My youngest son, now 53, worked as a dispatcher for a small railroad in Coopertown, New York for a couple of years. He then got a job working as a dispatcher for Conrail in Selkirk, NY. He stayed with it for about 8 years, but left when they merged with Norfolk Southern and CSX. Although he loved trains, he just couldn't see himself working that job for the rest of his life. It was too stressful, especially after the merger.
I was 22 miles west of Cu Chi. I was an air traffic controller. Pretty stressful too, but not like those guys out in the field.
I was a healthy/dumb teenager, and working on the railroads as a brakeman and a conductor was interesting work.
It could have been a disaster if one was married. Most of the brakemen and conductors were on their 2nd or 3rd marriage.
I was considered a Nam era vet, and I never got near Nam. The closest was on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal for a few days. I was ground zero in the Cuban Missile crisis and in out of there for 2 years.
My joke/reality, I was in more danger as a reserve in the mid to late 1960’s in the DC area with all the hate the military bs. We didn’t wear our uniforms the last 2+ years to meetings nor on our 2 week active duty each year.
Your brother and my younger BIL who served in Nam/Country were the real vets.
Apparently, all most all of our railroads are now basically one railroad.