Career Change

First of all, I must apologize for our recent silence. There has been a big change in my life, which has kept me off the network, so to speak, for the last several weeks. This should not affect operations on our blog, although the content may change slightly as a result, as I'll explain later.

Several weeks ago, we posted a photo of the Alaska Railroad depot, in Anchorage, as our "Photo of the Week." That photo was actually taken just a couple of days before it was posted. I had flown up to Anchorage for a job interview with the Alaska Railroad, and despite it being a very short trip, I did have a little time, after the interview process, to go downtown and see some of the sights.

The interview process at the Alaska Railroad was similar to the BNSF, but far more relaxed. For one thing, there were only nine people there, instead of well over 100. The first thing they had us do was take a reading comprehension test, which took four minutes. After that, there was some down time and the nine of us chatted a bit. The next step was a physical strength test. I was not quite sure what to expect for that, because on BNSF they had sent us to a physical therapy office for that, where they had connected us to machines and had us do different exercises. As it turned it, the Alaska Railroad application of that test was a little more local. They took us out behind the yard office and showed us how to line a switch, then had each of us take a turn at it. They did likewise for tying and untying hand brakes, lacing and unlacing air hoses, and climbing on and off cars. We each had to take turns doing that. They also had us lift and set down a knuckle, and we all had to climb on a car and hang on for ten minutes. Everyone passed the strength test as far as I know, and interviews were scheduled for after lunch. After the interviews, they told us they would be making calls to those who got the job early the following week. At that point, I decided to do a little sightseeing downtown. Early the next day, I flew back to Montana, and went back to work.

The following Monday, my two weeks of vacation started. That was scheduled about six months ago, and my wife and I had forgotten about it for a while, so we had actually not made any vacation plans. As it turned out, that ended up being a good thing. On Tuesday, the Alaska Railroad called back and offered me a job with them as a "Locomotive Engineer/Conductor Trainee." I'll actually be a Brakeman for the first year or so, and then they'll promote me to a Conductor. I accepted the offer, and we started making plans to move to Alaska. Since it is a four day drive from eastern Montana to Anchorage, we decided to leave the following Monday, which gave us less than a week to pack up all of our stuff and load it in a truck. Four days later, on Saturday, we loaded the truck and left our little apartment in Glendive for the last time. We stayed with some friends for the weekend, and early Monday morning, we headed out, bound for Alaska. Ironically, it was snowing when we left, although that did not last long.

On Monday, April 8th, we left Montana and drove to Edmonton, which is about 13 hours away. Starting out, it felt like the trip would never end, we knew that we had four long days of driving to do. It seemed as if we would be driving forever. On Tuesday, we drove to Fort Nelson, which is in the northeastern corner of British Columbia. It is also the northern end of the former BCRail system. Wednesday saw us get to Whitehorse, Yukon. We stayed only about two blocks from the White Pass and Yukon Route depot there, and by then, the end of the drive was in sight. Thursday we drove the final leg, to Anchorage. We were very happy to arrive, and be done with the driving.

We did some apartment shopping over the next couple of days, and actually found something very quickly. This week, I have been doing all my pre-employment exams, which included a physical and a drug test yesterday. Tomorrow I have to do a strength test where they hook my up to machines, like I did with the BNSF a couple of years ago. We have been using our downtime to unpack all the boxes and get settled. I begin training with the Alaska Railroad on Monday, the 22nd.

From what I understand, the Brakeman training program here is four weeks long. It includes two weeks of classroom training, and two weeks of field training. During the field training, the entire class goes out to an online training facility at Fort Richardson, just a few miles north of the Anchorage Yard. The instructors go too, and they teach us what we need to know using are hands-on methods. As far as I know, there is no on the job training portion, where we would go to work with other Brakemen. They did tell me they may send us to Fairbanks for a couple additional weeks of training, to familiarize us with operations there. It sounded like they had not yet determined whether we would do that or not though.

I expect that this change will have minimal impact on our blog, other than the silence of the last couple weeks, during the move. Obviously, there will be fewer BNSF stories now, but I suspect they will be replaced by Alaska Railroad stories. I will, in a sense, be starting at the bottom again, although that does not bother me at all. I am in a place I have wanted to come back to, and a place to which I have some ties. Eastern Montana was nice while it lasted, but when I moved there, it was only intended to be temporary. However, I learned a great deal from my trainers and coworkers in Glendive, and appreciate everything they taught me. I am certain that the experience I gained, and everything I learned, in Glendive helped me get this job in Alaska.

Winter Railroading

Several weeks ago, I talked about some of the challenges of railroading in the fall.  Since the weather has gotten colder since then, I thought I would share a few of the adventures we have had now that winter has arrived.  It always seems that winter time brings more break downs, equipment failures, and other problems.  It also seems that when things do go wrong, everything happens at once.

For the last few weeks, I have been working as a Conductor, since traffic levels have dropped and they do not need me as an Engineer.  On my first trip working as a Conductor again, we had a pretty normal trip up to Forsyth, but coming back things got a little more interesting.  We got called on duty before the train had actually arrived in Forsyth.  When it did finally arrive, the crew told us that the second locomotive had died on them about a half hour earlier, and they were unable to restart it.  The temperature outside was about 14 degrees, so if we could not get it running again, we would have to drain the cooling water out of it.  Locomotives on BNSF do not have any antifreeze in the water, so when it is cold out, and the engine is not running, the locomotive has to be drained to prevent it from freezing.

When we got on the train, we immediately went back to look at that second locomotive, and see if we could get it running.  We also called BNSF Mechanical on the radio to alert them of the dead engine.  In the cab, the computer said the engine had been shut down due to low cooling water, so that was the first thing we checked. The water appeared to be full.  Actually, it was higher than the full mark, and the person at BNSF Mechanical told us that overfilled was as bad as being low, and we would need to drain some of the water out of it, until it got below the full mark.  So, that is exactly what we did.  I am not sure how much water a locomotive holds, but it is a lot.  It took a while to get it below the full mark, and when it did finally get down to that level, the computer still said the water was low.  We called mechanical back and reported that we had drained some water but the engine still would not start.  He suggested we cycle the computer control breaker, to shut down and restart the computer, which is exactly what they tell you to do every time they cannot figure out what else to do.  When the computer came back on, the low water warning was still there, and the engine still would not start.  We tried cycling the breaker once more, at the instruction of BNSF Mechanical, with no luck.  Since the engine would not start, and by this time the water had already cooled to a temperature below the lowest mark on the thermometer, we decided we had better drain the engine.  We drained the engine, tagged the locomotive as being bad ordered, and then departed eastbound.

For the next couple hours, the trip went pretty smoothly, although the temperature continued to drop outside.  We had a meet at Marsh, about 20 miles west of Glendive, and that would be the last westbound train for quite a while.  The plan was to send us into Glendive after that meet.  We stopped at the west switch, so I could push the button and line us into the siding.  Normally it takes about 30 seconds after the button is pushed for the switch to line and the signal to change.  By that time, I was back on the locomotive, but nothing had happened.  We figured the switch must be frozen, because the last detector had said it was minus seven outside.  The switches are equipped with propane heaters, but they only come on when moisture is detected.  Since it had been dry most of the day, we figured the heater was probably off.  I grabbed a bottle of water, to dump on the heater and turn it on, and went out to line the switch by hand.  It had filled up with snow somehow, probably from the wind, and since the heater had been on earlier, but then shut off, causing all the snow that it had melted to refreeze and coat the entire switch in a layer of ice, beneath the snow that had blown in.

While I was chipping ice off the switch, something weird happened.  The Engineer kept flashing the headlights at me.  Normally, at night, that would be to let the Conductor know that we had gotten the signal into the siding, but since I had the switch on hand, and the points were floating while I swept it out, it was impossible to have the signal.  I was a bit confused, but got the switch cleaned out and lined for the siding, and then gave the Engineer a hand signal to proceed.  He stopped on the switch, and I put it back to power and locked it all up, and hopped back on.  When I opened the door to the cab, it smelled like something was burning in there.  He had the headlights off, but since our meet was sitting right there, that was not unusual.  As it turned out, they were not off by choice, and that had to do with the flashing earlier.  He had tried to turn the headlights on so that I would have more light while cleaning the switch.  When he did that, the headlight switch shorted out, which resulted in the burning smell that filled the cab with enough strength to make anyone gag.    He demonstrated this to me several times.  Turning the headlights on made them come on for about a second, then go out, with an accompanying crackling sound from the control stand.  We used a couple of flashlights to see ahead of us in the siding, and let the dispatcher know that we had no headlights, and until we could get some, we could not leave Marsh.  Seeing as the second unit was dead and completely shut down, we could not move that up front and use it, because the headlights would not have worked on it either.

We decided the idea situation would be to move the distributed power locomotive, on the rear, up to the front, and just use that as the new leader, because it was the only locomotive we had with everything working.  However, being as it was seven below zero outside, cooling off, and windy, neither one of us wanted to walk back to that locomotive, which was over a mile away.  The dispatcher agreed that walking was not a good idea and told us he would see about getting someone out there to give us a ride.  The only problem with that is that Marsh is 45 minutes from Glendive, by car, on dirt roads, and since it had snowed the night before, it was somewhat questionable whether Marsh was even accessible by road.  Eventually the dispatcher told us that one of our Trainmasters was on his way out, from Miles City.

Nearly five hours later, we saw headlights on a vehicle, coming our way.  For the last four hours, we had been wondering where the Trainmaster was, and if he could even get to us.  Turned out he had a story of his own.  He had originally tried to get to Marsh, by way of Fallon, and found snowdrifts as high as the truck he was driving.  From there, he turned around, drove to Glendive, and then tried to backtrack to Marsh.  He told us that he got a few miles out of town, to where the road turns to dirt, and the low tire pressure light came on.  He got out to check on the tires and said he could hear air leaking, so he turned around and drove back to Glendive.  When he got to town, he left the truck and borrowed the yard van and driver, and headed back out to us.  When they arrived, we hopped in the van for the ride back to the DP locomotive, and briefed the Trainmaster on what had happened so far.

When we got to the DP, we found that there was no FRED on it.  Technically, trains operating with distributed power on the rear, do not need a FRED, because the DP locomotive can monitor the brake pipe pressure and serve as a marker.  However, when a DP can no longer run on the rear, such as in our situation, there is nothing to monitor the brake pipe or serve as a marker, unless there is a FRED on the train.  At any rate, we needed headlights more than we needed a working engine on the rear, so we took the DP off the train anyway.  I managed to find a red flag on the DP locomotive, so I stuck that in the coupler, to serve as a marker.  We would be limited to 30mph without a FRED or device to monitor the brake pipe, but we only had 20 miles to go.

When we got the DP off the train, I had to clean out the west switch again, because the heater had turned back off and everything had frozen.  I have no idea how cold it was by this point, but it felt a lot colder than the first time I had cleaned that switch out!  Once we got out, we ran alongside the train on the main track, and then put the DP on the head end.  Fortunately, before the Trainmaster had arrived, I had gone and checked out the east switch, so it was thawed out and working properly for us when we got down there with the DP.  We put the DP on, did our air test, and headed east, finally!  When we got to Colgate, which is the last siding before Glendive, we had only a few minutes before we hit out 12 hour limit.  As we went over the west switch, we got a call from a dog catch crew, who was on their way out to meet us, there at Colgate, so we stopped at the crossing there and waited just a couple minutes for them.  I guess BNSF decided they did not want to fines associated with making a crew work over 12 hours!  Dog catch crews are significantly cheaper!

We hopped in the van and that ended an eventful day for us.  Most crews were getting from Forsyth to Glendive in well under six hours, and it took us over 12, so we were quite happy to be home.  And the thermometer on the bank in Glendive said -12 degrees out, so it certainly had cooled off more since the first time I cleaned out the west switch at Marsh!

Product Review: InterMountain ES44DC

Today I want to talk about a product from InterMountain Railway.  Several months ago I found their ES44DC locomotives for sale, with DCC and sound, and I decided to buy one, because their prototypes are becoming more and more frequently seen on today's railroads.  I had never purchased an InterMountain product before, so I decided to start with just one, until I decided if I liked their locomotives or not.  By the time I decided to buy one, they were out of stock at InterMountain, so I did some searching online and found that they are still readily available through other hobby retailers.  I eventually purchased two ES44DC locomotives, but for this I will be talking specifically about the BNSF 7661.  InterMountain is currently taking reservations on the next release of these models.

Exterior:

BNSF 7695, with the gold logo

The first model I purchased was in a trial paint scheme the BNSF used, where the swoosh logo was in gold, instead of the more common black.  That one looked good, and the paint quality was high, but having never seen the prototype, I wondered how a more common paint scheme would look.  So I bought a second ES44DC, in BNSF's Heritage II paint scheme.  I have seen that prototype paint scheme lots of times, and I can say it was very accurately represented on the model.  The paint is smoothly and evenly applied, with all the lines and writing being very crisp and clear.  Logos, numbers, and warning labels present and accurately applied.  I was able to read most of the warning labels under magnification.

Lighted number board on 7695

The level of detail is great on these models.  They come with all the grab irons, handrails, and end details in place, although they all seem to be made of plastic.  I have found the end handrails to be slightly brittle and had one break on me after using the locomotive for several weeks.  In the packaging, there are foam strips that fit between the body of the locomotive and the side handrails, to protect them from bending or breaking.  This is something I wish all locomotive manufacturers would do!  On the ends, one noticeably absent detail is the train air brake hose.  The MU hoses and MU jumper cables are present, but for some odd reason, the brake pipe, which is the biggest, is missing on both ends.  On the rear end, the model even features spare knuckles molded into the plastic.  The trucks and under frame feature a high level of detail, most of which is molded onto the model.  Cables, hoses, pipes, valves, brake cylinders, springs, and even fuel gauges are all present.

BNSF 7661

This model features working headlights, ditch lights, and even number lights.  On the models I purchased, the ditch lights and number lights are separate DCC decoder functions and can be operated independently of other locomotive lighting.  Additionally, the ditch lights flash alternately for several seconds after blowing the horn on the model.  Headlights are directional, and when the locomotive operates in reverse, the ditch lights are automatically turned off with the front headlights.  On the prototype, the number lights would be used to identify the train.  Many railroads today simply use the train's lead engine initials, number, and direction to identify trains, instead of assigned train numbers.

BNSF 7695

Interior:
The ES44DC model does feature a cab interior, molded in a cream colored plastic.  It is hard to see much through the windows, and so the cab lacks a lot of details.  It does include a control stand and seating, although the seat arrangement in my models does not match what BNSF has on their Evolution Series diesels.  There is no interior lighting in the cab.  Despite the lack of interior detail, it is enough to be convincing to the outside world.

Operation:
The model will operate on both DC and DCC layouts, however on DC layouts, not all of the sounds will be available, and they will all be automated.  On a DCC layout, the locomotive operates very smoothly.  The slowest speed is a little faster than I would like, but it is still comfortably within the safe coupling speed range.  The motor is quiet, though not completely silent.  However, it really is only noticeable when the sounds are muted.  The model operates smoothly through its entire speed range, which exceeds the scale speed range of the prototype.  I coupled both of my ES44DC locomotives together and placed them in a consist, without taking the time to match speeds, and they still operated quite smoothly, without jerking or fighting each other at low speeds.  Starts and stops are also smooth, without any sudden jumping or lurching to a start or to a stop.

BNSF 7661 Rear End

Sound:
The ES44DC features a factory installed SoundTraxx Tsunami DCC decoder, which has all the appropriate sounds for a GE Evolution Series diesel.  When placed on the rails, the locomotive goes through an engine start up procedure, and then it idles until it is moved.  From the factory, the sound is setup for automatic notching, which means the engine will rev up automatically as the operator increases the throttle setting.  This can be changed so that the user can manually change the engine notching.  From the factory, the volume is quite loud on these models, and I found it necessary to turn the volume down a bit, especially with two of them on the rails at once!

Besides the basic engine noises, these models also have dynamic brake sounds, air dryer sounds, radiator fan sounds, coupler sounds, brake squeal and release sounds, and several whistle and bell sounds to choose from.  Out of the box, all of these sounds are setup to be manually activated, however they can be set to come on automatically, or in the case of the air dryer, randomly.  The dynamic brake sound can also be setup to force the engine sounds to idle or to a specific throttle notch.  A list of what functions control which sounds is included with the model, as well as a list of the available bell and whistle sounds, and how to change them.

Two ES44DC's coupled

Overall, I am very pleased with these models.  They represent the latest products from General Electric's Evolution Series design quite well.  They run reliably and smoothly, and they look and sound great at the head end of a model freight train.  I anticipate I will purchase more of these, and the ES44AC locomotives from InterMountain in the future.

Manufacturer: InterMountain Railway Co.
Part Number: 49721S-01
MSRP (no sound): $179.95
MSRP (w/ sound): $259.95
Available in the following paint schemes:
BNSF Gold Wedge
BNSF Heritage II
Canadian National
CSX Future Blue
GE Demonstrator
Norfolk Southern
http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/loco/holoces44dc.htm

Photo of the Week: First Snow

A couple of weeks ago, Eastern Montana received their first snowfall.  It amounted to just a couple of inches, but it was just enough to blanket the entire area in some white powder and brighten everything up from the fall brown.  Several days later I found myself out working in that fresh snow, and had the opportunity to capture my train, the U-HUTSID0-66T, near Shirley, MT.  We were following an eastbound coal train, which had stopped at the west end of Shirley, to wait for a westbound train to clear the main into the siding there.  We had a red signal at MP 62.4, which is where the eastbound approach signal for Shirley is located.  While we could have proceeded at restricted speed, I decided to just sit tight and wait for an Approach signal, since I knew the train ahead would be moving soon anyway.  Since we had a few minutes to kill, I decided to take advantage of the morning sun and fresh snow, and get this picture.  Also, I had been sitting for a while and this gave me a good reason to get up and go for a short walk along the river, and get the "I've been sitting too long jitters" out of my system.

U-HUTSID0-66T at MP 62.4 on the Forsyth Sub.  Photo by James Ogden.

(I have to admit, I am pretty happy how this turned out.  I do not consider myself a photographer, and this was just a quick shot. :) )

Fall Challenges

As the weather begins to change for the colder, some new challenges must be faced on the railroad.  The challenges vary from one part of the country to the next, but they all stem from the weather getting cooler.  In New England, leaves falling off the trees cause headaches for railroads, as described by Tyler, in his blog, "I Ride the T."  While there are comparatively few trees in Eastern Montana, and leaves are not a problem, there are still other challenges that come in the fall, including frost and snow.  I have found frost to be deceptively slippery, and it has a way of seeming more slippery when it is necessary to stop.  Of course, the physical characteristics of frost do not actually change based on the engineer's intentions!

Frost can be hard to see, especially if it starts to settle on everything at night, as it usually does, and after the train is underway.  If you begin a trip on dry rails, frost can slowly begin to settle on everything without being noticed at all.  Once it is there, the ties and ballast tent to sparkle more than usual in the headlights, but as it accumulates, this is can easily go unnoticed.  Of course, if it goes unseen, it will be noticed the first time an attempt is made to stop or start the train!  At first, when power or braking force is still relatively low, the wheels might just squeal a little, but as more power or braking force is applied, they will lose their grip on the rail completely and the entire locomotive will shudder and shake as the wheels slip and try to grab some rail again.  Usually when this happens, I do a quick evaluation of the distance yet to be covered and the amount by which I need to reduce speed.  If I only need to lose a couple of miles per hour, often I will use the terrain to do that.  Even along the river, the track is not perfectly flat.  There are lots of small undulations in the tracks, and knowing where the tracks turn uphill, even slightly, can be helpful.  These small uphill areas can be used to scrub a few miles per hour off of the speed of a train.  The situation is a little different if the train is headed downhill, or if a lot of speed must be lost.  Most uphill areas on the Forsyth Sub are not long or steep enough to bring a train to a stop from track speed, using just gravity.  If I have to slow down significantly or stop, and the wheels do not grab rail the way I want them to, I do not even hesitate to use the air brakes.  By using the air brakes, the braking force gets spread throughout the entire train, and I do not have to depend entirely on the dynamic brakes, on the locomotives, to control the speed.  Sometimes the air brakes work well, and sometimes the do not.  I always figure if they do not work well, I can set more air, and if they work better than usual, I can release them sooner and just go slow for a little longer.  I would much rather be going slow or stop short instead of running too fast into an area or sliding past a point where I was supposed to stop.  It is much easier to stop short and pull up than try to explain to the Road Foreman why the train slid 30 feet past a stop signal!

Fresh snow can be as slippery as frost, but it is much easier to see at night.  Of course, its accumulation on the tracks is quite obvious, and when snow is falling, it is usually piling up on the windshield and all over the locomotive too.  While frost can go somewhat unnoticed at times, snow does not.  Besides slippery rail, snow presents another problem - slippery brakes.  If the snow is higher than the top of the rail, the wheels can start to pick it up, and then it gets pushed up between brake shoes and wheels.  When a brake application is made, the snow has to be melted off the brake shoes before they have much effect on the speed of the train.  This increases the time from which a brake application is made to when that application can be felt and is effective.  This is another reason I usually set air right away if the dynamics begin to slip.  Once the snow flies, extra time will be needed before the air brakes are working as hard as they normally do.  Once again, it is better to be early with that than late!  Fortunately, we have not had any significant snowfall yet.

Starting a train on slippery rail can be tricky, but it is usually less stressful than stopping.  Modulating the amount of power going to the wheels, and using sand are the tricks to starting.  When slippery rail is anticipated, it helps to use the sanders to stop, so that the locomotive is sitting on sanded rail when it is time to move again.  The fine sand, which is carried on locomotives, can be directly applied to the rail through nozzles mounted just ahead of each set of wheels.  While sand does not substitute for dry rail, it can make starting and stopping much easier, because it does help to increase the traction between the wheels and the rail.  Essentially, it gives the wheels something to grab, when a lot of power or braking force is applied.

Besides slippery rail, fall is the season for broken rails.  As the temperatures cool, the steel begins to contract, which puts more stress on the rail.  If rail was laid during the summer, when the weather is hot, and the rail is in a more expanded state, it will all begin to contract and can break under the stress.  Several nights ago, we discovered a broken rail.  When the rail breaks, the signals governing movement into that signal block will display a red aspect.  In the case of the other night, this was a Stop and Proceed indication, which is exactly what we did.  Whenever we proceed at a Stop and Proceed indication, we have to be moving at restricted speed, which is a speed that allows stopping the train within half the range of vision, not exceeding 20 mph, on the BNSF.  Other railroads may limit the speed differently.  We are required to be able to stop short of obstructions in the tracks, other trains, or men working.  Broken rail is actually not something we are required to stop for, but we must be on the lookout for it whenever we are moving at restricted speed.  Most of the time, when a rail breaks, the ties hold everything in alignment.  If we were to put a large braking force on the rails to try to stop for a broken rail, it could push things out of alignment.  Also, it can be difficult to see broken rail from the locomotive, until it is about to go under the locomotive.  Usually it is not discovered until the wheels go over it, with a much louder clack than a normal joint.  Several nights ago, we passed the Stop and Proceed signal, and my Conductor and I both commented that it was probably a problem with a rock slide fence that is in that block.  We went by the slide fence and noticed nothing wrong with it, and then about 500 feet before the next signal, when we were just about on top of it, we noticed what looked like a possible broken rail.  We reported it to the dispatcher and continued over it slowly, until the entire train was clear of it. Sure enough, they sent maintenance out there, and it was indeed a broken rail.  They spliced in a new piece of rail and bolted it all together.  It will probably be welded later, when it gets colder, so it does not break again.  While broken rails do not occur that frequently, they do tend to happen more often in the fall, as the weather cools and the steel contracts and becomes more brittle.  They can happen any time of the year though.  Once the whole train was over the break, we were back on clear blocks, so we picked the speed up to normal track speed.

Becoming an Engineer

Since my last post, there have been a few changes.  First of all, Montana got its first snow fall.  Since then, it has gotten warm enough to partially melt the snow that fell, so the landscape is a speckled brown and white.  Besides the seasons changing, work has changed.

About a week ago, I returned to Montana (to the snowstorm), from Kansas City.  I passed all of my exams and simulator runs in Kansas City, and was only a check ride away from the Engineers' seat.  The day after everyone in class returned home, my Road Foreman of Engines called me up to let me know he was thinking about the check ride and to expect a call the next day to go in and take care of that.  He was going to look at the lineup and we would just jump on a train departing Glendive.  There were two of us, including myself, that had to get it done, so one of us would run westbound, until we got to a point where it would be convenient to jump on an eastbound train, and then the other one of us would run back to Glendive.

The other person I was going with is more senior than me, so he was allowed to choose who would go first. He volunteered, and so he ran an empty coal train westbound, to Blatchford, a siding about 50 miles west of Glendive.  There we caught an empty crude oil train coming east, which I ran back to Glendive.  We both passed out check rides, and our Road Foreman gave us temporary Locomotive Engineer cards, until the plastic ones arrive in the mail.

When I was in Kansas City, and in training before that, my plan was to mark to a Brakeman job when I got out of training, because I wanted a nice, low responsibility job.  Running a train is a lot more work than being a Conductor, though most of it is thinking and planning ahead, and is not physical work.  Being new, it is pretty tiring anyway though!  Despite wanting to work as a Brakeman, I put some bids in on Engineer jobs, mainly to try to avoid being forced to work in another terminal.  I am the least senior engineer in the division, and so if they need engineers in another terminal, I will be the first to be forced over there, if I am not working as an engineer somewhere else.  Basically, they can take qualified engineers if they need them somewhere, but they cannot take them if they are working as an engineer.  Much to my surprise, I was awarded a bid to the Glendive West Pool as an engineer, and have been working in that capacity since Monday morning.

I was a but nervous for my first trip.  I had made that trip lots of times as a Conductor, and about 15 as a student engineer, but getting on a train, knowing there would be no one sitting behind me to offer advice or tips, made me nervous.  As if that as not enough, I got to work to learn that my Conductor had never made a trip to Forsyth before either, at least not as a Conductor.  He had been there only once before, with a qualified Conductor, to get familiarized.  Originally, he hired out in Missouri, but we are so short on manpower than the railroad offered him a temporary position here, which he took.  Since he was furloughed in Missouri, he took it.  I was a bit more nervous about the fact that I would need to run a train and help the Conductor do his job!  Actually, I was more nervous about the trip back, because that would most likely be on a much heavier coal load!

As it turned out, my Conductor was very good.  Despite it being his first trip, he did well.  He needed to ask where we were several times, but that is to be expected.  He did just fine with the track warrants, meets, and other paperwork.  I really did not have to do much besides tell him where we were a few times and let him know when we were clear of our warrants.  For a first trip, he exceeded my expectations!  We had an empty coal train going west, and those are generally pretty easy to run.  They  have a ton of power and are fairly light, so they start and stop on a dime (for a train), so my first trip really was uneventful, which was exactly what I was hoping for.  As it turned out, we did get a coal load coming east, but that was equally uneventful.  As long as I stayed focused and planned things out several miles in advance, we were just fine.

Now that I have made a couple trips without someone sitting behind me to tell me what to do, it does not make me nervous to run trains by myself anymore.  It is still a tiring task, but I do enjoy it.  I certainly would not feel comfortable trying to teach anyone else to do it, and I still feel very new at it, but I feel better about running without another engineer now than I did a week ago.

Back in Kansas

Believe it or not, the on the job training portion of the locomotive engineer program is already done.  Yesterday, I flew back to Kansas City for the final two weeks of classroom instruction and exams.  Towards the end of my on the job training, I began to focus more on jobs based in Glendive, because it allowed me to be home more and minimize the rent I would have to pay in Forsyth.  I worked on the switch crew during the last two weeks, which always has something going on.  On my first day, we found a note in the depot indicating that our normal switch engines were sitting on the ties a few miles away, at a pipe yard.  Apparently the previous crew had been attempting to deliver some cars there and the rail had rolled over underneath them.  We called up the roundhouse to see if they had anything else we could use, and then we went and retrieved the cars that were still on the rails.  Usually we get stuck with some big road power when the usual switch engines are not available, but this time they had an SD40-2 for us, which is much nicer for switching than a lot of the more modern road locomotives.

The carmen had the switch engines back on the rails by the next day, but the roundhouse still had them, so we were left with a substitute, in this case a GP28.  Our foreman got a little bit ambitious with switching a track, and we ended up dragging about 80 cars out, through the switch at the west end, and out on to the main.  Pulling it all out with one little engine was easy - it was downhill.  Putting it away proved to be a bit more difficult than our foreman had anticipated.  Fortunately, I had thought about that as we were pulling out, so I had sanded the rails a bit already.  When I started pushing all those cars up the hill, it went pretty slowly.  I eventually got the engine up to full throttle, with the aid of more sand, but even with that, we could only go about 0.6 mph.  It takes a while to shove 80 cars lengths at that speed!  Quite a while later, when we had cleared the switches into a couple of other yard tracks, my engineer hopped off and grabbed the engines off a standing coal train, and used those to aid our little switch engine the rest of the way.  Once we had gotten all the cars put away, he put the engines back on the coal train, and for the rest of the day, we switched with smaller, more manageable cuts of cars!

Today was a rather boring day honestly.  We spent the morning going over the same paperwork we did when we first arrived here, back in June.  We did do a simulator run, with some unusual conditions.  I found that the simulator was a lot harder to run this time than it was last time I was here.  I think that is because I have gotten used to being able to feel what the train is doing, and run accordingly.  Obviously, the simulator does not move when we run on it, so there is nothing to feel.  The unusual conditions consisted of losing communication between the head end power and the distributed power, on the rear, an undesired emergency brake application, and a blockage in the train brake pipe.  I have dealt with the first two in reality too, so they were not anything new on the simulator.  The blockage in the brake pipe managed to fix itself with another set and release, so that did not turn into much of an issue either.  We will be doing more unusual conditions for the rest of the week, in the simulator.  We will have our final simulator runs next week, as well as two of our final exams.  On Friday we have our mechanical final exam, which is the only open book test we get.  All of the tests are multiple choice and at least 100 questions, so they will probably take a while even for the well prepared.

Photo of the Week: Boeing on BNSF

Over the last few weeks, my engineer training has taken me to Sheridan, WY, a couple of times. The line to Sheridan is the former Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy, and continues to Gillette, WY, and then down to Denver and Alliance, NE. While coal is the big business on that line, which passes though Wyoming's Powder River Basin, there are some manifest freight trains that use the route too. One of the regular manifests on that line connects Kansas City and Laurel, MT. Boeing has a plant for aircraft in Kansas City, and they use the railroad to ship partially assembled planes out to their plant in Washington. Typically, the body of a 737, in primer, will sit on a flat car, and an enclosed car will follow, carrying the wings, stabilizers, and other parts. They get attached to the plane at the Boeing plant in Washington. The plane also gets its final paint job there.

The other day, while waiting for my train to arrive, I managed to snap a quick picture of a 737 riding a train. Somehow, the plane looked a lot smaller without wings, and sitting on a train!

Photo of the Week: Derailment

If you follow the railroad industry news at all, chances are you heard about a major derailment last weekend, in a place called Plevna, MT.  Last Sunday afternoon, a merchandise train, operating on the Hettinger Subdivision, derailed and caught fire.  The derailment occurred about two miles west of the small (pop. 158) town of Plevna, in eastern Montana.  A total of fifteen cars went on the ground, fourteen of which were carrying denatured alcohol, which is a fuel additive more commonly known as ethanol.  The derailment sparked a fire, fueled by the the leaking alcohol and the dry prairie grass.  Eight of the alcohol cars burned, and five of them exploded.  There were no injuries from the derailment or the fire that followed.  No evacuations were necessary, although the highway, which parallels the tracks, was closed for several hours Sunday afternoon and evening while firefighters and railroad personnel worked to contain the fire.

The night when all of this went down, I was working in the Glendive yard.  It was a pretty slow night, because the roundhouse had no power ready for any trains, and they were really backed up.  The only thing we had to do as a result of the derailment was gather up some cars, loaded with prefabricated track panels, and assemble them into a train.  Despite being backed up and busy, the roundhouse did manage to find a couple of SD40-2's for the panel train, so it could be sent down to the derailment site as soon as a crew was rested.  They estimated that 1,100 feet of track had to be replaced.  On Monday afternoon, after I was off work and caught up on sleep, I decided to head down to the derailment site with my sister, who was in town visiting, to see the aftermath.  It was only an hour from Glendive anyway.

When we got to Plevna, we found that the prairie was burned as far as you could see, starting right at the west end of town.  As we continued west, we came over a hill, and all of a sudden, it looked like a war zone.  There were railroad cars and parts of railroad cars scattered all over the hills, and everything, including the cars was black and charred.  One of the cars were still burning, and there were people everywhere trying to get things cleaned up and under control.  The rest of the train had been moved, and was no longer in the area, so all that was there was railroad vehicles, emergency crews, and the remains of smashed and burned railroad cars.  Of course, the black backdrop of the burned prairie made the whole scene look even more dramatic.

I had forgotten my camera in Forsyth, so I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone instead.  The one below shows most of the scene that we saw from the nearby highway.

The rest of the pictures can be found on our Facebook page, and are accessible to people without a Facebook account, by clicking here.  Additionally, someone did manage to be in the area when the whole incident occurred, and took a video of the fourth car exploding, which is on YouTube and can be viewed here.

Weird Things Happen when I go to Glendive

I have been training to be an engineer out of Forsyth, which has been challenging.  The challenge is mostly the result of being unfamiliar with the territories handled by Forsyth crews.  Obviously, I will have to be familiar with all of them by the end of the engine program.  Yesterday, I made my first trip to Sheridan, WY, on a coal empty.  Empties are pretty forgiving, so it is not hard to just kind of wing it on a new territory, but the load home this morning was a bit more challenging!

Besides the trips out of Forsyth, I have to make nearly  half of my required trips on territories handled by Glendive crews, all of which are a lot more familiar to me.  Since one of those territories is the line between Glendive and Forsyth, I figured I can save a little money on gas and get a trip in by taking the train home, instead of driving.  So about once a week, I head up to Glendive, usually for the weekend.  I will be doing that again tonight.  I have been up there twice so far, and both times we have had something unusual happen.  The first weekend, we ran through a switch in the Glendive yard, as I talked about in a previous post.

Last weekend, I was called to go home on a vehicle train.  Vehicle trains are kind of weird trains to begin with, because they have very long cars, and all the cars have cushioned drawbars, to help protect the load from excessive in-train forces.  While those drawbars may help protect the load, they make it pretty hard to tell what the train is doing back there.  They also take a lot longer to stretch out and bunch up, since there is all that drawbar slop on top of the normal coupler slack.  All of that leads to some weird train handling and unusual in-train forces.  Those trains would be a lot easier to handle if the railroad did not discourage stretch braking as much.

Overall, the trip was going well, until we got to Miles City.  Just before crossing the Tongue River, the tracks go up a little bit.  They are pretty level across the bridge, and then they descend a little on the other side.  Since there is a permanent 30mph speed restriction in place at Miles City, I was using the dynamic brakes on the locomotives to slow the train from about 50mph.  The speed restriction starts very close to the bridge, at the top of the small hill.  Since the locomotives were doing all the work to slow the train, the slack and cushioning in all the couplers was all bunched up.  As I got to the bridge, and the start of the speed restriction, I started to come out of dynamic braking, since I was down to the proper speed, and no longer needed any more braking.  I thought I was coming out sufficiently slowly to prevent the locomotives from running away from the train and causing a sudden stretch, but I guess that was not true.  Sudden stretches, or run outs, can cause broken knuckles and drawbars, so they are a good thing to avoid!

After the locomotives and first few cars had gotten over the bridge, the engine started beeping and I noticed that the brake pipe pressure at the FRED was 0psi.  That means something had put the train in emergency at or near the rear end.  A few seconds later, the air dumped on the locomotives.  We were in emergency, and we were stopping whether we wanted to or not, and regardless of how many crossings we had occupied!  I actuated the locomotive brakes and tried to manage the in train forces as best I could.  Despite my efforts, we felt the slack bunch up, or run in, very suddenly and violently on the locomotives.  For those of you that have never experienced a run in on a locomotive, the bigger ones sort of feel like being punched in the back of the head by, well, a freight train.  Once we had stopped, I released the brakes to see if the air pressure would recover.  If it did, we would continue on our way, and if not, the Conductor and his trainee would be going for a nice evening stroll.  My engineer suspected that a hose had come apart, as they sometimes do with those cushioned drawbars, and I thought we had broken a knuckle.  I was hoping it was not a knuckle, but for some reason I had the feeling that the train had come apart.

As the air pressure started to come up in the brake pipe, we noticed that the air flow was not dropping very much.  Normally the air flow, measured through the brake valve, drops as the pressure rises.  Despite the air pressure coming up into the 80's on the head end, there was still a leak somewhere.  The Conductor was going for a walk.  He and his trainee got off the locomotive and disappeared to the west.  While they were gone, several pedestrians walked around the front of the train.  I suppose that is better than trying to crawl through or under cars at a blocked crossing.  The police also came by to see what was going on.  After several minutes, we heard from the Conductor.  The train was indeed in two pieces.  He went on though, there were no broken knuckles, the cars had simply come uncoupled somehow.  He had us pull ahead to open up a crossing before we set about fixing the problem though.

Once traffic had cleared at the crossing we opened up, the Conductor instructed us to start the train back.  While waiting on traffic, he had realigned the drawbars.  We put the train together and gave it a good stretch, to make sure it would hold.  Once satisfied that the joint was solid, the Conductor and his trainee started heading back towards the front of the train.  Once they were on board, we continued our journey east, without further incident.  In talking about what happened, there was only one explanation any of us could come up with that made any sense.  My engineer suggested that when I came into Miles City, with the train bunched up, it might have been possible for the uncoupling lever to catch as the drawbar compressed, causing it to lift and release the knuckle.  Then, when I started pulling on the train again, obviously it would have pulled that knuckle open, allowing the train to separate.  He also suggested that the huge run in we felt may have been the rear portion colliding with the front portion as they both went into emergency.  That would also explain why the Conductor found both knuckles closed and the drawbars pushed way off to the sides when he went back.  We will never know for sure what happened, but that is the only explanation that sounds plausible.

Engineer Training: On the Job Training

Last weekend I returned to Montana, from Kansas City.  The first three weeks of engineer training, which was all classroom and simulator time was done, and now it is time for the on the job training.  Since I got into the engineer program in Forsyth, and not Glendive, most of my required trips have to be made out of there.  Since I have never worked out of Forsyth, this makes things a little interesting, because not only do I have to learn to operate freight trains, but I also have to learn the territory.  Engineers have to be planning a couple of miles in advance, so familiarity with the territory is very important.  Most of the time, the view ahead of the train is not enough space to make adequate plans in, so the engineer must know what is around the next curve and where the next signals, crossings, switches, and hills are located.

Last weekend, after returning home from Kansas, I packed up some stuff and headed up to Forsyth.  I made arrangements with someone there to rent a room for a couple months during engineer training.  It is close to the depot, which is nice, since the only reason I am there at all is for training.  The Road Foreman of Engines gave all of us lists of the minimum number of trips he wants us to make on each subdivision.  Since he knows I will be returning to Glendive as soon as training is over, he gave me a lot of required trips out of Glendive too.  Basically, I have to make 40 trips on the runs handled by Forsyth crews and 30 from Glendive.  One trip was a freebie though, and only involved looking at a PowerPoint presentation for an hour on Positive Train Control, which is used occasionally on the Hettinger line.

I made my first trip on Monday night, to Laurel.  I wanted to start with something somewhat flat, and the Forsyth sub, which does continue west of Forsyth, continues to follow the Yellowstone River, so it only has some gentle hills.  West of Jones Junction, trains leave the BNSF and actually operate on the Montana Rail Link, into the Laurel yard.  Of course, the rules are similar but slightly different when you get on another railroad, so I do have to learn some of those differences now.  For example, on BNSF, if you get an approach (yellow) signal, you have to immediately slow the train to 30mph and prepare to stop at the next signal.  On the MRL, you are allowed to move at 35mph instead.  At a red intermediate signal, on the BNSF, you are required to stop, and then proceed at restricted speed, but on the MRL, you can just go by it at restricted speed, without stopping.  MRL uses track warrants for a couple miles, between CTC East Billings and CTC Shilo, near Laurel, and the format for reading back a track warrant is slightly different than on the BNSF too.  Of course, track warrants are typically handled by the conductor, but it is one of the small differences in procedures.

Laurel yard, by area standards, is a large yard.  Of course, compared to the terminal yards in major cities, it is actually quite small.  It is a busy place, and can be quite confusing when it is dark the first time you arrive there.  It is actually two yards in one location, one for eastbound trains and one for westbound trains.  There are four switch crews, working 24 hours a day, and you had better ask their permission before blocking their leads for anything!  There is always a lot going on there, between the switch crews working at both ends of each yard, other trains coming and going, people putting together their trains, and power moving to and from the roundhouse.  On my first trip, I observed the whole trip, so while there was a lot going on, I did not have to worry about navigating through it right away!

On my second trip to Laurel, my engineer told me he would let me observe again, and then run on the trip home.  We ended up having to take the siding at Custer, and when it was time to go, he got up and told me it was my turn to run.  I guess he changed his mind.  I ran the rest of the way to Laurel.  This time the whole trip was in daylight though, and the yard looked completely different.  Our train was a through train, so the power stayed on and we just pulled it into track west 14, and left it for the next crew.  The next day, on the trip back to Forsyth, we caught an H train, which is a high priority merchandise train, originating in Laurel.  We needed to get the locomotives from the roundhouse and put them on the train.  Then the carmen came along, because we needed a FRED still, and an air brake test, which they would help perform.  After we got the FRED on and armed, and the air test complete, one of the switch crews asked when we were going to pick up the other 19 cars of our train, located on another track.  It would have been nice to know they were there before we had a warrant to leave!  Anyway, we went and grabbed those, once the switch crew working our lead was out of the way, and air tested them too.  After three hours of working in the yard, we were finally ready to depart.  My engineer told me I could choose which half of the trip to run, and I chose the first half, from Laurel, through Billings and back to the BNSF.  I figured that is where the most is going on and it is the more complicated half, so I wanted to run it to help become more familiar with it.  As it turned out, I ended up running the whole way back to Forsyth though.

When I got done with that trip, I figured it might be nice to go back to Glendive for a day or two.  I could catch a Glendive West Pool trip in Forsyth and take that home, and get one of my required trips in at the same time.  It would also save me a little money in gasoline!  Then I caught wind that two of Norfolk Southern's "Heritage" locomotives would be on an eastbound train the next morning.  I decided to try to get on that train, since it would be a unique opportunity to see those locomotives.  As it turned out, the engineer assigned to that train does not take trainees, so I got on the one before, figuring that would get me back to Glendive before that train arrived, giving me time to run home, get my camera, and get a couple of pictures when they arrived in Glendive, behind us.  So, I ran a coal train back to Glendive.  It was a slow train.  We had four engines, but two were dead, so starting and stopping seemed to take forever on it.  But, it was nice to be on familiar rails!  I already knew where all the curves, hills, crossings, signals, and speed restrictions are located, so all I had to do was run the train, instead of try to run and check the track chart periodically.  The trip to Glendive was pretty uneventful, just slow.

When we got to Glendive, we were well ahead of the train with the heritage units, so I figured once we got the power to the roundhouse, I would have plenty of time to get pictures.  Apparently, that was not meant to be.  As we were heading down the runaround, to get the remote locomotives off the rear, my conductor was riding the rear locomotive and giving me hand signals, telling me to proceed.  Suddenly he gave me a stop and called, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" on the radio.  I immediately put the engines in emergency, but we still rolled a couple of car lengths before stopping.  He had not noticed a switch lined against us until the last second, and we rolled through it.  We started calling supervisors, but after 5:00pm on a Friday, most of them have started their weekend!  We did eventually get a track inspector out there to look at the switch.  Once he told us it was safe to move, we got the engines off the switch and put them away.  He took some measurements to see what the damage was, and we went to the depot for a drug and alcohol test.  We found out later, from that track inspector, that we actually did no damage to the switch, which surprised us, but did not relieve us from the consequences.  The Road Foreman arrived and took written statements of what happened, and then the urine sample collector arrived, and we all blew had to blow into a breathalyzer and pee in a cup.  Even though the conductor was the one protecting the movement and will likely get the heat of the incident, we all are required to have a drug and alcohol test, in order to determine if that was a factor in the incident.  They may also download the tapes from the locomotive to make sure that I was not speeding in the yard.  While it was frustrating to have this incident happen, I am not too worried about the consequences, at least not for myself.  I was following all the rules at the time of the incident.  Sometimes stuff just happens. While all this took place, the train behind us, with the heritage locomotives, arrived, and then it got dark, so all I managed to get was one rather lousy photograph in Forsyth.  However, we did notice an extraordinary number of photographers along the tracks, so there are probably pictures of both my train, and the one behind, with the heritage units, on the internet by now.

Engineer Training: Week Two (and Part of Three)

During the first week of training, the focus was on the Air Brake and Train Handling rules.  We focused on basic principles, like how to get a train moving and how to stop it.  During week two, things got a little more complex.  In the classroom, the focus was the General Code of Operating rules.  As those rules were reviewed, the principles we learned were added to our simulator sessions, and we were scored accordingly.  We started to have speed restrictions and maintenance to think about during the simulator runs.  We also started getting longer trains, which take longer to start and stop, requiring more planning ahead.

Honestly, the General Code of Operating (GCOR) rules is some pretty dry reading.  It seems to be the most effective cure for insomnia out there, but it is still important stuff.  It covers all of the basic rules that govern how exactly a railroad operates.  It goes over the specifics of operations in territory controlled by track warrants, centralized traffic control, and several other forms of control.  It is a general book, used by several hundred railroads in the USA and Canada.  Each railroad uses it as a basis for operations, and then adds supplements which are more railroad and territory specific.  Consequently, there are some parts of the GCOR that we cover in great detail, because it is used every day on the BNSF, and there are other parts that get skipped entirely, because they are not in effect anywhere on the BNSF.  Since GCOR governs even basic operations, we had to learn the rules in there in Conductor training.  That did make reviewing it a lot easier, because we had all been over it before, and we had all been using the principles for some time.  Most of the stuff in there is a lot easier to understand once it is practiced, as opposed to simply reading about it.  Since GCOR covers all the general information, which applies to many railroads, most railroads issue System Special Instructions, which include general information specific to that railroad, and each division issues an employee timetable, which has information specific to a single division or subdivision.  While GCOR was the focus of the week, we spent a bit of time going over some of the stuff in the System Special Instructions as well.

In the simulator we were given more realistic situations last week.  During the first week, we only ran on clear block signal indications, and there were no speed restrictions or any large hills.  That was not the case for the second week.  We started meeting other simulated trains, which gave us a variety of signal indications.  We typically had to stop several times in a single run.  We also had temporary speed restrictions to comply with, and they were usually in inconvenient places.  We had to plan ahead more than the first week, and decide how we would handle different situations.  Besides that, we had other surprises come up, such as dark signals, and clear signals that dropped to red at the last second.  Obviously, you cannot stop for a signal that just turns red with no warning, but you stop as quickly as possible and report it to the dispatcher.  After stopping, you have to proceed at restricted speed though, which means going slow enough to stop in half the range of vision, not exceeding 20mph.  Of course, when at restricted speed, they threw other things at us too, to see if we were actually going slow enough to get stopped in time.  They kept us on our toes during the simulator runs.

This week so far has been a little of everything.  In the classroom, we have been going over distributed power, mountain grades, and mechanical information.  They want us to be able to do some basic troubleshooting on locomotives when something goes wrong.  In the simulator, we had to practice bring a train down a 3.0% grade, with all the brakes working on one run, and then with the dynamic brakes cut out on one locomotive on the second runs.  As long as the train was under control before starting down the hill, it really was not too hard to keep things under control.  Today we had a simulator run with distributed power, so we could see how that handles differently.  The biggest difference is how coupler slack has to be managed.  The next two days we will practice operating with fuel economy in mind, and we will be scored based on how much fuel we burn.  On Friday evening, we all head back to our home terminals for three months of on the job training.

Engineer Training: Week One

It is hard to believe the first week is nearly over.  It did get a late start though.  Last weekend, I flew from Billings to Kansas City, to attend the classroom portion of the Locomotive Engineer Training Program.  I was supposed to arrive last Sunday, however, due to delays and exceptionally poor customer service of a particular airline, I did not arrive until lunch time on Monday.  Fortunately, the four of us who were delayed had all been in contact with our Road Foreman, in Glendive, and the Training Coordinator, in Overland Park, KS, and we were able to work around the delay.  As it turned out, we mostly missed paperwork.  We went straight to class from the airport, and arrived just in time for lunch!  We spent a little time during lunch getting caught up on the paperwork we had missed, and then by the time the lunch break was over, we were on the same page as the other 12 people, who has all arrived closer to their scheduled times!

This week has consisted primarily of studying air brake systems, in significantly more detail than we ever did in the Conductor program.  Some of it has been a review, but a lot of it has been new information to us.  We have also been studying the basics of train handling, including how to stop and start trains on different types of grades, and different coupler slack situations.  One thing that has been emphasized a lot is to make gradual changes to avoid any violent coupler slack changes.

In our classroom, we have a train, of sorts.  It is designed to help us understand how the air brake systems on locomotives and cars work.  There are a series of audio visual carts, with all the brake equipment normally found on a freight car.  They are coupled together and have air hoses running between them.  One cart has a locomotive air brake system on it, and a control stand.  The whole thing is connected to a source of compressed air, and manipulating the brake levers on the control stand makes the brake equipment move appropriately.  At the end of this train, there is a Fred.  In class, we have used it only a couple times, but some of us have used it more during breaks or during lunch, to try to figure something out that was unclear to us.  It is a neat setup.  Each of the cars also has air pressure gauges connected to different parts of the brake system, so we can actually see where air is going when we do different things with the controls.

One of the features of a Fred is that it can dump the brake pipe air and put the train in emergency, simply by pushing a button on the locomotive, on a device called Mary.  At lunch yesterday, we were using the train setup in the classroom, and when we got done, one of us had the bright idea of dumping the air from the Fred.  Well, we have all heard trains go into emergency lots of times before, because it happens every time cars are uncoupled or locomotives are removed.  What we did not consider, when we pushed the button on the Mary, was just how loud it would be when done indoors!  There is a delay of a few seconds as the signal is sent, via radio, from Mary to Fred, and while Fred processes the signal.  We pushed the button, and nothing happened immediately, so we figured the Fred must not be armed.  Just as we were shrugging it off and about to walk away, the air dumped.  I think we all jumped about four feet in the air when it happened, despite the fact that we had caused it to happen!  We reset the air, recharged the brake system, and sat down to read over some stuff before our teacher got back.  Once everything was reset, our teacher burst in the door, looked around the room for a second, and finally said, "Alright, which of you plugged the train?"  We all just looked at him, with the most innocent looks we could come up with, and said nothing.  He walked back out to finish his lunch, and that was all we ever heard of it.  We laughed a little after he left, because his office is halfway across the building from our classroom, but he had still heard all the noise.  Oops.

Starting on Tuesday, we have been going to a locomotive simulator for about an hour each day.  We are paired up and work together in the simulator to learn the techniques and practice the tasks assigned to us.  If you have ever heard of or used Train Simulator, a game produced by Microsoft about ten years ago, it is actually a lot like that.  Each simulator is in a small room, which has a mock up of a locomotive control stand inside, and a large screen on the wall where the windshield would be.  When we log in to the simulator, the scenario we are supposed to run loads up, and railroad tracks and some basic scenery appears on the screen.  On the control stand there are a few more screens, and the various gauges, lights, and buttons found on a locomotive appear on them.

On Tuesday, we mostly spent the time familiarizing ourselves with the simulator.  We had some basic tasks to perform, such as cutting out the brake valves, and then cutting them back in, and performing a locomotive air brake test.  Once we were done with that, our teacher had told us to use whatever time was left to play around and get a feel for how the thing operated.  Of course, my partner and I wanted to see how fast it would go, since the screen had indicated that the overspeed was set to 500mph.  We got it to 95mph before our time was up!

On Wednesday we got some practice actually moving the simulated train, according to train handling rules.  It was a pretty basic scenario, we just had to accelerate to 30mph and then stop, but we had to  manage our coupler slack and in train forces.  A little graph on one screen helps us to know what the rest of the train is doing and give us an idea of how smooth the ride would actually be.  For both of us, it was a little rough, and I think on our first attempt at a stop, we would have gotten quite a wallop from those cars bunching up behind us!  Of course, in the simulator, you cannot feel any of the movement, or any of the slack run ins, which is a little disorienting.

Today we got practice starting and stopping on hills.  We each took a turn starting and stopping on an uphill grade, and then again on a downhill grade.  I was more concerned about the downhill trip, because I figured uphill would be easy.  I mean, all you have to do is throttle up to speed up and down to slow down.  I was surprised that I had a harder time making a smooth stop going uphill, and my downhill run had much lower in train forces.  Tomorrow we have a more realistic run to do.  It will about 50 miles in length and take an hour to complete, and the terrain varies from very gentle hills to some longer grades.  That will also be our first scored simulator run, which will start to give us an idea of what we do well with and what needs to get better.  I am a little nervous about it, but only as nervous as you can possibly be knowing it is a simulator, and not the real thing.  I have looked over all the paperwork, track charts, and timetable, and I have written down all the speed restrictions and turnout speeds, so as long as I can keep on top of that, I should be able to finish the run, even if some spots are a little uncomfortable for the simulated freight.

Photos of the Week: BNSF Employee Appreciation Special

Maybe "photos and stories" would have been more accurate.  At any rate, the BNSF Employee Appreciation Special has been touring parts of the Twin Cities and Montana Divisions, including Glendive, among other locations.  The train was open to employees and their families, and tickets were free.  I got tickets as soon as they became available, because I knew they would probably disappear pretty quickly.  I got tickets for Tuesday afternoon.

We arrived at the Glendive depot a few minutes before the boarding time listed on our tickets.  There were already several other people there, nearly all of whom had small children along with them.  The train was already at the depot, and some people were preparing it for boarding.  I had been advised to ride in a full length dome car by a friend who had ridden on it a few days earlier, so we waited near the door to that car for boarding to begin.  After a few minutes, boarding began, and we found seats in the dome, near the center of the car.

When I got on the train, I was actually not exactly sure where it would be going.  I figured it would travel west, on the Forsyth Sub, but besides a bunch of rumors, no real information was available on the destination of the train.  Ultimately, where ever it went, it would return to Glendive at the end of the trip.  There had been dozens of rumors about it though.  Just before we departed, an announcement was made indicating that we would travel to Terry and back, a distance of about 40 miles, each way.  On a freight train, it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Terry.

Shortly after the announcements were made and the doors were closed, we got under way.  We were travelling in BNSF #31, a Budd full length dome car, named Bay View.  It was one of the oldest cars on the train, having been built in the 1950's.  The car originally belonged to the Santa Fe, long before anyone had ever even thought of the BNSF.  If I had to guess, I would say it was probably the smoothest riding car on the train.  It felt like a different railroad to me!  It seemed like all the kids on the train were on that car, so it was probably also the loudest!

Once underway, some of the staff on the train came around with drinks and snacks.  Actually, they came by a few times, with a lot of food and drinks, and if any of us wanted more, they made it clear that we could go to the lower level and help ourselves.  No one left the train hungry, that is for sure!  We got up and walked around during the ride, to see what was in the other cars.  The other cars were gallery style cars, similar to those used as commuter cars in the Chicago area.  They did not ride as nicely as our dome car did!  One of them had a small gift shop in it, on the opposite end as the seating.  There were also other business cars on the train, which I would have liked to explore, but there were signs making it quite clear that passengers were not allowed in those cars.  We could peek in through the end door a little, but the view was not very good.  Overall it was a very nice ride.  It was nice to get on a train and have no responsibility!

This just proves I was there!  Sarah and I, with Bay View behind us.

To Kansas!

Well folks, much to my surprise actually, I did make it into the next engineer training class.  I was surprised because I had been watching the bids, and it seemed that I was one number on the seniority roster short of making the class.  About three days after bid closed however, I got a call from the Road Foreman of Engines, in Glendive, to let me know that I had in fact made the class.  He gave me an overview of what the schedule would be, and what I would need to do before starting class, and told me to look for paperwork in the mail in the next few days.

A few days later, a fat envelope arrived from the railroad with a small pile of paperwork.  I had to get my vision and hearing tested again, just as I had had to for the Conductor program.  It seems that my vision and hearing are the same as they were just over a year ago.  In the packet of information, it also had our schedule.  BNSF has a training facility in Overland Park, KS, just outside of Kansas City.  While I have not yet been to the facility, I understand it has classrooms, locomotive simulators, and even a gift shop.  I am scheduled to begin training in Overland Park in a week and a half, on June 25th.  I will spend three weeks there, doing mostly classroom work, and learning the operating rules and procedures for engineers.  After the three weeks there, I will return to Montana for on the job training, for just over three months.

My training location is to be Forsyth, so I will have a lot of training trips to make out of there.  Forsyth is in the same seniority district as Glendive, and so I plan to mark to Glendive jobs as soon as my training is over. The Road Foreman said he wanted me to be fully qualified in Glendive too, so I will so a portion of my training in Glendive as well.  Since my training is officially in Forsyth, it just means I will have to go there for the next three years, if they are short on engineers, and if I am not working as an engineer somewhere else at the time.

After my on the job training, at the end of October, I head back to the training center, in Overland Park, for a final review, simulator testing, and written testing.  That trip will be a little bot shorter, only about two weeks.  When I get back here, if I have passed all the tests, the Road Foreman goes on a ride as a final check.  If I pass that too, I will have earned my Engineers' card.

When I first interviewed for the Conductor job, we were all told that it would be a minimum of three to five years before we would be able to go through the engineer program.  Of course, that was a loose estimate, based on the then current need for engineers.  Some people ahead of me in seniority have decided to pass up the engineer program, which has been part of the reason I have gotten it so soon.  Additionally, due to some retirements and an increase in traffic, more engineers have been needed than could have been anticipated at the end of 2010, when I interviewed.  Needless to say, tings change at the railroad!