Ron in Aus

Hi.

I am from the UK, where I worked on the rail infrastructure. I am now in Adelaide, working on the rail renewals project as a Technical Advisor.

I am also studying GPS/GIS Surveying and Civil Engineering (Drafting, Site Surveying) at Technician level (2 years left till I complete).

We want to move to Canada in about two years time and as the skills that I am learning can be used in the Oil/Gas Sands.
I was wondering if anybody on this forum worked in this industry.

We have the usual questions (already been through this once with the move to Australia), wages in comparison to standard of living, areas to live in, employers to approach etc.

Any info would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

Ronnie.

Judy in Calgary

Two words.

Fort McMurray.

Do a search here for McMurray, as this will bring up previous posts about Fort McMurray as well as those about Ft McMurray and Ft. McMurray.

Wages are reported to be very good in Fort McMurray. The problem is that accommodation is very expensive too. Besides that, it's one of those remote locations from which one feels the need to escape with some regularity. So there's a great temptation to blow the money that you earn there.

If you're set on going there, I've heard that Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is a good company to work for.

Ron in Aus

Thanks for the quick reply.

Fort McMurray sound a little like Karratha WA. A place in the middle of nowhere, built purposely to accomodate mining staff, where house prices are astronomical.

Thanks for the information. I will Google FM and Can,NR.

Ron in Aus

I have been reminded by my wife that I shouldn't limit my work choices.

I am a Technical Officer in the rail industry. I mentioned the Oil/Gas as this is more prominent and I can transfer my skills.

If anyone has any info regarding rail projects/companies then that would also be very helpful.

I dont like emoticons, but sometimes they say a thousand words.

comet555

Not sure why you'd want to move from Adelaide to Fort McMurray area. There are mines and engineering projects around Adelaide (or based out of) that you could work at.

To me, it just doesn't make sense. We lived in Fort McMurray for 5 years and have come to Australia because there's more work opportunites for my husband (mining engineer). There are lots of places here with mines. Why not try the Hunter Valley region in New South Wales? There are heaps of coal mines there.

scottymallo

Ron, i am a uk citizen now living in Canada. Im still trying to gain work in oil sands no look so far plus i have 8 years oil and gas experience in the uk.
Most qualifications gained outside of Canada are useless. When it come to the canadian oil and gas industry. Might be better of stay in Oz

comet555

If your wife wants to know what it's like to have a husband that works in Fort McMurray she can talk to me! You can PM me if you want to email or even call me in Brisbane.

Let's just say Fort McMurray was a good opportunity for us when we finished university. But we had absolutely no quality of life because we had a huge mortgage and I had a husband who had to work ALL the time. I'm not saying Fort McMurray is a bad place, because it's not. It certainly doesn't deserve the reputation it has gotten. But for us it was too far away from civilization (4.5 hours from Edmonton), and we made lots of money but had no time to do anything with it.

Just my 2 cents. Also, you should remember that the average cost of houses is now $630,000 CAD for a single family house. And that's just for an "average" house.

Here's a link for more info:
http://www.woodbuffalo.net/AboutCostHouse.html

There's lots of info on that site as well if you look around for it.

The last thing I'm going to say is that in my experience the ones who love Fort McMurray and think it's a great place are usually the ones who arrives at least 5 or more years ago. If you got in before the housing prices went absolutely crazy then you quality of life would be better because you didn't have to pay a gigantic mortage.

Ron in Aus

Thanks for the information.

Its a lot to take in.

As for Australia. It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.



Does anyone have info on the rail infrastructure?

comet555

What kind of rail infrastructure?

There are no passenger trains running between Fort McMurray, Edmonton or Calgary. There might be freight lines but I don't really know.

There is a train line running East-West across the country for passengers and freight. But within Alberta it's pretty much all buses for people.

comet555

My suggestion, if you want to get into mining look elsewhere in Australia. It's booming here right now and there are lots of places to go.

If you want to move to Canada, your skills can be used away from the mine. So why not choose another area that would suit you better and see if you can work there.

Ron in Aus

Thanks Comet.

My first trade is rail renewal projects.

I just wanted to look at other industries in case I had to change-or if change was more financially viable.

ps. Just read on the news that a worker from Queensland has died in an accident at Moomba-where I used to work.

Judy in Calgary

A useful series of Wiki articles here in the Canada section of the BE website are the ones about job hunting in Canada.

At this early stage of your research, a helpful article from that series would be the one entitled Finding Job Opportunities.

There you find a link to the Canadian Company Capabilities (CCC) website.

I go to that website, and I do a search for the word "railway." I get a whole bunch of links. I scroll down the screen, and I spot a link to Railway Association of Canada (RAC). That catches my attention. I know, from having done these kinds of searches before, that any corporate player worth mentioning is likely to belong to an association that serves the relevant industry.

I click on the link, see some perfunctory information about the association, and zero in on the link to its own website. Once I'm on the RAC's home page, I see a link to Careers on Track. I fossick around this website, and I find out that the two major freight railway companies in Canada are Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), while the major inter-city passenger railway company is VIA Rail Canada. (Well, as a 30 year resident of Canada, I know those companies' names, but I'm demonstrating that a person who doesn't know would be able to find out.) The Careers on Track website also tells me the kinds of jobs that are available with railway companies.

I don't know what a technical officer is. I don't know if a person in an equivalent job in Canada would work directly for a railway company or for a company that serves the railway industry.

So I return to the results of my search for "railway" on the CCC website. I see the names of several companies that manufacture components for the railway industry or provide this or that service to the railway industry. There are links to their websites. You're welcome to look at each company's website if you think it would be helpful.

As I look down this list, however, I spot another association. As I've told you, association websites have been useful to me in the past, so I want to check this one out as well. This one is called The Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers (CARS), and I click on the link to its website. One of the pages on that website, which seems to yield very useful information, is the Railway Supplier Directory. It lists the companies that are members of this association, and it provides links to their websites.

I'm explaining all this, because you can use the same methodology to research any industry in Canada.

I recommend that you carry on beyond the research into companies that are involved in your field of interest, and read all the Wiki articles in the series on job hunting in Canada.

But, even before you do that, I recommend that you read the Wiki article called Idiot's Guide to Canadian Immigration.

Hope that helps.

Hmmm ... just before I posted this message, I previewed it. At that point I saw that you had clarified that you worked in rail renewal projects. If I had known that before I typed the above information, I might have tweaked what I said. However, I think what I told you will have given you a general idea of how to go about this research.

Please let me emphasize once again the criticality of the Idiot's Guide to Canadian Immigration, with special attention on the section entitled Not just any job.

Ron in Aus

Judy.

Fantastic, thanks for taking the time, and thanks for the job searching lesson.

I am actually Pway orientated.

I have already searched the internet for this kind of work. I just wondered if anyone working in this industry would have knowledge of upcoming major projects,ie, is Toronto getting re-railed, or Calgary rail being re-newed in the next two years for instance.

Ronnie.

Judy in Calgary

I don't know about future plans for other Canadian cities' transit systems, but I do know a bit about plans for Calgary's transit system.

This city's commuter train is called the LRT (I'm sure you know that stands for Light Rail Transit) or the C-Train. (The terms are used interchangeably.)

When the LRT tracks are viewed on a map of Calgary, they form a rough Y. The northwest line of the LRT system currently is being extended to what will be Crowfoot Station.

The city is experiencing rapid population growth. There always is talk of expansion of the existing three lines as well as potential construction of new lines.

A good starting point for your research would be the Calgary Transit website.

A Google search for RAIL + PROJECT + CANADA brought up a website about a proposed Alaska - Yukon - British Columbia rail link. The beauty of these kinds of announcements is that they often mention a key person and/or company. In this case, for example, the website states, "ACRL [Alaska Canada Rail Link] Project Manager Kells Boland - a Calgary-based consultant with PROLOG Canada Inc. - oversaw both the Alaska and Yukon sides of the initiative."

I do a Google search for Prolog, and I find that, "PROLOG is a Calgary-based transportation and logistics consulting firm that spans all the passenger and cargo modes – rail, air, marine, highway, pipeline."

I've never heard of them before. My being in Calgary gives me no particular advantage in this case. It was Google that gave me this information.

If you want people to spot your question about railway projects, there might be merit in starting a new thread. It may not be intuitively obvious to people that a thread about oil sands has a question about railways embedded in it.

A correctly titled thread may improve your chances of getting good answers, but asking questions on a rather general website, like this one, can be a bit hit and miss.

If I were you, I would sieze the one relevant name I already have. I would pick up the phone, and I would call Kells Boland of Prolog. A five minute conversation with him is likely to do you more good than hours of forum participation. The Wiki article on Networking will explain why.

By the way, I didn't have the foggiest clue what Pway meant. I did a Google search for PWAY + ACRONYM. I found one website that stated that it stood for Permanent Way, and was related to track, ballast, etc. Please read point #10 in the Asking Questions section of the Wiki called Tips on using the forum.

Anyway, I hope the additional information has been helpful.

Ron in Aus

Judy.

I can't thank you enough.

It's wonderful that people take the time out to help others.

Thanks again.

Ronnie.