Norfolk Southern Reviews in Roanoke, VA Area

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern as an intern for less than a year

Pros – The people are amazing. They are nice and helpful. It felt like a family.
They allow you to work on a lot of different things so you can learn as much as possible in your time there.
Always willing to help and answer questions.

Cons – They don't have an intern "program" so sometimes it takes a while to find a project for you to work on.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Health Insurance was good for the first few years when we had no co pay, then we started paying 300+ a month for it. Descent pay check ,

Cons – Worked on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, all weekends and holiday's, with no extra pay for working holiday. No time at all for family, they called you back to work after 10 hours rest, and you spent from 36 to 40 hours gone at a time. 120+ days a year in a hotel room. No where near enough pay for every thing you sacrifice. They always find a way to beat you out of your bonus's and you never got a pat on the back for working your hind end off. Always hiding in the bushes trying to catch you breaking a rule. Management at the local level was terrible. Twelve years of this and I called it quits!

Advice to Senior Management – Give a fellow a Pat on the back once in a while, all we ever get is the negative. The only time you see a Supervisor was to tell you how you needed to do more and do better. Hire people in management that have a clue, the college grads you hire right out of college know nothing about the railroad, and they are suppose to be able to help you and 99% of the time I had forgotten more than they even knew about railroading!!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – This company offers good benefits/retirement.

Cons – Extremely long work hours with very little time off.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern

Pros – Benefits, pay, vacation, stable work.

Cons – Some clerical personnel are very lackadaisical and to stuff on their own time.

Advice to Senior Management – Take care of the people that do their jobs and find new people to replace the ones that don't.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern

Pros – It's a stable, profitable company with tremendous career potential, good pay, and great benefits. The retirement plan is excellent (Railroad Retirement is better funded and more secure than Social Security, and the 401K plan has many good options all of which receive 30% immediate employer matching). They are also the safest railroad to work at, with all departments maintaining a safety focus at all times.

Cons – For some employees, including unionized clerical workers like me, there remains a private life outside of work. However, for NS and most railroads, the general attitude is to have as few employees as possible. They will overload you with work and expect you to get it all done even if you stay late consistently and/or work weekends. The company also has not yet adopted a progressive, team-based model of business; it retains a very heirarchical, structured, individualistic approach to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Money isn't everything when it comes to job satisfaction. Compensation should be connected to performance, but employees who have lives outside of work (especially families) should be given opportunities and treated with respect. Also, NS is missing out on many other intrinsic rewards that could be attained with a more team-based model of business.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend