Passenger Service

Last weekend, I worked on my first passenger train. I learned a lot, and had a few misconceptions about passenger service dispelled.

The train I worked was Alaska Railroad's weekly winter passenger service between Anchorage and Fairbanks, known as the Aurora. This train runs north on Saturdays and south on Sundays. The 358 mile trip is scheduled to take 11:30, with the majority of the stations being flag stops, where the train only stops if there is someone boarding or disembarking at that particular station.

Unlike freight crews, passenger crews come on duty only 15 minutes prior to the scheduled departure of the train. The yard crew gets the train to the depot and several of the depot staff handle passenger ticketing and boarding before the road crew comes on duty. In that 15 minute window, the crew has a job brief, during which they talk about any conditions that will affect train operation, such as temporary speed restrictions. They also talk to the dispatcher to verify that the paperwork is all up to date and correct. After that, the Conductor goes into the depot and gets the passenger manifest from the ticket window, and then it is off to the train. Once everyone is on the train, just before departing, the crew must complete an air test. The 15 minutes get used up very quickly. It is a whirlwind of activity right at the start of the day, and lots of hurrying to make sure the train departs on time. Once the train is underway, the pace slows down a little. There is still paperwork to be done, but the Conductor has all the way to Fairbanks on the northbound trip to take care of it.

Once the Aurora gets underway, the Conductor has to look over the passenger manifest and figure out what stops will be made. Since the Aurora is a flag stop train, the station stops can change quite a bit from one trip to the next. The only stop that happens pretty much every time is Talkeetna. After figuring out the stops, there really is no paperwork that has to be completed right away, but I found it was easier to start on everything early, so that I would remember to do it later. It also meant I had less paperwork to do at the end of the day, so if I got sidetracked by something else, I was not in such a hurry to finish the paperwork. Once the paperwork is started, there is some down time.

I had expected there to be a bit of paperwork, although I had not expected the whirlwind to get going in the morning. Prior to working the passenger train, I had thought that passenger Conductors have it pretty easy. I mean, you never hear about a passenger train breaking a knuckle, and they certainly do not have to switch en route industries! I figured passenger service consisted of eating free dining car food, socializing with the passengers, and relaxing. What I learned is that there is some down time on the job, but it is hard earned! Between station stops, there can be quite a bit of down time, but at each stop, it is definitely go time.

Our first stop on the northbound trip was Wasilla. We had a just a few people boarding there. Since the Wasilla platform is only about the length of two coaches, the Engineer cannot see exactly where to stop to get the appropriate door at the platform. So the Conductor has to go back to the door to be used and count the Engineer down to the stop. Usually the countdown is done in coach lengths to a stop, starting about four coaches from the stop. Once stopped, we had one person get off, and then several who wanted to get on the train. Since Wasilla has no ticket office, we were given the tickets for the passengers boarding there with out manifest, prior to departing Anchorage. The easiest way I found to distribute tickets on the platform like that is to announce to everyone to have their ID out, and then call out the last names on each reservation. As each name is called, the person or group can approach the side of the train, show their ID's, at which point I would give them their tickets and allow them to board. In addition to boarding people, we had luggage to stow in the baggage car. We also had one person stop by with a package for a family that lives off the railroad in Sherman, which is only accessible by train. Once all the passengers and their luggage were on board, we continued heading north. Despite all the activity, the entire stop was only a couple of minutes.

When we left Wasilla, we had more down time before our next stop, which would be Talkeetna. Somewhere in there was time for breakfast too. Talkeetna is always a stop, but you never know what is going to happen there. Some days, it is just a quick one, and other days over a hundred people get on or off there. We only had a few people with reservations to there, but that still does not guarantee anything about that stop. Talkeetna serves as the jumping off point for people who have cabins or homes between there and Hurricane, some 60 miles to the north. In that area, along the Susitna River, the railroad is the only means of access. Because of that, the train will stop anywhere to pick up and drop off people. There are no passenger depots between Talkeetna and Hurricane, but there are a lot of trails that lead to cabins out in the woods. If people need to get on the train out there in the woods, they come out to the tracks and flag the train down. Train crews that have worked in passenger service a while generally have a pretty good idea of where the trails are, because those are where we usually stop, but the railroad will pick up someone flagging down the train at any location between Talkeetna and Hurricane. Because of the locals that live out there, Talkeetna can be quiet if no one is going out there, or it can be very busy if a lot of the locals are traveling at once. I had heard stories from other student Conductors that made it sound like thousands of people boarded every week at Talkeetna every week, so I was a bit anxious to get that stop over with.

As it turned out, Talkeetna was not the complete zoo that had been described to me. There were about a dozen people that boarded there, for whom we had the tickets, and three locals. The boarding and luggage handling was basically the same as it had been in Wasilla, it just took a few minutes longer. We also received more items, mail, and newspapers to deliver to some of the locals who were not riding the train. Once everyone and everything was on the train, we headed out. Because locals can flag down the train anywhere between Talkeetna and Hurricane, I stayed in the baggage car, where there is a makeshift office, since I would have to load items for anyone we picked up. I would also have to unload items for the locals on board when we got to their stop. It was just easier to ride in the baggage car and be in position instead of the dining car, which was four cars away.

My Conductor told me I got off pretty easy that day with the local traffic. We had a few people to drop off, but no one flagged down the northbound train. Once the three who boarded in Talkeetna were off the train, we were done with the local stops. All we had to do was deliver the newspapers, mail, and a couple of other items. Once we were north of Hurricane, I went back to the makeshift office in the dining car. There was still some paperwork to be completed from the locals' tickets.

Our next stop was another small one in Healy, and then we went to our final destination of Fairbanks. Healy only had four people disembarking, and would have been quick and uneventful except that just before pulling into the station, we learned that the checked luggage belonging to the four people getting off had been mislabeled as going to Fairbanks. Since most of the passengers were going to Fairbanks, we had quite a few suitcases to look through in the baggage car. We ended up having a fairly lengthy stop in Healy, but we did find the luggage in question!

In Fairbanks, everyone who was still on the train disembarked. There we did not have to handle luggage because there are people there full time who load and unload luggage. We just pulled in and got everyone off the train. By then, our 12 hours to work were up, so once everyone was off, we collected our stuff and got off the train ourselves. The train just sits at the depot all night anyway, and it is able to be serviced right there at the platform. As we were collecting out stuff and getting ready to get off, we ran into the CEO of the railroad, which surprised us a little. He had not been riding the train, but was apparently in Fairbanks for something and decided to check in with us. He was surprised at the crowd getting off in Fairbanks. Over 150 people had disembarked there, which is quite a lot for the middle of the winter. Usually few people go to Fairbanks in February!

Once we had collected our stuff and gotten off the train, it was off to the hotel for a good night's sleep before returning to Anchorage on Sunday.

Second First Trip

At 11:00pm on Friday night, I went on duty for my first trip as a student conductor. Well, it was my second first trip, but the first in Alaska. I would be working the overnight express freight train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Usually the crew for that train goes on duty at 7:30pm, but the engineer had not been rested, so the trip began behind schedule. We did our paperwork, had a brief about some of the slide zones out there, and then got out the door and on the train.

It was a surprisingly long train for this time of year, at 8,300 feet, but we have also had surprisingly warm weather for this time of year. Usually January is the coldest month of the year, and that cold usually restricts train length to about 3,000 feet. With daytime temperatures well above freezing, and mild nights, the railroad has been able to run much longer trains than usual.

Our trip started off uneventfully enough. We had no speed restricted cars or any cars that required special handling. There were no temporary speed restrictions to think about over the 358 miles, so all we had to remember were several slide zones, but those were five hours away from Anchorage. We all chatted and tried to keep each other awake, and the conductor quizzed me on different rules and operating practices. There was no southbound freight train that night, and we met the coal train within the first 90 minutes, so we had the railroad to ourselves.

As we traveled north, recent rain had made some bluffs near the tracks unstable. This caused the railroad to place some slide zones in service. Those slowed us town a bit once we were north of Talkeetna, but we found everything to be fine in all of the slide zones. Once we started getting into the mountains north of Talkeetna, the snow started to get a bit deeper. There were a few spots where a little of it had slid down onto the tracks, but it was nothing to cause alarm. We crossed the Hurricane Gulch bridge just after 5:00am, and then started down the other side of Chulitna Hill. Just a couple miles later, the trip started to get more eventful.

As we came up on milepost 287, my conductor turned to the engineer and asked if he, in his opinion, thought that using the emergency braking capability of the FRED, on the rear end of the train, would stop a train faster in an emergency than just using the emergency brake valve on the locomotive. As soon as he got the question out, the train went into emergency without any warning. Talk about timing! We came to a stop and the engineer attempted to recover the train from the emergency application.

After a couple attempts, it became clear that the brake pipe pressure was not being restored through the train, and my conductor and I would be going for a walk. We got suited up to go walking through the snow, and grabbed some tools, fusees, air hose gaskets, and air hose retention wires. Then we got off the engine and began walking back to find the problem.

The snow in this area was pretty deep, although the track area had been cleared down to the height of the rail head. On one side of the tracks, the hill dropped off into a river, and on the other side of the tracks, a hill came up from the tracks. We decided to start out on the river side, just so we would be out of the way on the off chance something slid down the hill towards the train. The snow on the river side was above the knees, with a layer of ice on the top. This made walking difficult, because the ice was thick enough that it could not be easily pushed away by walking, but it was not thick enough to walk on top of it. We decided to take out chances on the hill side of the tracks, but that idea was short lived. When we crossed over, we found the snow there to be between waist and chest deep, and it had the same layer of ice on top. So after walking one car length through that, we crossed back to the river side.

After trudging through the snow for an hour, we found the cause of the emergency brake application. A pair of air hoses had separated between two cars. We coupled them back together and the engineer was able to recover the brake pipe pressure. It looked like the air hoses were hanging pretty close to the snow between the rails, so we tightened up the retention wires to get them up off the ground a little more. Once the engineer notified us that he had brake pipe pressure back, we walked back to the locomotive. Despite it taking an hour to get back to the problem, it was only about 20 cars back. The snow and ice had really slowed us down! We were happy it was only 20 cars back, and not 110!

Once we got back to the engine, we got underway again. As we approached the Honolulu siding, the train went into emergency again. This time, the train stopped on a bridge, which had no walkways on it. In January that would not normally be much of a problem, because you could walk across the river below. This January however, it has been so warm that the river was flowing, so walking across it would not be an option. Before we started walking however, the engineer attempted to recover from the emergency application. As we were trying to figure out how we would get across the bridge, he announced he was getting air pressure back, and no one would have to go for a walk. That was a relief! Once he had the brake pipe recharged we got underway again.

For the next few hours, the trip went back to being uneventful. As we got into Denali National Park, it began to get light out. This time of year, the park is pretty quiet, but there were some moose and caribou out and about. We left the park and came along the Nenana River, and headed into Healy Canyon. Just as we started into the canyon, the train went into emergency once again. Again, the engineer attempted to recover the air, but this time he was not successful. Once again, we suited up, geared up, and started walking. This time it only took us about seven minutes to find the problem, and it was the same two air hoses. There was very little snow on the tracks in Healy Canyon, and that made walking much easier!

Since the problem was the same two air hoses, we decided to fix them in such a way that this would not happen a third time! We got some wire off the locomotive, and I had a roll of duct tape. We wired the glad hands together and then tested them to make sure they would not move. Once we were satisfied they were secure, we wrapped the whole mess with duct tape to make sure it would not go anywhere! We let the dispatcher know about the modifications we had made, so that the yard crew in Fairbanks would be aware that they would have to manually uncouple those hoses. By the time we were finished, it was daylight out and the sun was lighting up the canyon. We continued north, although by this time we only had about 90 minutes left to work. The dispatcher told us to go as far as Healy, where another crew would take over, since Fairbanks was still four hours away.

We arrived in Healy just about the same time as our relief crew, and from there we were driven the rest of the way to Fairbanks. We went straight to the hotel to get rested for the return trip. By the time we got to the hotel, it was 1:15pm. Our return trip southbound would normally have gone on duty at 7:30pm, but we were obviously not going to be rested by then!

At 1:30am Sunday, we went on duty for the southbound trip. Once again, the train was going to be late from the start. Just as with the previous trip, the beginning was pretty uneventful. We started with a brief on some of the slide zones we had, although there were fewer than the previous trip. Just like before, we had no temporary speed restrictions and no cars requiring special handling. The train was quite a bit smaller too, only about 5,600 feet long. We got underway and had a pretty unremarkable trip until we got to Healy Canyon.

Healy Canyon is a tight, winding canyon, through which the Nenana River flows. The railroad sits on a ledge several hundred feet above the west side of the river. On one side of the tracks, there is a steep drop to the river, and on the other side is a steep, rock wall that reaches up to the mountains. Because of numerous tight curves, the speed limit through the canyon is 15 mph. It takes almost an hour to cover the distance between Healy and Denali Park, despite being only 12 miles apart. As we were coming through the canyon, we came around a curve and found a boulder sitting squarely between the rails. It was still about a quarter of a mile away when we found it, so the engineer stopped the train short of it. All three of us got out to see if we could move it. It was not huge, about two feet long and a foot across, but it was deceptively heavy! Using a couple bars in the tool closet in the engine, we were able to use some leverage to get it out of the track area and out of our way. Once we cleared the boulder, we were on our way again.

The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. We had an unremarkable trip the rest of the way to Anchorage, and we made it all the way to Anchorage before we ran out of time to work, although barely. We pulled the train into the yard at 1:25pm, and from there a yard crew took over to break it up.

Conductor Training

I realize it has been about six weeks since the last blog post, and for that I apologize. There is simply less to write about when I am not working for the railroad! However, in the last few weeks, there have been some changes around here.

As you know, I was laid off from Alaska Railroad back in September. This was an expected, seasonal layoff. There is simply not enough winter traffic on Alaska Railroad to keep the entire work force busy. At the time, I was expecting to be laid off until mid to late April, at which point I was expecting that I would be called back to work as a Brakeman for the summer again. Two weeks ago, my expectations changed. One of the managers called me to tell me that several people senior to me had turned down the Conductor promotion. He wanted to see if I would be willing to take it, since the railroad was really hoping to get eight new Conductors this year. The catch to it was Conductor training would begin ten days later. Normally the railroad is required to give prospective Conductors a minimum of 30 days notice prior to training, and it is not a voluntary promotion. This means if given 30 days notice, a trainman must accept the promotion to continue employment with Alaska Railroad. Despite the short notice, I accepted the position, and on Monday, I went back to work for the railroad.

This week has been classroom training. Another week of classroom training will follow, and by the end of the month, all of us will be doing our on the job training.

Most of training has been a good refresher for me. It is amazing how much you forget when you do not work for the railroad for several months. Besides being a refresher, I have learned a lot of new things as well. Something we did not do as Brakemen, or during my time on BNSF, was handle passengers. Alaska Railroad operates passenger trains all year, and the people who work in freight service are required to be qualified to work in passenger service too. Well, there are a lot of extra things to know about passenger service. Some things are more obvious than others. For example, passenger cars are not allowed to be kicked or dropped during switching operations. Even when they are unoccupied, they contain too many things that can break, like windows and dishes. They also must have the brake pipe coupled and the air cut in to all cars when switching. Freight cars can be switched without air brakes, if the engine is capable of controlling them, but not passenger cars. Other things are not as obvious. For example, when coupling passenger cars, you have to stop approximately one car length short of coupling and make sure the couplers are properly aligned and there are no hoses or cables in the way. Only then can you make the coupling, and when the coupling is made, the couplers must be fully compressed and then fully stretched to verify that is is coupled securely.

Besides passenger rules, we are going over all the rules. As a Brakeman, it was important to be familiar with the rules, but they were summarized more during training, since Brakemen work with Conductors. Conductors on the other hand, have to know and understand the rules a lot more clearly because they are the person in charge of a train. The engineer may operate the controls, but ultimately it is up to the Conductor whether a train moves or not, and where it goes and which cars go with it. With that much responsibility for the train, it is obviously very important to have a thorough knowledge and a clear understanding of the operating rules.

Well that is all that is new with me. Hopefully, I'll have more to talk about now that I am working at the railroad again. Despite the silence, I have been busy with other projects for the blog and site. As many of you know, we have a small, but growing, "Other Resources" section. One major project for that has been to map out passenger rail service in the United States. Eventually, it will be a historical reference, showing how passenger service has evolved in the US over the last century or so. Needless to say, that is a fairly large project, especially for one person. I will continue to add information to that page as it is ready. As always, if there is anything you would like to see added to there or anything you are curious about, let us know.

Some of you have asked when we will get to hear from Steven again. As many of you know, he has been away doing missionary service, and his computer access is highly limited. He will be returning home towards the end of May, at which point, I believe he plans to pick up with writing again. As always, let us know if there is something you want to read about, or if you just have a question. The best way to reach us is to send us an email at ogden.bros.trains@gmail.com.