Where the Rails Meet the Sea

Whittier, Alaska, is a unique town for a variety of reasons. It is only accessible through a railroad tunnel, which has had the tracks embedded in concrete, making it possible to drive a highway vehicle through. Whittier has about 180 residents, nearly all of whom live in the same building. Whittier is also the only interchange point on the Alaska Railroad.

The Alaska Railroad has no direct rail connection to any other railroad in North America, making the interchange of railroad cars more challenging. Whittier is a port town, and the railroad maintains a barge slip there which is utilized for interchange operations. Alaska Marine Lines owns three barges, Whittier Provider, Anchorage Provider, and Fairbanks Provider. Each barge has eight tracks on the deck. They also have stantions to support shipping containers above the deck, high enough to clear most rail cars. Each track on the barge is over 400 feet long, making it possible to ship more than 40 freight cars on each barge. Approximately 5,000 tons of cargo can be hauled in the rail cars. The barges which carry rail cars also carry shipping containers above the rail cars. Approximately 10,000 tons of cargo can be moved in containers on each barge.

In Seattle, Washington, the Alaska Railroad maintains another barge slip, which is the other terminal for railroad barge operations. In Seattle, cars are loaded and unloaded from the barges by the Union Pacific Railroad. From there, they can go anywhere in North America.

Besides the barges operated by Alaska Marine Lines, the Canadian National Railway built another similar barge, called AquaTrain. They operated that barge for a long time, but more recently it was sold to Foss Marine, and they currently operate it.  It also has eight tracks, although only six tracks go to the end of the barge. There are two switches on the barge to access the two shortest track. The AquaTrain also has no container loading capacity. It operates between Whittier and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. In Prince Rupert, rail cars are loaded and unloaded by Canadian National.

The barges which connect the Alaska Railroad to the rest of North America are all large, ocean going barges. The tugboats that tow them are less specialized than the barges, but are also large, ocean going vessels. The three Alaska Marine Lines barges operate on a rotating schedule, with weekly departures from both Whittier and Seattle. The AquaTrain simply ferries cars back and forth between Whittier and Prince Rupert. A trip between Whittier and Seattle typically takes about a week in good weather. In the winter, when the weather is less cooperative, it is not uncommon for those trips to stretch out to ten days, and occasionally to two weeks. The trip to Prince Rupert is typically about two days shorter.

The railroad and the barges operate 24 hours a day, and in all weather. Usually the weather in Whittier is rainy and windy, but whenever the barge arrives, it gets unloaded. The quicker it can get unloaded, loaded, and out of port, the more money it can make. The sooner foreign rail cars get off the Alaska Railroad, the sooner the railroad can stop paying the per diem for them.

When a barge is expected in Whittier, a train leaves Anchorage to meet it. It is about a two hour train trip to Whittier usually. Often the trip is planned so that the train gets to Whittier ahead of the barge enough to get things switched out and organized before the barge gets there, so that everything is ready to go when the barge arrives. Typically, about half of the train consists of cars that are going on the barge, and the other half is mostly intermodal flat cars that haul shipping containers. When the train arrives in Whittier, it must be split up to fit in the yard. The flat cars all get put in places where the longshoremen can unload the containers that were brought in.  The containers usually get stacked up around the yard, where they will be out of the way. Many of them are empty, since Alaska does not export many containerized products. During some parts of the year, there can be refrigerated containers full of fish, destined for cities all over North America. The remaining cars on the train typically get placed on one or two tracks on Whittier yard, wherever they will fit. Once all the cars are out of the way, it is time to unload the barge.

Before unloading the barge, the train crew, barge crew, and several managers meet together in a little shack near the dock. Besides getting out of the rain for a few minutes, there is a lengthy discussion about the logistics of unloading the barge. Concerns such as heavy cars, long cars, or wide cars are brought up. Tide information is referenced to make plans, since unloading can only occur during certain tidal conditions. Once all the questions are answered, a plan is made, and the meeting adjourns. Everyone working on the barge and slip area gets a hard hat and a self inflating life preserver. The goal is to stay out of the water, but better safe than sorry.

When unloading begins, the conductor usually goes on the barge. The stevedores unlash all the cars, and once unlashed, the engine is coupled to the car at the stern. The conductor releases all the hand brakes, except the one at the stern. At the bow, the cars are typically coupled to a large steel block, called the headblock, which is welded to both the deck and the bulkhead at the bow. The conductor uncouples the cars from the headblock, and then instructs the brakeman to release the handbrake at the stern and pull the cars. The cars are pulled off the barge at walking speed or less, and up the slip. The process is repeated for each track.

The barge has eight tracks, but the slip only has three. Because of this, the barge must be moved several times during the unloading process. When in port, the barge is tied to several hydraulic winches, which allow the crew to reposition the barge to access other tracks. The tug stays lashed to the port side of the barge, though it is rarely called upon to provide assistance in moving the barge. Unloading is planned to coordinate with the tide, weight of the cars, and balancing the barge. The barge has large ballast tanks, which can be filled with seawater to offset uneven loading and unloading, but balance must still be taken into consideration. At times when the tide may get too high or too low to use the slip, the order of unloading can be used to cause the barge to lean to one side or the other, which can be used to help offset tidal changes.

After the rail cars are off the barge, forklifts are brought onto the barge and the load of containers are unloaded. These containers are loaded onto the now empty flat cars that were spotted all over the yard earlier. Usually there are far more containers than there empty flat cars though, so some of the containers get staged out of the way in the yard until more flat cars arrive. The containers that were brought to Whittier on the train are then loaded on the barge.

Usually by the time the barge has been unloaded, the train crew no longer has time left to work. Between the trip to Whittier from Anchorage, the switching before the barge operations, and then the barge operations, 12 hours can be used up easily. The crew goes to a hotel in Whittier to get some rest. While that crew is resting, another train arrives from Anchorage. It is similar to the first, and is about half flat cars and half interchange cars. The crew that brings that train into Whittier spends several hours switching in Whittier. They get all the newly loaded flat cars together again, as well as the cars that arrived on the barge. They spot more container flat cars, and usually a few more cars that need to go on the barge for the other crew to load later. Usually they cannot take all the cars that came off the barge, because a train of that length, plus all the flat cars, cannot be assembled between the yard and the tunnel to leave town. Some of the offloaded interchange cars remain behind, but all the flat cars are taken out of Whittier, back to Anchorage.

The longshoremen spend the time loading the barge with the containers that arrived from Anchorage on the two trains. They are less affected by the tide since their vehicles are on tires and are not coupled together, and so they work while the train crew rests. The goal is to have all the containers in place and secured by the time the train crew comes back on duty to load the barge.

When the first crew is rested, they go back on duty to load the barge. That shift usually starts with some switching, after the conductor and the barge crew chat for a few minutes about the placement of cars in the barge. The idea is to put the cars in an order that makes sense, so that each track on the barge only needs to be accessed one time during the whole operation. Once the interchange cars are put in an order that will work, everyone meets in the shack to go over the plans for the day. This meeting is very similar to the one held prior to unloading the barge, and many of the same topics are covered again, including the tide, the weather, car weights, and the order of loading. Once all the questions are answered and a plan is developed, everyone gets on their hard hats and life preservers again and goes to work.

Once again, the conductor works on the barge, and the brakeman on the slip. The brakeman gets the train to the barge, and then the conductor controls the movement on the barge. The train is brought to a stop one car length away from the headblock. At that point, the conductor places the last car in emergency and secures the hand brake. This gives the engineer something to push against, particularly when the tide is low and the slip is downhill towards the barge. Once the brakes are applied on the last car, the conductor gently couples the car to the headblock. Stopping one car length away from the headblock helps ensure that this happens gently. Coupling too hard to the headblock can potentially move the barge. Since the slip rests on the stern of the barge, too much movement could cause the slip to slide off the barge, opening up a space through which rail cars could fall into the ocean. Fortunately, this is extremely rare, because everyone is very careful when working on the barge! Once the cars are securely coupled to the headblock, the brakeman secures the hand brake on the car on the stern, and then uncouples the rest of the train. The stevedores lash the cars down, and when they are done, the same process happens again on another track.

Once the barge is loaded, the train crew puts together all the flat cars that remain, and any leftover interchange cars that were unloaded previously. Usually there are a few that the other crew was unable to take with them. The whole train gets an air test and then heads for Anchorage. In Anchorage, the crew will bring the train into the yard, where it will usually fill one of the longer tracks. They go home, and the yard crews break the train up, and prepares all the freight to head to different destinations all over Alaska.

Prototype Railroading: Switching

As many of you are already aware, I spend a lot of my time on freight trains, operating between Glendive, MT, and Fosyth, MT.  The trains run much larger routes than that, but most of the Conductors in Glendive work on the West Pool, which is the Forsyth run.  We also have a Helper Pool in Glendive, on which Engineers and Conductors operate east, on a helper engine, pushing heavy trains up the grades in eastern Montana and western North Dakota.  The Helper Pool is one of the most preferred jobs in Glendive, and therefore it takes quite a bit of seniority to be on that pool.  Besides that there are a few yard jobs.  For the past two months, I was working on the west pool.  Eventually, I was bumped off o that by someone with more seniority, so I went to the Conductor's Extra Board.  An extra board is exactly what it sounds like.  Unlike the pool jobs, someone on the extra board is not permanently assigned to a regular job.  Instead they work on any job they are qualified for which has a vacancy. If a Conductor calls in sick on the West Pool, then someone from the Conductor's Extra Board gets called to fill in.  Because most of our crews are on the West Pool, most of the Conductors on the extra board get called to go to Forsyth.

A couple of weeks ago, I got bumped off of the extra board.  There were openings on the west pool, to Forsyth, but I really was getting tired of going to Forsyth.  So I decided to put myself on the Brakeman's Extra Board.  I am still certified as a Conductor, but as long as I am on the Brakeman's extra board, I can only work in positions a brakeman would be qualified for, unless there are no available Conductors available. Brakemen can work on yard jobs, work trains, any train that has a Brakeman, and as a Conductor on the helper runs.  Technically, the Conductors on the helpers are actually Brakemen earning Conductor's wages.  Since I went on the Brakeman's extra board, I got called to Forsyth once, due to no available Conductors in Glendive.  Other than that, I have primarily been working on the helpers.

On Sunday, I got a surprise though.  There were several helpers that needed to be covered early Sunday morning, after I was rested.  So I went to bed Saturday evening, figuring the phone would ring and I would get called for work at about 3:30am.  During those hours when I was asleep, trains got delayed, and those helpers were delayed.  Instead, the phone rang at 5:30am, and I was called to be the Switch Foreman, in Glendive yard.  The normal foreman is away on vacation, but there were still trains that needed to be put together and cars to deliver to local industries, so someone needed to cover the job, and that someone was to be me.

The Switch Foreman is basically responsible for the yard.  Some trains pick up cars before leaving Glendive, and others set out cars upon arrival.  It is the duty of the switch crew to make sure that happens, and to make sure the right cars are set out and picked up.  When the trains are all made up and ready to go, cars have to be delivered and picked up from local industries, and cars have to be interchanged with a nearby short line railroad, the Yellowstone Valley Railroad, or YSVR.  It is a long day, and it is pretty intense, because the foreman has to know where everything is going and then direct others in the crew to put things together properly.  If everything goes well, trains get out on time and the yard empties out.

I started my day by freaking out just a little.  I had never worked on the switch crew, and I certainly had never been the Switch Foreman, so while I knew the responsibilities, I had no idea how to figure out what to do.  Once I got into work, I went on the computer and printed out a list of all the cars on every track.  That showed where each car was located, what was in it, where it was going, and which train was taking it there.  The next thing was to sit down and make a plan.  Part of that involved talking to the Trainmaster about what he wanted done first.  The next step is to go out to the yard and get to work.  We located the switch engines, and got to work.  The first step was to put 19 rock cars on an eastbound train, which was already sitting in the yard and scheduled to depart an hour later.  Once that was done, we started pulling apart cuts of cars on other tracks and putting the cars in different blocks on several tracks, arranging them by their destination and train assignment.  It sounds simple enough, but sometimes in a block of cars, you have one car, right in the middle, in the wrong place, so it takes some time to pull the block of cars apart and get the car out.  There is a lot of thinking ahead, so that you do not create more work for yourself.  For example, when we started, the switch engines were coupled to some cars that we were not even going to touch until later that afternoon.  However, since the engines were already coupled, and we had to pull them out anyway, we moved those cars onto the track we wanted them on.  Then, later in the afternoon, they were out of the way for building another train.  We did not have to come back to them and move them, we could just begin working that track.

The day went well.  We spent most of it outdoors, moving railroad cars.  We got all the trains out on time, and we were able to get a few things ready for Monday.  I knew they would not be calling me back for that on Monday, because I had already worked six days, and was due for two off.  By the end of the day, I was completely exhausted.  I had walked several miles, handled countless railroad cars, built two complete trains, assembled pick ups for two others, and got one ready to be brought to the YSVR on Monday.  By the end of the day, it seemed that whenever I closed my eyes, all I saw was railroad cars.  That night, I woke up, sitting up in bed, trying to explain a switching move.  Weird stuff happens after intense days like that!

The scariest thing that happened all day-they gave me a trainee.  Once again, that was the first time I had ever worked on that job.

Prototype Railroading: Around the Yard

For the past week and a half, I have been on various yard assignments in Glendive.  I started out on the night Utility, from 11:00pm to 7:00am.  That one gets difficult around 3:00am, because there is nobody around and nothing going on, and it is the middle of the night, and despite sitting in a train station, your body is still telling you it is time to sleep.  I was supposed to do that for all of last week, but then something opened up on the Switch Crew for the end of the week.  I did that for the second half of last week.  This week, I have been back on Utility, but in the mornings.  Glendive yard is fairly small, it has a capacity for only a couple thousand rail cars, but there is also a moderately sized diesel servicing facility here.  Because of that, many trains have their engines serviced or changed when they arrive here.  Even if a train has no cars to switch out in Glendive, almost every train needs something done with the locomotives.  That is what keeps the Utility people busy.

In Glendive, there is a Utility crew on duty 24 hours a day, and every single day of the year.  Their job is to help out around the yard.  They are not allowed to handle cars though.  Most often, helping out around the yard consists of removing locomotives from inbound trains and running them to the roundhouse for servicing.  Once locomotives have been serviced, the Utility crew picks them up at the roundhouse and puts them on the train.  Other yard duties can include lining switches for incoming trains, helping the switch crew, changing air hose gaskets, installing and arming FRED's, walking inspections and air brake tests of trains, and just about anything else that someone would like help with in the yard.  Sometimes, the Utility crew stays very busy, and has something to do for the entire shift.  Other times, there is very little to do, and the Utility crew sits around for most of the eight hours.  Because of the possibility that someone may need the Utility crew, there must be one on duty at all times.

The Switch Crew is a little different.  Their primary responsibility is to move cars around.  They move them around the yard, and they also pick up and drop off cars at the local industries in the area.  They assemble trains from cars that arrive from industries, and take cars going to industries off of trains.  They basically run the yard.  When a train comes in and has cars destined for Glendive, it is up to the Switch Crew where those cars go in the yard, and how they get to the local industry.  The Switch Crew is also responsible for delivering defective cars to the roundhouse for repairs.  Because Glendive is a fairly small yard, there is not always a Switch Crew on duty.  A Switch Crew is on duty from 7:00am to 7:00pm, every day except Saturday.  Occasionally, if a train is coming in with a lot of cars for Glendive at a time when there is no Switch Crew on duty, the Trainmaster may call an extra Switch Crew to help out, but that is not very common.  More often than not, when a train comes in with work in Glendive, and no Switch Crew is on duty, Utility is expected to help the train crew switch the cars out.  That usually works pretty well.

The Glendive yard basically has two areas.  The first is the yard.  That consists of a main track and nine yard tracks.  The dispatchers have control over the main track and tracks one through three.  That means when a train comes in, the dispatchers can assign it to any of those four tracks for the crew change.  The Switch Crew is responsible for tracks four through nine.  Since tracks four and five are pretty long, the Switch Crew will often give those to the dispatcher if they are not needed for switching.  That gives the dispatcher a little more room to work with as trains come in.  If the Switch Crew needs those tracks for switching, then the dispatcher just has to work with the four they have.  Beyond nine track is a track called the runaround.  This allows trains to get from one end of the yard to the other without having to go through one of the sidings.  This is primarily used by locomotives going to and from the roundhouse.

The roundhouse is a building in the Glendive yard, but additionally, it is the entire servicing facility.  While technically, the roundhouse is a diesel locomotive maintenance building, people often refer to the entire servicing area as "the roundhouse."  In that case, the roundhouse includes the actual roundhouse, the fuel tracks, the reliability center, the sand tracks, the ready tracks, and the RIP tracks.  The roundhouse building is where extensive repairs are done.  This is where locomotives are overhauled or major components are rebuilt.

The fueling area, or the service tracks are where locomotives have basic maintenance done.  This is where locomotives are fueled, sand is added, and other basic repairs are made.  This is where windshield wipers are replaced, light bulbs changed, septic systems are emptied, and inspections are completed.  Most locomotives spend no more than an hour on the fuel tracks.  Once servicing is complete, locomotives go back on trains.  If the train is in town, they locomotives go from the fuel tracks directly to the train.  If the train is not in town, they go to the ready tracks and wait.  Usually when the locomotives are taken off a train, even just for fuel, the train gets locomotives that are already serviced and fueled, while its original locomotives go out on a later train.  That helps to keep everything moving better.

The reliability center, which is right next to the fuel tracks, is a bit of a mystery.  Periodically we see locomotives enter the building, the doors close, and several hours later they emerge from the other end.  I think that is where wheels are adjusted and trued, but I am honestly not sure.  The RIP tracks, which are behind the roundhouse, is just for rail cars.  No locomotives are repaired back there.  Cars that come in with defects are sent to the RIP tracks.  RIP stands for repair in place.  The cars are repaired by roundhouse personnel and then put on another train when they are ready to go.  The defects can be small, such as a flat spot on a wheel or a sticking brake, of they can be large.  There is one car sitting back there which has a broken frame.  The car owner wants it fixed, but the railroad does not see how it is practical.  The entire car was pulled in half, and the frame is torn all the way across the car.  It is a wonder that it is not in two pieces.  The coupler and a couple of ladder rungs are holding the car together.

Despit being a small yard, Glendive stays pretty busy.  This is the biggest locomotive servicing facility in the area, so locomotives are sent here from other places throughout Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota.  The yard also stays busy with cars for several local industries and a short line railroad nearby.