Today, air travel has changed how railroad officers travel, but it has not completely eliminated the need for officers to occasionally travel by rail. Many years ago, when railroads ran both freight and passenger traffic, company officers used a mix of special cars, reserved just for company officers, and other passenger cars, which also saw revenue passenger service. Today, very few railroads run both passenger and freight trains, yet many railroads continue to maintain a fleet of passenger cars, just for moving the company officers around. The BNSF Railway is no exception, and maintains a fleet of about 30 passenger cars, typically used on officers' trains.
Today, Glendive was privileged, or plagued, depending on your perspective, to a visit from an officers' train. The train originated in Whitefish, MT, last night, and traveled east to Glendive overnight and through the morning. In Glendive, the train picked up the officers, turned around, and headed west again, destined for Seattle, WA. Typically, despite not earning a single cent, officer special trains are considered the most important train on the railroad, and the dispatching team does their best to make sure that nothing gets in the way. Of course, for all their planning, sometimes unexpected things happen, and they just have to try to minimize the delay.
Today, while this officer train was out and about, I was also out and about, but I was on a coal train. By comparison, a coal train was a very low priority. When there is an officer train, the dispatchers like to get any other trains out of the way well in advance, just in case anything does happen. This was the case with the coal train I was on. I was headed east, from Forsyth to Glendive. The officer train was following, several hours behind. As the officer train got close to Forsyth, we were put in a siding to wait. We waited, and waited, and waited even more. Finally, after just over five hours of sitting, the officer train finally came along. It sped past us, and then we were given a track warrant, and we continued east, following the officer train.
As we continued east, we heard the officer train get a track warrant to Glendive. It was able to get there from Forsyth in about three hours, without stopping once, despite even a broken rail earlier that morning. Everything on the line was put in a siding to let that train by, and nothing moved until after it had passed, regardless of how long everything else had to wait. As we got going, we were not as fortunate as the officer train, and we did not go directly to Glendive. We went to Colgate siding, just a few miles outside of Glendive, and there we waited again. By the time we stopped to wait in Colgate, the officer train was sitting on the main track in Glendive, just waiting for the officers to board. Once they were on, ready to go, and enjoying the comforts of their own train, the crew could set about turning the train around to head west.
There is a wye at the west end of Glendive. A wye is a triangular track arrangement in which a train can back down one leg, head forward out the other leg, and then be facing in the opposite direction when it leaves the wye. Once the big shots were comfortable on the officer train, the crew backed it down the main track to the wye, and headed up one leg. Once clear of the switch at the end, they headed forward out the other side of the wye, to the west, and back towards us, waiting at Colgate. Just as before, everything on the railroad had come to a stop to wait for the officer special to get through. We had hit the timing just right that we got to wait for the same train twice! Once again, as soon as the officer special was by us, this time heading west, we got a track warrant, and we continued east. It was a good thing we were in Colgate though, because by the time we were able to leave there, we only had about 30 minutes left to work! We headed into Glendive, and put the coal train on the main track, and then called it a day!
My conclusion about officer trains is that they are a trial in patience for anyone who has to work around them!
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