Smoking the Weeds

For two summers during college I worked for a company called Right-A-Way Applicators; the company does contract vegetation control for railroads, primarily BNSF, Union Pacific, and a handful of shortlines. It was a pretty good summer job but I never saw myself coming back after school.

But then I got furloughed from the railroad.

Luckily the recession doesn't affect weed growth and for safety reasons the railroads still need those weeds smoked, so RAW is actually in need of people, so I'm going back to finish out the rest of the season spraying weeds. This will put me on the road for four to five weeks at a time. I'm away from home, but I do get to do some traveling which is nice, not to mention my hotel and meals are all fully paid for!

What entails railroad vegetation control? A few things. There is the "on-track" spraying and the "off-track" spraying. If you haven't figured it out, on-track spraying means spraying everything with tracks. This is accomplished by a custom built hi-rail truck with a 750 gallon tank and a variety of spray nozzles and boom options. Off-track spraying is all other railroad property, such as parking lots, material piles, roads, and buildings. This is done mainly with a pickup outfitted with a tank and booms. In addition is a hand-held sprayer for those places you can't get to with the truck.

Before I can officially go back to weed spraying I have to retake the test to acquire my commercial applicator's license, which I will be doing tomorrow. It shouldn't be a problem, the North Dakota test is open book and not too hard to figure out. Then Wednesday morning it's off to the spray site.

Another summer smoking the weeds.