Learning the route
Because trains have a maximum speed, most people assume they move at that speed constantly. Not so.
You can’t simply set the cruise control at 79 mph and forget it. With the exception of very flat, sparsely populated terrain, you’re constantly applying or releasing the brakes and manipulating the throttle. There are conditions dictating that you must slow down. Additionally, there’s always someone ahead, unable to make speed. That can really put a dent in your on-time performance.
So how does a train’s engineer know when to slow down or speed up? Like the old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” followed up by the punch line, “Practice, practice, practice.”
First, a student engineer has to undergo months of classroom and hands-on training. Once technically certified, the fun really begins — physical characteristics qualifications. Before Amtrak was empowered to hire its own operating crews, freight railroads furnished engineers and conductors by contract. The limits over which they could run a train was very locally oriented. I could run a freight and passenger trains. My seniority was good from Richmond, Va., to Portsmouth, Va., Raleigh, N.C., or Florence, S.C. I knew the authorized speeds like the back of my hand, and felt comfortable at the controls of the Silver Meteor, the Orange Blossom Special piggyback run, coal trains, locals, or yard jobs.
I ran passenger trains exclusively when I became an Amtrak employee in 1986, but my territory radiated from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Ga., Savannah, Ga., Newport News, Va., and Hamlet, N.C., as well as Pittsburgh, Pa. It took months to learn each route. To maintain my qualifications, I had to be tested and re-tested on the operating rules, signal systems, and territory of eight different railroads. I was thankful for daylight runs, because I could see the road ahead. Learning the Capitol Limited, largely in the dark between Washington and Pittsburgh — 334 speed changes in 331 miles — took me six months. It is necessary to learn your speeds and braking points in the both directions.
The risk for making a mistake, even a tiny one, carries with it the loss of your job — or your life.
It was a wonderful feeling to have the host freight railroad’s local road foreman of engines certify me to run trains over this rails. When I was being tested on the Southern Railway, between Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., on the Carolinian, I kept it “right on the money,” each way. They’ve always had a notorious, no-tolerance speeding policy.
“I’m going to tell Amtrak you’re okay to go,” he told me at the conclusion of our trip. “But if I catch you doing that again, I’ll bar you off our railroad.”
“What did I do wrong?” I asked.
“You kept it right dead on speed. I prefer a mile an hour or two UNDER.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, sir. I’ll run it with the wheels in the air and the roof on the rails, if you wish.”
As such, I earned a reputation for compliance — well, at least on the Southern.
Check out the previous column, “From the Cab: How fast ya’ going?” from retired Amtrak Engineer Doug Riddell.
