Description:
Reporting to the Regional Locomotive Quality Manager, the Locomotive Field Technician is responsible for proactively supporting shop supervision and hourly employees with mechanical, electrical and onboard technology troubleshooting and repairs, and ensuring the completed work is carried out per the specified maintenance program.
The incumbent will be the primary technical subject expert to support accurate troubleshooting, guidance and expertise. The Locomotive Field Technician will work jointly with shop leadership by providing guidance on repairing locomotives and the decision-making process for shop releases based on safety, quality and reliability. This includes reviewing all inbound locomotives planned for shopping events and identifying whether those locomotives should continue operating without coming into a shop.
The incumbent will be responsible for driving key metrics, such as, but not limited to, better mean time to failure, repair plans for repeat failure locomotives as well as assisting with diagnosis for locomotive components and onboard technology.
Main Responsibilities Provide Operational Support for Locomotive Shops
- Identify and correct locomotive reliability issues through data analysis and troubleshooting, focusing on issues that hourly technicians are struggling to complete
- Establish system maintenance policies and procedures that improve reliability and availability
- Provide technical support for the locomotive shop personnel during all shifts as required
- Perform quality inspections of the work performed by hourly employees to ensure it meets all CN and regulatory standards
- Develop and issue instructions on modification programs to improve performance
- Perform investigations of locomotives and train failures as well as delays to determine root causes and recommend solutions to reduce locomotive dwell
- Coach employees on how to install, maintain, and troubleshoot mechanical, electrical and onboard technology systems on locomotives
- Act as the main mechanical technical resource for the locomotive shops covering mechanical, electrical and onboard technology
- Be proficient on Transport Canada and FRA equipment regulations
- Interact with various suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) on product specifications, product changes, technical issues, warranties and modification programs
- Act as CN Motive Power Liaison on component teardowns
Onboard Technology Support
- Provide technical support for all locomotive onboard technology repairs and/or issues
- Coach hourly installers during onboard technology pilot/prototype installations
- Guide hourly employees on how to install, maintain and troubleshoot onboard technologies including Positive Train Control
- Perform lab integration end to end testing (LIFE), field integration testing (FT), field qualification testing (FTQ) in both lab and field environment
- Own mean time to failure for scheduled and unscheduled work, and support shop operations to reduce potential misses on root causes for loco failures
Improve Locomotive Fleet Performance
- Perform root cause analysis for major delay events
- Develop proper work scopes to repair components that cause repeat issues for same or different symptoms, and work with OEM’s to support the shops
- Own mean time to failure for scheduled and unscheduled work, and support shop operations to reduce potential misses on root causes for loco failures
- Perform triage process for inbound line up to reduce dwell for both scheduled and unscheduled work by using remote diagnostic tools such as Wi-tronix, EOA and Uptime
- Deploy to other shop locations and regions (on call) as directed to help troubleshoot and reduce dwell
- Conduct supplier and OEM audits
- Perform train ride audits to monitor and improve performance of locomotives
Working Conditions
Must be available to travel to locations needing assistance. This will be one of the critical duties, especially during periods of unacceptable operational fluidity (13% defective), for teardowns, overload assistance, training or coaching. Weekend, afternoon and/or night shifts are all possible.
Requirements Experience
Railway operations
- Minimum 2 years of railway operations experience, and/or working with heavy rail equipment
- Experience with Wabtec I-ETMS