” and so on), they can even write a complaint - in general, they are trying in every way humiliate you and assert yourself. But in reality, not a single conductor works as stated in the instructions - jambs can be found in everyone. I make comments only if the conductor behaves rudely and tactlessly. I also somehow received a “Chinese package” (it can be distinguished by the uneven seam of the bag and the smell, but the main sign is the absence of a piece of paper in the package with a list of the linen set). I approached the conductor and explained that I myself had worked in the system and knew all their tricks. She, of course, turned blue, but immediately apologized and changed the set.
I miss the train and I would like to return to being a conductor for at least a month. But still, this job was perceived as a student job - temporary, for the summer. Besides, I wasn’t paid enough in the last season. Over the summer, the entire cast becomes familiar to you. As a rule, in the summer, personnel conductors sit at the head and tail of the train, and in the headquarters car - the rest of the train is students. Many of the people I met at that job are still friends to this day. The coolest thing is to gather in one of the conductors’ compartments at night, drink tea and tell stories about the passengers. You go and have fun.
1. Animals can be transported in compartment cars. And everything would be fine, but I once saw how a RACCOON was carried on a leash and walked at the stations. Hahaha I live here
2. If you think that no one will know about smoking in the toilet, you are mistaken, because the ventilation of the carriage is designed in such a way that all the air from the vestibule, toilet and oblique corridor is drawn into the conductor's compartment
3. An information sheet is issued for caught smokers. The first such sheet - a fine of 1,500 rubles and the ticket will indicate that you are a smoker, the second - they simply will not sell you a train ticket
4. There were very mixed feelings when the Ukrainian train arrived at the station. If in my composition I knew for sure that I had perfect order and a new carriage, and so did our brigade, then our brothers had simply hell, both inside and outside the carriage. The USSR never left there
5. By the way, you can use the toilet during sanitary zones only if you need to wash and brush your teeth, shave, etc. The conductor must stand nearby and ensure that the toilet is not used
6. Now I’ll tell you a terrible secret - you don’t have to hand over your bed linen to the conductor when you exit at your station! And the conductor cannot force you to take him a set of linen; at most, be ready to go out in half an hour
7. For the love of God, don’t charge your gadgets from the sockets in the carriages. Most often, the wiring in the car is so-so, and if the iPhone doesn’t damage all the electrics in the car, then you will definitely ruin the battery. Powerbank is our everything! Although, in fairness, it is worth saying that the iPhone is not so scary. When they insert an extension cord into an extension cord, and there are several laptops in it - this is already scary and dangerous, conductors usually stop this
8. 3 and 5 compartments are emergency exits, the windows there do not open, so in the summer it is unbearably hot there and nothing can be done if there is no air conditioning. Take this into account if you are planning to travel far, but the carriage you have is the same
9. YOU CAN DRINK VODKA ON THE TRAIN. But only for passengers. And don’t overdo it - the conductor has the right to unseat a passenger who seems too drunk to him; it won’t be difficult to take two confirmations from passengers
10. In many cases, too frequent wet cleaning of the carriage by a conductor only leads to dust flying up from the bottom, so conductors are not pigs, these are features of operation
11. By the way, the conductor’s career growth is so-so - from grade 3 to grade 4, you work in two-story buildings and Siemens, the salary is 15 percent higher. Then, if God doesn’t save you, they’ll send you to a train master’s course. You won’t find such fuck-ups like there anywhere, that’s why they shove them there
12. Each element of the car that is not nailed to the floor must be monitored. Forks, spoons, glasses, brooms, knives, brushes - if they go missing, they are all deducted from our salary, so although the guide is obliged to give you a fork, spoon, etc. for free, he will still keep an eye on you
13. Brush brushes are a different story altogether. People manage to FLUSH THEM DOWN THE TOILET. Seriously, I don’t know how this happens, but in the second year of work I started tying the brush with a rope
14. Once there was a passenger traveling with us, whom other passengers handed over to the cops right at the station because he was injecting drugs in the toilet and leaving syringes in the trash can. He was admitted right at the station, but it turned out that he was diabetic and was injecting insulin
15. The air conditioning in the carriage is powered by a generator, which starts working only when the train picks up speed above 30 km/h. That is why a trip along the Black Sea coast (4 hours at a speed of 30-35 km/h and stops) turned into hell
16. In general, when it comes to air conditioning, the guide is on the passengers’ side. We are the same people who travel in the same conditions as you, although our shifts last 12 hours and all this time we have to be in uniform. If the conductor says that the air conditioner is not working, then he is not lying.
17. In the summer, student teams work on many trains. Most of them really try and work well, otherwise they simply wouldn’t be on the rosters. So if your guide is a student, then most likely he will try very hard for you
18. Very often, trains like Adler-St. Petersburg are temporarily equipped with old cars, because new ones are needed for other flights. And no one changed the price, so if you buy a ticket for 6-8 thousand you can easily travel in an old German carriage without a dry closet, things like that
19. But old German carriages are very much appreciated by conductors. Yes, the door opens with your foot, yes, it’s hot, but such cars definitely won’t have any breakdowns on the road and you won’t have to wait for repairmen at large stations. Hello, new TVZ cars!
20. The average salary of a student conductor is 25-30 thousand per month. Advance is issued at the beginning of the month, salary - on the 20th. It may seem that this is a steep salary for a student, but most of the money is spent on stupid food. And the conductors always want to eat
21. Personnel guides do not like students, and students do not like personnel guides. All this is transformed into a global pissing of everything and everyone during the delivery/acceptance of the carriage
22. The strangest and most infuriating question I’ve ever heard is that a couple of minutes before arriving at the station, those leaving the carriage ask “Which track will we arrive at?”
lol, I’m not a dispatcher, how do I know where we’ll be taken?
23. A conductor is a profession in which ingenuity must be turned to the maximum. She will help you resolve a conflict with a passenger, earn money, and win over your boss. If you are dumb as a plug, you have nothing to do here
24. Carriage depots organize dormitories for students for the summer. These are old carriages parked eternally in the ass of the world. The traffic never stops there, and life is in full swing, despite the unsanitary conditions and heat in such carriages
25. It also happens that the conductor travels in a group of three - three conductors for 2 cars, and for this one, hell and Israel come if he travels in a reserved seat. Sleeping in the “eat 5 minutes - sleep” mode, eating in the “doshirak of the gods” mode and that’s all
26. You don’t need to think that if a student conductor is traveling, he can do whatever he wants, because he still works temporarily. Everyone is asked the same, and a particularly large problem will result in expulsion from the university.
27. Passenger luggage is a different matter. Nobody wants to remember that the maximum weight of luggage is 36 kg for one ticket in a reserved seat, and the sum of three dimensions should not exceed 180 cm. No, you must definitely enter with 19 bags, because YES I WILL LAY THEM SOMEHOW
28. A group of tourists of 30 people was once traveling from Moscow to Belomorsk in a reserved seat, and they placed all their kayaks on 3 shelves on top. The feeling of the jungle never left me as I walked through this carriage.
29. There are a lot of people who like to buy fruits, vegetables, and lunches at small stations from grandmothers. Most often, such purchases end in queues for the toilets.
30. The night shift is much more soulful than the day shift. Stick to the computer, sleep, sometimes open the doors at the stations, smoke at the technical stations, drink tea and eat - heaven on earth
31. Many students become conductors “to see the country from the train window.” During all the time I worked, I accumulated 3-4 hours of pure time looking out the window, the rest of the time I need to do something
32. Personally, I have never seen or given wet underwear to passengers. On the contrary, it comes from the laundry hot, and it’s a thrill, it’s nice to give it away. That's why 99% of wet underwear on trains is just stories
33. If you buy at least 100-150 rubles worth of tea products from the conductor, you will open the door to the magical world of smoking on the train if you are a smoker. 150 rubles is not such a big amount to go broke, and the conductor has a sales plan
34. You don’t need to think that you are the smartest spies in the world and can hide your garbage under a shelf, in a shelf, under a mattress, in a table, etc. After each flight, I raked out a bunch of small garbage, and once passengers forgot a gas burner on the 3rd shelf, lol
35. Conductors bathe in toilets during flights. Yes Yes. We take a basin of warm water, cut off the bottom of a five-liter bottle and pour it over ourselves until ready. Otherwise you will quickly turn into a huge piece of dirt and sweat
36. Wet cleaning should be done at least 2 times a day, dry cleaning - as the car gets dirty, but not less than 2 times. Remember this
37. Money from the sale of charity cards really goes to a fund to help children, this is not a scam from Russian Railways. This is handled by a special department
38. If you want to truly thank the conductor for the trip, call the hotline. The likelihood of receiving a bonus will increase several times
39. I hate people who don’t empty the water from their doshirak after themselves, but throw the box straight into the trash bag. It then leaks, most often onto the floor, and complaints begin. Don't do that, better flush it down the toilet and throw it away, it will take 1 minute
40. No matter how many warnings are written, people still throw paper into the dry closet. You are ruining your own life; such a toilet cannot be repaired on the road. And so because of one fucker the whole carriage suffers
41. After being fired, the first desire is to take a human shower. Ooooh, how much happiness there is in this 😍
42. Carrying a group of children is both a plus and a minus.
Plus - if the carriage is full, you can sleep peacefully and not open small stations, plus they often buy ALL tea products
Minus - THEY YELL AND LITTER LIKE PIGS
43. It’s incredibly nice when a person cleans up after himself if he accidentally litters. Let's all be like this ❤️
44. In the summer, you can travel long distances very cheaply in good carriages. Discounts on the top bunk in a compartment - 50%, you can save money and save yourself from reserved seats, grannies and constant walking around the carriage
45. Also, the work involves minor scratches, abrasions and bruises. Sometimes you don’t even know where or what you hit, but it hurts and goes away for a long time
46. The water in titanium is not endless, so you must always make sure that the car is filled with water. The electric boiler also only works when in motion, so you need to especially monitor the water level, because you can burn the heating elements and you will be heating with anything
47. Oh yes, old carriages really burn with coal. You can't, but who cares?
48. Vapers are a different story. You can’t vape in the carriage, just like you can’t smoke, but there are smart people who THIS IS STEAM AND NOT SMOKE I DON’T SMOKE
49. Rain is a guide’s worst nightmare. You wash the floor 3 times more often, and usually step over a rag to wipe your feet.
50. Solidarity between the conductor and the passenger is when you wash the floor in the compartment, and everyone leaves their seats, taking their shoes and not disturbing you.
51. Safety precautions are not an empty phrase. Although this is monitored, accidents occur every year with both passengers and conductors. Therefore, we kindly ask you to be careful and listen to the conductor, all instructions on the piece of iron are written in blood
52. PACKAGES CANNOT BE TRANSMITTED. ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. EVEN ENVELOPES. An FSB agent planted a dummy bomb in the vestibule of my friend, disguised as a package of pills. Almost got fired
53. In new carriages, the conductor has a refrigerator. We are obliged to carry baby food in it if asked, but if you ask the conductor, we will put something else
54. Conductors sometimes sell their own tea instead of the one sold with stickers. Most often, this is not because of a good life - the conductor buys back the remaining tea products, or the remainder is sold later
Personally, now I always have some little thing, but I’ll buy it from the conductor, solidarity
55. Well, or if a child urgently needs to go, we have no right to refuse, but in this case you can’t press the toilet pedal
56. In general, sanitary zones are a rather conditional thing. If the carriage is full, it is enough to close it 5 minutes before the station and open it 5 minutes after departure. This reduces the stress of passengers in every sense)
57. Watching meetings and partings is truly a magical thing, for which it is worth working as a guide. Entire stories fly by next to you, and to feel it is something
58. If you decide to save money and not buy linen, your lot is to lie on the shelf or walk around the carriage, because you can’t use a mattress without linen, yes
59. The conductor’s area of responsibility is a clean carriage and good service; if the air conditioner is broken and it’s hot in the carriage, then his maximum is to open the windows and pray for the repairmen
60. During my work, I learned to cook buckwheat with meat, naval pasta, chicken soup, sausages and salads on titanium, so the guides don’t always eat only doshiraki
They alone are guaranteed to bring home an ulcer.
61. The dining car is a separate caste. The cooks and waiters practically live in it, and at night they lie down right on the floor, because there is nowhere else. And during the day they can feed the guides at a slightly reduced price
62. Pissing and theft flourish on a cosmic scale. They steal everything from everyone, so even when leaving for 5 minutes, I locked everything with a key.
63. Guides are the place where love is. I know many couples who started dating while they were partners in train cars.
64. In theory, the conductor is obliged to provide dominoes, checkers, chess upon request, but in 3 years of work I have NEVER seen them, not in a single carriage!
65. Conductors are prohibited from transporting, much less selling, alcohol in carriages. Punishable by dismissal and blacklist
66. And most importantly, conductors are the same people as passengers. If you treat them like a human being, then your trip will be very comfortable, additional goodies are possible and a guaranteed wake-up call if you go out at night, etc.
67. I always used a little trick - when the white nights began near Murmansk, I closed the windows so that the light would not shine on the sleeping people
It didn’t take long for a cloud of gratitude to arrive 😄
68. The conductor sometimes gives out small questionnaires, asking you to fill out your first name, last name and telephone number.
This is an obligation, guys, the probability of a call to you is 1%, so it will be good if you help the conductor and fill out
69. The side of the toilet has an advantage that sometimes outweighs all the disadvantages - you are always the first to go to the toilet in the morning
70. According to corporate rules, the conductor is not allowed to discuss his work with passengers, so most conductors will not support your conversation about how bad Russian Railways are with old cars
71. Sleeping while sitting in the service compartment, because your partner sleeps in the rest compartment, and bags of laundry are the norm on the top bunk.
72. Getting sick on a flight is as easy as shelling pears, even my strongest comrades spent a week with a temperature of 38, and I had to work non-stop and sleep at night on the flights.
73. If a carriage catches fire at speed, it will burn out in 5 minutes. Observe fire safety
74. If you want to lose weight, become a guide; in 3 summers I have never lost less than 15 kg
75. There are auditors who travel with you for work, and there are auditors who simply go on vacation. The first ones are scum, the second ones are the most understanding people in the world
76. Conductors who leave the toilet dirty will be eaten by their own - because a complaint about the toilet of one ruins the bonuses of the entire staff, so I haven’t seen really disgusting dirty pushes for quite some time
77. On flights to the north, they give you a LOT of toilet paper, air fresheners, rags and paper towels, so a good half of it all gets taken home at home stations
78. The quality sector is Satan’s viceroys on earth. They make sure that the carriage is literally licked clean, they write violations for the fact that the window is cracked, or the paint on the wall has come off. As a rule, it is unrealistic to pass the quality sector without violations, and this is minus the bonus
79. If there is dripping from the ceiling in the toilet, give the conductor a whack, he didn’t make sure that when refueling the car, the hose was disconnected in time and the car was “overfilled”
80. The average sales plan for tea products per passenger is 25 rubles per person. If you carried 200 people in a reserved seat in both directions, which is quite realistic, get ready to pay 5k. Souvenirs are not taken into account here
81. The best sleep is when you have passed the day shift and can sleep at night without breaking your routine. I always worked with my best friend during the day to make sure that everything in the carriage was good and without jambs, and he kept the floors clean at night
82. I love passengers with a speaker. Although they most often listen to something old, it’s a little more fun to ride this way.
83. I can’t tell you much about two-story buildings. I only know that on the second floor the top shelf is very close to the ceiling, and the automatic coupling is simply complete, the cars kept uncoupling while moving. At the Adler depot, there were mostly two-story buildings under renovation, I don’t know why
84. What they don’t give us for sale - Swiss knives, pillows for sleeping, gold cup holders, children’s coloring books. Once we were given Altai balms for potency on a flight, and we left in an instant
85. If you’re lucky, at the end of the flight the tea products are accepted after the fact - as much as you sold, you give back as much. But it must be the top boss of the train
86. I noticed that the conductor’s level of nonsense increases in proportion to the age of the subject. Therefore, young guides can get moving, if anything)
87. A passenger carriage conductor is actually a difficult job. I know people who broke down after the first flights and went home, not caring about anything.
88. If you want to know Russia from the inside, welcome to the train! Here all the different layers of our society are discussed: from painters to customs officers of the port of Novorossiysk
89. Knowledge of foreign languages was very useful. Americans, British, Chinese, Germans, Norwegians, Greeks, Israelis regularly travel from Moscow to St. Petersburg - and he helped everyone settle down and find their place. As a reward they gave money or a souvenir - a Swiss knife
90. Despite all the difficulty and ambiguity, I really loved this job. The feeling of being needed comes almost immediately; this is one of those jobs where the result of your work is immediate. A passenger's gratitude for your work means a lot
91. Well, a little more about money. The rate of a 3rd category conductor (students) varies from 75 to 85 rubles per hour. The most interesting thing is that your working time does not include parking time. Even if it’s 2 minutes, even if it’s 40. It seems small, but over the summer you lose about 1000
92. “It must be hard for you, right, young man?” “Poor thing, how do you work here?”
People ask, as if regretting it, and after 10 minutes they throw the garbage past the trash can.
93. During work, a thermonuclear hatred of seeds develops! Lord, you start dreaming about them at some point!
Everything is in husks: the floor, shelves, carpets, windows, toilets, bed linen, it’s easier to collect a Lexus with your ass than to completely collect all the skins from the seeds on the road
94. A cool new service - take your car with you in a special trailer. I saw a fairly expensive Ferrari being loaded into Adler. Don't transport your car in a special carriage, don't.
95. Some trains have a service - a shower in the headquarters car. It costs 100-250 rubles, but the guides are clearly asked not to bathe in this shower🤔
96. Russian Railways is criticized a lot, and criticized for good reason, but it is a fact that there are more and more new cars, especially on southern routes. There is something to compare with
97. Every third conductor is a smoker. Precisely because there is simply nothing to do at large technical stations, plus the workload is such that you somehow need to relieve stress after the shift. With such guides you can smoke, tell stories and just have fun
98. At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, daylight lighting is turned on, at 19 o'clock - evening fluorescent lighting, at 23 o'clock - night lighting. Often everyone is already asleep by 9, so they complain that the conductor doesn’t want to turn off the lights. And these are just instructions according to which we work
99. Don’t be surprised by old cars if your train number starts with 4, 5 or 6. I myself saw how, to form one summer train from Adler, they pulled out a car from somewhere with broken glass in one of the compartments and on the door. It must have been cold
100. Anniversary tweet. I'm revealing another secret. In old cars, two vestibules have pockets for storing coal. The temperature there is lower than throughout the train, if you are carrying, for example, a fish from north to south, negotiate with the conductor and carry the fish in this pocket
101. In old carriages there is an absolutely amazing system: one of your choice can work: a boiler or ventilation. Some bosses force the titanium to be heated with fuel so that the fan can work at the same time. The show has begun!
102. There is always a first aid kit in the train carriage. It contains bandages, gauze, a bunch of plasters, gloves, iodine, but no medicine. It is prohibited to give yours to passengers. Therefore, always check all medications before your trip, and do not waste money on it.
103. The best shawarma I ate on the road was at the Michurinsk-Uralsky station. She's really worth the money!
104. One granny really liked the way I worked, and she decided to treat me to homemade tomatoes. Having opened the package, I saw that they were rotten through and through. Attention, of course, is nice, but not like that😂
105. The conductor is obliged to provide first aid to a passenger who becomes ill. This is specifically taught, so don’t be shy to ask for help. At the nearest large station, doctors will already come to the carriage and examine you professionally.
106. In compartment cars there are always people who love to stand in the aisle and look out the window. They do not leave even when the guide goes with a bucket to wash the floor. Guys, how can I explain to you that you are interfering?
107. The conductor is prohibited from releasing people at stations that last less than 5 minutes. Be understanding, there is no need for this “I’ll have a quick smoke.” This is a safety issue, my friends, so be patient.
108. A little more about alcohol. The conductor has the right, in principle, not to let a passenger into the carriage if, in the conductor’s opinion, he is too drunk or behaves inappropriately. Even if he had the most expensive ticket to the coolest place
109. A little about the stop valve. The conductor should release the stop valve ONLY in case of a threat to the lives of passengers. In all other cases, an act is written with a fine of about 5 thousand, plus even a minute of train downtime on the tracks costs a pretty penny.
110. The train manager gives lotteries, most often 3 pieces, they need to be sold. They are already considered to be bought by you, so your task is to sell them anyway. How? Use your wits! Didn't sell? Prepare some money
111. About breaking into a train toilet. So that you understand, the crowbar attached to the car is a huge reinforcement bar about 1.5 meters long and 2 centimeters in diameter. In principle, it’s hard to carry it, let alone throw it somewhere. This is probably why there were no experimenters
112. The ingenuity of train electricians is amazing. Often, if the air conditioning in the carriages broke down, a couple of windows in the aisle were pulled out (!!) and a crazy draft began in the carriage. Rain? Are we going north? Don't care, cover it with a sheet so the floor doesn't get wet
113. Special admiration for Pechora station when you go to Vorkuta. The orchestra at the station is amazing, it’s worth traveling so far just for it!
114. Back in the days when there weren’t so many checks, one train manager taught how to bottle chacha in 0.5 bottles for sale. The bottom line is that chacha from the south is very popular, basically, if they make fermented food in the carriages, then it is it
115. At some stations, a customs officer, or someone in civilian clothes, kindly approaches the conductors and asks about the presence of foreign citizens. For 3 years I still don’t understand why this is needed and what will happen if you answer that they exist
116. A conductor must be clean-shaven before a flight, but I couldn’t shave before one flight because the machine broke and about 2 mm of stubble appeared. Before the flight, the instructor stood next to me with a ruler, the passengers were perplexed, to put it mildly.
117. About the photo at the beginning of the post. This is the first thing I saw when I arrived at the Adler depot and entered the student dormitory in 2016. This is not a corpse, this is a student sleeping, it’s just hot in the carriage at night
Dmitry Sofyannikov, who worked for several years as a passenger train conductor, shared on Twitter with the secrets of safe and comfortable travel.
Rules you need to know
Pets can be transported in compartment cars. And everything would be fine, but I once saw how a RACCOON was carried on a leash and walked at the stations.
Dmitry Sofyannikov
1. Nobody wants to remember that the maximum weight is 36 kg for one ticket in a reserved seat, and the sum of three dimensions should not exceed 180 cm. No, you must definitely enter with 19 bags, because “I’ll sort them out somehow.”
2. If you think that no one will know about smoking in the toilet, you are mistaken. The ventilation of the carriage is designed in such a way that all the air from the vestibule, toilet and oblique corridor is drawn into the conductor's compartment.
An information sheet is issued for caught smokers. The first such sheet is a fine of 1,500 rubles, and the ticket will indicate that you are a smoker; second, they simply won’t sell you a train ticket.
Vapers are a different story. You can’t vape in the carriage, just like you can’t smoke, but there are smart people who “it’s steam, not smoke, I don’t smoke.”
3. No matter how many warnings are written, people still throw paper into the dry closet. You are ruining your own life: such a toilet cannot be repaired on the road. And so, because of one passenger, the entire carriage suffers.
By the way, you can use the toilet during sanitary zones, but only if you need to wash your face, brush your teeth or shave. The conductor is obliged to stand nearby and watch that it is not used. However, if the child is impatient, they have no right to refuse, but in this case you cannot press the flush pedal.
4. If you decide to save money and not buy bed linen, your destiny is to lie on a shelf or walk around the carriage, because you cannot use a mattress without linen.
5. And here is the terrible secret of the whole Russian Railways: you don’t have to hand over your bed linen to the conductor when you get off at your station. And the conductor cannot force you to take him a set of underwear; at most, you can be ready to go out in half an hour.
6. The conductor is prohibited from letting people off at train stops of less than five minutes. Please be understanding. There’s no need for this “I’ll have a quick smoke.” This is a security issue, so be patient.
7. You can drink vodka on trains! But don't overdo it. A passenger who appears to the conductor to be too drunk may be disembarked. He also has the right, in principle, not to allow a passenger into the carriage if, in the opinion of the conductor, he is too drunk or is behaving inappropriately. Even if he had the most expensive ticket to the coolest place.
Safety precautions to follow
Parcels cannot be sent. Not at all. Even envelopes. An FSB agent planted a dummy bomb in the vestibule of my friend, disguised as a package of pills. I almost got fired.
Dmitry Sofyannikov
8. For the love of God, don't charge your gadgets from the sockets in the carriages! Most often, the wiring on trains is so-so, and if the iPhone does not destroy all the electrics in the car, then you will definitely ruin your battery. - our everything!
Although, in fairness, it should be said that the iPhone is not so scary. That's when they insert an extension cord into an extension cord and several laptops into it - this is already dangerous. Conductors usually stop this.
9. If the carriage caught fire at speed, it would take five minutes. Observe fire safety.
10. There is always a first aid kit in the train carriage. It contains bandages, gauze, plaster, gloves, iodine, but no medicine. Therefore, always check before your trip whether you have taken all the pills you need, and do not waste money on it.
11. The conductor is obliged to provide first aid to a passenger who becomes ill. This is something they are specifically taught to do, so don’t be shy about asking. At the nearest large station, doctors will already come to the carriage and conduct a professional examination.
12. The conductor should release the stop valve only if the lives of passengers are threatened. In all other cases, a fine of about 5,000 rubles is imposed. And even a minute of train downtime on the tracks costs a pretty penny.
13. It is safe to sleep on the top bunk. To fall from it, you have to really want it. For children, ask the conductor for safety belts and lift the special iron limiter on the edge of the shelf.
14. Safety precautions are not an empty phrase. Although this is monitored, accidents occur every year with both passengers and conductors. So be careful and listen to the guide. All instructions on the railway are written in blood.
The comfort we deserve
In the summer, you can travel long distances very cheaply in good carriages. Discounts on the top bunk in a compartment are up to 50%, you can save money and save yourself from reserved seats, grannies and constant walking around the carriage.
Dmitry Sofyannikov
15. The third and fifth compartments are emergency exits; the windows there do not open. Therefore, in the summer it is unbearable there, and nothing can be done if there is no air conditioning. Keep this in mind if you are planning to travel far.
16. The air conditioning in the carriage is connected to a generator, which starts working only when the train picks up speed above 30 km/h. That is why a trip along the Black Sea coast (four hours at a speed of 30–35 km/h and stops) turned into hell.
In general, when it comes to air conditioning, the conductor is always on the side of the passengers. They are the same people who travel in the same conditions as you. If the conductor says that the air conditioner is not working, then he is not lying.
17. In new carriages the conductor has a small one. He is obliged to carry baby food in it if asked, but you can agree to put something else in it.
But in old cars there are pockets in two vestibules for storing coal. The temperature there is lower than throughout the train. If you are carrying, for example, fish, you can also negotiate with the guide.
18. The side of the toilet has an advantage that outweighs all the disadvantages - you are always the first to go to the toilet in the morning.
19. Some trains have a service - a shower in the headquarters car. Costs 100–250 rubles.
20. And most importantly: conductors are the same people as passengers. If you treat them humanely, then your trip will become more comfortable.
