Conductor James

Mothers and Grandmothers in my Life

2025-05-11T21:51:00.003-08:00

The people who spoke in church this morning talked at some length about their mothers and how their mothers influenced their lives. Most were positive, although a few lamented the fact that their mother had been less of a positive influence than they would have liked. As I was sitting there listening to the stories and reflections, I did a little reflecting on my own mother, grandmothers, and one great-grandmother that affected my life, and I thought I should write down some of my thoughts. I have been very fortunate to have several positive and influential women in my life.

Nana
Nana was my father's mother. She and my grandfather lived in New York, a drive of about four hours from where I grew up. We saw them during holidays and summer vacations, and occasionally on long weekends. Nana was one of the kindest and most selfless people I have ever met. I doubt that she dedicated much energy to thinking of herself. She was a teacher and school administrator professionally and dedicated many years to educating children. By the time I came along, she was retired from teaching, but retirement never stopped her from inspiring and encouraging my curiosity and that of my siblings. Nothing was too small or insignificant for her attention if it was something of interest to one of her grandchildren. From the cracks that formed in the sidewalk near the house from tree roots growing underneath to the splash made when we dropped pebbles into neighborhood storm drains. Between visits, she would save up her loose change on her dresser, and when we visited, my siblings and I would sit down with her at the dining room table and sort out the coins and pick out the shiniest ones. As a child, the fun was not in receiving a few dollars, but rather in finding the shiniest coins with my grandmother. Interesting rocks, stray golf balls that ended up in the yard, and berries that grew on some of the hedges were all things she explored with us. And she never hesitated to sit down on the floor with us to play with our toy trains or matchbox cars. Nana passed away in 2018, a couple of weeks after her 100th Mothers' Day, and I still think of her often. When I went away to college, I still called her every week, and I often find myself wishing I still could.

Oma
Oma was my mother's grandmother. She lived with my grandmother in southern Maine, just a couple of hours from where I grew up. We saw her around the holidays and over many weekends throughout the year. She was a small German woman with a large personality. She came to the United States around the time she turned 70 to help her daughter raise a family while her son-in-law was serving in the Army in Vietnam. She loved puzzles, and I always loved to help her with them. In her puzzling, the stereotype for German efficiency was apparent. After she assembled a puzzle once, she would divide it into sections, bag up each section separately, then place the bags in the box. The next time she wanted to put that puzzle together, she could quickly and efficiently assemble each section, completing a thousand-piece puzzle in just a few hours. The speed at which she completed puzzles was a thing of wonder to me as a child, although as an adult I wonder if such efficiency affects the enjoyment of such a hobby! While she spoke and understood English, she refused to speak it with her grandchildren. We could speak to her in English, but she would always speak to us in German. I appreciate that she was trying to help us learn a second language, although the attempt was somewhat unsuccessful while she was alive. As an adult, I have visited her homeland and found the language quite easy to pick up, no doubt because of her efforts in my youth. She passed away in 2005, and I was fortunate to have her around for my childhood.

Memere
Memere is my mother's mother, and Oma's daughter. While Memere is also German, she got the French-Canadian title from my grandfather's side, since "Oma" was already in use for her mother. She is in her late 80's now, but sometimes I think she has more energy than me! As long as I have known her, she has always had a lot of energy. That must have come in handy when she was younger. She raised three children while her husband was in the Army. He went to Vietnam twice, leaving her to care for their young family. Fortunately, he also returned, but to a young mother in a new country, learning a new language, that must have been stressful. Christmas at her house was always memorable. She pulled out all the stops and the entire house, inside and out, was decorated for the holiday. The decorations went up after Thanksgiving and stayed up into January. Naturally, there was a German theme to it, but that is what she grew up with, and consequently, it was a memorable part of my childhood. She always had the prettiest Christmas tree, but I was afraid to get too close for fear that I might break one of the delicate-looking ornaments simply by looking too hard at it! Her house always seemed so cozy at Christmas. I am fortunate to still have Memere in my life, and we text and talk regularly, although perhaps a little less often than we should.

Mom
Lastly, and most significantly, there is my own mother. As a child, she encouraged all my interests, however fleeting they may have been. She always encouraged me to be involved in things that interested me, and for many years was my chauffer to those activities. As an adult, I think I better realize the challenges she faced, of which I was totally unaware as a child. She has had rheumatoid arthritis in her knees and hips her whole life. As a child, all I knew was that she went up and down the stairs slowly and she could not ride a bicycle. It never occurred to me that she was different, even though I could get up the stairs at twice the speed. Even without riding a bike herself, she taught me to do so. She was confident in what she could do, or at least it seemed that way to me, and she never seemed to let her disability stop her from trying things, even if she had to modify an activity in order to participate. As an adult, I wonder how often she was uncomfortable or in pain and I had no idea as a child. As I have gotten older, she has become a best friend, and I always enjoy visiting and catching up on the phone. Now I live on the other side of the continent, and while I love the life I have created for myself, I do wish it was closer to her! Visiting just a couple of times each year is not enough, and even when a visit lasts several weeks, it always goes too fast.

Kicking, Dropping, and Humping

2022-07-26T22:26:00.002-08:00

I was having a conversation with someone not too long ago about different methods of switching railroad cars. This person is not a railroader and most of their understanding of railroads has been consequential to associating with me. This person had been perusing a copy of one of my rule books and had seen some references to different switching maneuvers. As we were talking about switching, the topic of letting cars roll on their own came up, and at one point the conversation was interrupted with the question, "what's the difference between kicking, dropping, and humping?"

Apparently, up to that point, I had not explained the different methods very well. Let me also elaborate here, for anyone who is curious.

There are generally two categories of switching cars, flat switching and gravity switching. In gravity switching, generally grades within the yard or switching area are utilized to facilitate the movement of cars. Flat switching requires the use of a locomotive to move cars. When it comes to yards, there are similarly two categories of yards, hump yards and flat yards. Hump yards are yards designed to maximize the ability to gravity switch cars for their classification. Flat yards may not be truly flat, as very little of the surface of the earth actually is, but they generally require the use of a locomotive for most of the classification, as the topography of the yard may only allow for limited gravity switching.

So, how does that relate to kicking, dropping, and humping? Well, let's talk about the difference between kicking and dropping first. Before we get into this, I should explain that in all these scenarios the air brakes have been bled off on the cars in question so that the brakes do not apply when cars are uncoupled from each other or a locomotive.

Kicking cars requires a locomotive but reduces the number of movements a locomotive must make, reducing the time needed to classify cars. To kick cars, the locomotive pushes them towards their destination within the yard. Once they are up to sufficient speed, they are uncoupled, and the locomotive and any remaining cars are brought to a stop. The uncoupled cars continue rolling under their own inertia until some force brings them to a stop. That stopping force may be imparted by a brakeman riding the uncoupled car and applying a handbrake at the appropriate time. It may also be delivered by allowing the cars to couple into standing cars in the track to which they are kicked. Generally, the standing cars will have a sufficient number of handbrakes applied to prevent them from moving when kicked cars hit them. Typically the kick will occur at a location within the yard that allows the next kick to begin right where the previous one ended, minimizing the moves the locomotive must make for each car classified.

Dropping cars relies on gravity to move the cars toward their destination. Rather than having a locomotive push the cars up to speed, the cars start rolling using only gravity. Usually, a brakeman rides a car and applies the handbrake at the appropriate time to stop the cars, just like when kicking. The major difference is that dropping a car does not use a locomotive. In fact, a car can be dropped from just about anywhere just by releasing the brakes, provided it is sitting on enough of a grade to get it moving.

Humping is a variation on both dropping and kicking. Hump yards are designed and built to utilize gravity to streamline the classification of cars. At one end of the yard there is a hill, whether man-made or natural. Cars, or even entire trains, are pushed to the top of the hump, towards the yard. At the top of the hump, a switchman uncouples cars, and they roll away from the crest of the hump, and away from the other cars, into the yard. This is all done as the train is pushed slowly over the hump. Once they roll down into the yard, their speed is controlled by hydraulic or pneumatic retarders in the track. They are allowed to roll into the yard tracks and couple into equipment already in the yard.

Often hump yards employ other methods of automating the classification of cars. Modern railcars have an RFID tag on them which can be used to electronically identify them. Within the railroad's equipment tracking software is a database which identifies destinations and train assignments for all cars. Cars are typically classified by destination, although there are other considerations as well, such as proper hazardous material placement and open load placement. As cars roll over the hump, they are weighed and identified automatically. The computer then uses that information to line all the switches in front of a car and operate the retarders as the car rolls over them. This ensures that the car gets to the right track at precisely the right speed to safely couple to cars already in the track without causing damage to either the equipment or the load it is carrying. As tracks are filled, a yard crew at the other end pulls the classified cars out and assembles them into trains. The efficiency with which cars are classified in a hump yard is really quite remarkable.

Even in flat yards, there is often at least a minor grade. "Flat" is a term used to describe a yard that does not have a hump, despite the fact that very little of the earth is truly flat. Almost every yard has small hills and experienced yard crews use topographical features to expedite switching of cars whenever possible. For example, if there is a slope in one area of a yard, it might be possible to pull blocks of cars up the slope and then drop them back down into the yard, with trainmen lining switches between each drop, to facilitate a quick and efficient classification of the cars.

What Does a Railroader Do During Furlough?

2022-03-24T22:13:00.003-08:00

Every so often someone asks what I do for work. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, this has been a tricky question! In my mind, I am still a railroader, but the reality is that I have not had anything to do with moving a train in over two years now. So, what does a railroader do with a furlough?

The answer to that question would be different for everyone. Initially, I was subject to seasonal furlough as business dried up at the end of 2019. This was expected and anticipated. My plan, as it is every year for seasonal furlough, was to enjoy the time off. Think about it, how many other places can you take four months off every year? I set aside money while I was working to cover my expenses while furloughed. Then I planned some activities to use up some of that free time. I booked a trip to Europe, planned to spend some time with my parents, and planned on spending the bulk of the time in the Lower 48 visiting friends around the west.

When my furlough started, I figured I would be back to work in March or April 2020. I started off furlough by working on a few projects around the house. None of them were major, but things that needed to be done. I got rid of the old, worn-out laundry machines at the fourplex and installed newer, more efficient machines. There were a few other small projects, but it was all easily accomplished pretty quickly, even just working on it a few hours per day.

When I was not working on the house, I caught up with some friends in Anchorage, whom I had not seen all summer, while in Skagway. Towards the end of the summer, I had also started dating L, and we made plans to get together a couple of times. My plan was to enjoy the time off, travel a bit, visit friends, spend time with L, then go back to work in the spring, and I started on that plan anyway.

In December 2019, I went to Idaho to live with a friend for a few months, and to put me a bit closer to L. She was living in northern Utah, just a couple of hours away. That may seem like a long way to drive just to see her, a couple of hours each way every time, but compared to the time it took to get there from Alaska, it was pretty quick! I made that drive a couple of times per week. In just a couple of months I managed to put 10,000 miles on my car, just driving back and forth between eastern Idaho and northern Utah!

As we all know, the world started to change at the beginning of 2020. Still believing a regular summer season was only a two-week quarantine away from being reality, I continued with all my planned furlough activities. L met my parents, then I took my mother and grandmother to Germany, where they are from. That was a wonderful trip, and despite COVID-19's increasing threat on the world, we saw little to remind us of what was happening. Why didn't I also take L? I planned the trip before she and I started spending time together, and while I later invited her, she felt it would be awkward to spend time in Germany with my family, whom she had only met a few days earlier.

In the few short weeks I was there, everything seemed to change. Being on vacation and just enjoying a part of the world that was new to me, I paid absolutely no attention to news or current events. So I was quite bewildered about the extensive questioning at US Customs about whether I had been in Italy and whether I had been ill at all during my trip. As I got caught up on the news after returning home, it became apparent that it would take more than a two-week quarantine to return to normal.

Shortly after returning from Europe, L and I got married. It was not the wedding we had been planning or hoping for, COVID-19 made sure of that, but we still felt like it was important to do, even if it did not turn out at all how we originally envisioned.

Around that time, the railroad extended the furlough, through late June. There was hope that a partial summer season may still happen, if things turned around soon with respect to COVID-19. I decided I had better look for another job, just in case. Ultimately that took us back to Alaska, where I took a position as the manager of a lighting store. My experience was neither in management nor in lighting, but I accepted it as a new challenge, and figured it would be temporary anyway, just until the 2021 season on the railroad. As it turned out, the 2021 season was not to be either, and so it has been a blessing to have a job I can stay at indefinitely until the railroad calls.

In early 2022, the railroad did finally call, and it seems that this is the year I get to go back! Furloughs are all different, and as I have learned recently, they do not always go according to plan. I am looking forward to more seasonal furloughs in the future and fewer prolonged ones. I intend to make a habit of filling furloughs with visits to family and travel overseas again, as I have in the past. L is also interested in doing that, and we are hoping to go to Europe together next winter.

Railroad Update: COVID-19

2020-05-21T08:26:00.002-08:00

It is probably a safe assumption that everyone reading this has heard of Coronavirus at this point. I thought I would take a minute and explain how it is effecting the railroad and me. In short, it is having a negative effect, like on so many other industries.

White Pass & Yukon Route primarily moves tourists through a scenic part of Alaska and Canada. The vast majority of the tourists arrive in Skagway on cruise ships, which are basically not running at this point. Each cruise line has slightly different responses as to how they are responding to the Coronavirus and when they will be operating again. Due to both Canadian and US restrictions, none of them will be operating in Alaska at least until mid-July. Normally, our busy tourism season starts at the end of April, so that is already halfway through the season. Several cruise lines have announced that they have cancelled all their Alaska itineraries for the entire season, and some have announced start dates for much later than July, reducing the season even further. In the very best of circumstances, and assuming nothing else changes, it is looking like it will be a short and small season this year. Of course, all of that is subject to change. For much of April, things were changing on a daily basis. That has slowed down a bit, but I expect that there will continue to be changes to that anticipated schedule.

My employer, White Pass & Yukon Route has responded by cancelling all operations for May and June. They want employees returning from winter furlough to be available for work starting June 29th. This is much later than the original recall date in early March, which was given to us before the Coronavirus became such a big problem in the United States. Because of the reduced number of ships expected, and therefore the reduced passenger counts arriving in Skagway, the railroad has cancelled several services including the Carcross service and the Fraser Meadows Steam Excursions. Other services are expected to be operating on a reduced schedule. I was told that I should expect there to be no work for me this summer, because of where my seniority falls. They are currently expecting to need about eight people to operate trains, and I am currently number twenty-four on the seniority roster. Even if a few people senior to me choose not to return to work for some reason, it is unlikely that it would get to me. Basically, I will not likely be railroading this year, at least not at White Pass.

Right now everyone is hopeful for a better 2021 season. Some people are optimistic that everything will return to normal by then. I think that is unlikely, but hopefully 2021 will look a bit closer to normal than this year has so far!

Since it is unlikely that I will work for White Pass this year, I have been looking for other employment. I have been looking at other railroads, though few are hiring at the moment, and outside the railroad industry. Job searching is not much fun. I am also still waiting to find out whether White Pass will continue to pay for our health benefits. They normally continue to pay those during furlough, but furlough is usually only a few months each winter. With this longer one now, they have been telling us for eight weeks that they will have a decision about our benefits on Friday, and each Friday it gets postponed. The lack of communication has been frustrating, to say the least.

I will retain seniority at White Pass, and theoretically I will be able to return to work there as soon as there is work and it reaches my seniority level. When that will be exactly, no one really knows. I am hoping for 2021, but it really depends on how long it takes the tourism industry to recover from all of this.

Bucket List: Around the World

2019-09-13T01:31:00.003-08:00

Sometimes I think there is a very fine line between a bucket list item and a completely crazy idea. Which side of that line something falls on is largely the determination of the beholder. What are bucket list items to me may seem like crazy ideas to someone else. With that in mind, here are a couple of my bucket list items.

Many people are familiar with the Jules Verne novel, "Around the World in Eighty Days." There was even a (lengthy) movie made of the book several years back. In case you are not familiar, the title of the book fairly concisely summarizes the plot. The main character, Phineas Fogg, believes that one can travel all the way around the world in eighty days or less. He proposes this belief to his peers at a wealthy men's social club in London, and most of the members consider such an undertaking to be ridiculous. Eventually a wager is placed, and to claim the prize, Phineas Fogg must travel around the world and return to that club within eighty days.

When Jules Verne wrote "Around the World in Eighty Days," in the 19th century, such a journey was not impossible, but was certainly a major undertaking. Today, with jet transportation, such a journey could easily be accomplished in far less than eighty days. But the question is, just how much less? I think, with a lot of advance planning and a bit of luck, one could travel around the world on commercial flights in just eighty hours. Now, to make it just a bit more challenging, such a trip should stop in the same major cities as Phineas Fogg did on his journey. His trip started in London, stopped in Cairo, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York, before ending back in London. Coordinating the flight schedules to make that possible in eighty hours or less would be the challenge, and then it would take a bit of luck not to miss any connections along the way.

Now, I do not live anywhere near London, and Alaska is nowhere on that route, so it is not the greatest starting point. But getting from Anchorage to San Francisco is relatively easy, and the circumnavigation could begin and end there. From San Francisco, there are numerous direct flights to New York everyday. There are numerous flights from New York to London everyday as well, and there are several per day from London to Cairo. So far so good. But getting from Cairo to Mumbai is a bit trickier. There is only one direct flight each day. From there to Hong Kong is not great either, but there are a few more options. Hong Kong is pretty well connected with Tokyo, and Tokyo with San Francisco. Despite having several daily options on each leg, they are not really designed to connect with each other in the way that would be needed for a quick trip around the world! There are direct flights available for every leg of the trip, but the trick would be to find the overall fastest, even if it meant a stop instead of direct flights. Individual legs might be slower to allow for a faster trip time, and that is where planning all this gets really complex in a hurry!

Because of the complexity of planning all of this, I think the best way to do it would be as a promotional trip for a major airline. Airlines have buildings full of people who specialize in scheduling, and to have the ability to use their expertise would make the planning process an order of magnitude easier! That said, with or without the assistance of an airline, I would like to take a shot at such a trip! Sure, it is not the best way to really see the world, but that is not the point of such a trip either.

On a related note, I would like to take a more leisurely trip around the world, but in a small airplane. And that trip could start and end in Alaska more easily. The Federation Aeronautique Internationale has specific guidelines for what constitutes a circumnavigation of the world. For an eastbound trip, requirements include crossing all meridians, a course distance of 27,000km or more, and the trip must be completed within one year. Many people have crossed oceans in small planes, but not many have flown all the way around the world. I intend to do so.

Of course, in a small plane one does not simply set out across the ocean the same way the airlines do. Most small planes will either require modification to extend their range significantly beyond their normal maximum, and even with that, most small planes will require fuel at least a couple of times while crossing the ocean. That is where things get tricky. Crossing the Pacific is easier than the Atlantic, even though it is bigger, because there are islands scattered all over the Pacific. In the Norther Hemisphere, the Aleutian Islands make crossing the Pacific relatively simple. The islands have airports all over them, most dating from World War II. The Atlantic is a different story however. There is not a long chain of islands stretching most of the way across the ocean. The most practical place to cross is from Canada to Scotland, with stops in Greenland and Iceland. Even on that route, there are long legs with nothing but ocean for hours. Because of the lengthy water crossings, there are more logistics that go into planning and preparing for a trip like that. More survival gear is required, and it has to be rated for some cold temperatures no matter what time of year the trip happens. Of course, all that gear adds weight to the plane, weight which cuts into the useful load of the plane. That useful load is a limited amount of weight the plane can carry, which includes people, gear, and fuel. It is important to plan so that people, gear, and fuel can be balanced in such a way as to make the trip possible! Crossing an ocean requires a lot of fuel, which also weighs a lot!

Those are my two bucket list items, which to most seem crazy. I have told a few people about them, and usually get similar responses from everyone. To the idea of flying around the world in eighty hours, most people lament the fact that it is not enough time to see the world. Most people do not understand that the point is not to see the world, but rather circumnavigate it. To the idea of flying a small plane around the world, most people have almost nothing to say! The usual response is usually something like, "oh, that's cool." I can always tell that people just have no idea how to respond to something like that, because it is so unattainable to most people that it has never even crossed their mind as something that is within the realm of possibility. I might as well be telling people I want to walk on the moon!

Catching Up...Again

2019-07-28T21:25:00.002-08:00

In the back of my mind, I always know this blog exists. I have had it for years, but my activity on it kind of wanes at times. I tend to be reasonably active on it for a while, then life gets busy and it gets shelved for a while. Consider this post to be me removing it from the shelf, at least for a minute. I'd like to be more active on it, but the simple fact is that there are other things going on in my life that I consider to be higher priority.

Sometimes I wonder about blogs like this. They exist in cyberspace, and they stand as a record of something for their author, but there are many that are never revived. They just go to a blog graveyard somewhere, where they are forgotten and unread, but continue to exist indefinitely. It is an interesting thought.

I am not exactly sure what my goals are with this thing, which is probably why it has been lost in cyberspace for the last nearly five (!!!) years. Having some sort of goals or vision for it would make it far more likely to be updated on a regular basis. Of course, at the minimum, it would be nice to have an update on here more often than once every five years! A lot happens in that time, and it is hard to keep up if posts are that infrequent! At one time I also wanted to expand the different pages on this blog, and make this more of a comprehensive website about my adventures. I think all I ultimately did was make an "About Me" page. It is a start, but a long way from being comprehensive! I need to think about what I want to do with this, and figure out when, and go from there. I will come up with something, I am sure of that.

A Year with a High Performance Vehicle

2014-09-08T14:56:00.015-08:00

About a year ago, I purchased a vehicle. It was on June 20, 2013 that I drove my Mercedes Benz SLK55 AMG to her new home. While it was a used vehicle, it was new to me. It had low miles and had been babied by the previous owner, so it was in exceptionally good condition. When I bought the car, it had just over 12,000 miles on it, despite being a 2006 model year car. The interior and exterior were immaculate, despite the age. Considering I purchased it for around $80,000 less than a new one would cost, I really had nothing to complain about!

When I bought the vehicle, I really only knew a few things about it. I knew it looked nice, handled extremely well, and had a ridiculous amount of horsepower. The horsepower to weight ratio meant it would go fast. I also knew that it was expensive, and that being an AMG model, Mercedes considers it one of their high performance models.

In the past year since I bought it, I have learned a lot more about it. Some of what I have learned is simply statistics. The engine is a 5.5 liter V8, which produces 450 horsepower. On paper, the zero to 60 time is 4.2 seconds. It is electronically limited to 155 mph, supposedly. I have never really had any opportunity to test that. I also learned that AMG is not simply a model designation for Mercedes, but actually a separate corporate subsidiary of Mercedes. The cars they build are their own models. While they usually correspond to existing Mercedes models, they come from a different plant and have different parts. All AMG vehicles are also hand built, and there is a placard on the engine with the name and signature of the person who built our vehicle.

Some of what I have learned has been more experience based. On dry pavement, it is possible to navigate a traffic circle at 50 miles per hour and only make the tires squeal a little. At 40 mph they do not squeal at all. I have also found that with 450 horses under the hood, you can feel like you are driving fairly hard and never get the engine over 3,000 rpm. However if you push the pedal a little farther into the floor and let the engine get to 4,000 rpm, the cars in the mirror get very small very quickly! If you go to the floor with the gas pedal and get the engine up around 6,500 rpm, you feel like your eyeballs are at the back of your head, cars in the mirror look like toys before you even have a chance to glance in the mirror, and you very quickly exceed the speed limit, regardless of how high it may be. I have also found that 100 mph in the Mercedes is surprisingly unremarkable. In all previous cars that I have owned, 100 felt like an achievement. Usually the vehicles would be making a lot of noise, the wind noise would be deafening, there would be at least a little shake or shudder in the suspension, and the handling was slightly questionable at best. In the Mercedes there is no change in the handling from half the speed, only slightly more wind noise, and no shaking at all. 100 mph feels kind of insignificant actually. But you sure cover a lot of ground fast!

I have also learned that, despite having a reputation for being gas guzzlers, the big AMG V8 up front is not as bad as you might think. Of course, it does depend a lot on how the vehicle is driven. Just by way of comparison, my Volvo has a 2.5 liter turbocharged, five cylinder engine. On a really good day on the highway, at about 65 mph, it gets about 29 miles per gallon. For that I get roughly 250 horsepower, which is more than sufficient for getting around town. Driving around town, the Volvo averages around 22 to 24 mpg. The AMG, by comparison, when I drive really conservatively on the highway around the speed limit, gets about 22 miles per gallon. That said, I have found that the AMG is more fuel efficient, in terms of miles per gallon, at higher speeds. In the Volvo, driving at very high speeds really kills fuel economy, because the vehicle has to use nearly all of its horsepower to maintain the high speed. When I used to drive to Billings, I set cruise control at 85 mph, and we did good if we got anything over about 22 mpg. By contrast, when I drive at 100 mph in the AMG, I actually get better fuel economy than at typical highway speeds! The car was designed to go fast, and consequently at 100 mph, it is not using nearly as much horsepower as is available. It may burn a little more fuel in an hour at that speed, but it covers a lot more distance in an hour! I found I can get better than 24 mpg at 100 mph in the Mercedes! In town the numbers are not amazing, although that is where driving habits can have the most effect on fuel economy. Driving conservatively, I can get about 18 to 19 mpg. If I drive pretty hard around town, getting up to the speed limit very quickly at every green light, it does burn a bit more fuel, but even with that, I have never been able to push the fuel economy below 16 mpg. The only explanation I can come up with is that when you drive it hard, it really does not last long, because you get up to speed in no time at all, and then you have no choice but to simply keep driving at that speed.

I have found that the Mercedes has a few little quirks about it that you might not expect from other vehicles. I do not think this has much to do with it being a Mercedes product specifically, but rather has more to do with it being a high performance vehicle and a hand built vehicle. The thing is when a machine builds car after car after car, like any economy car on the road, it builds each one exactly as it built the last one. There is no variation from one vehicle to the next that is not specifically programmed into the machine that builds them. With a hand built car, you get little variations in the build that are hard to notice at first, but you start to see small things when you look closely. For example, in the trunk there is one plastic rivet that just will not stay in place. There are three others just like it which stay in fine, but this one falls out. It is not a critical component, it just holds a piece of plastic molding in place. If you look at the rivet and the hole it belongs in, they are not broken or deformed at all, they just do not quite line up as well as the other three do. Also the rubber seal around the top of the driver's window has one little spot where it pops to the outside of the glass when you close the door. The passenger door does not do it, just the driver's door. One of the stickers under the hood is slightly crooked compared to the one next to it. The AMG badge near the top of the passenger seat pops out once in a while. Little things like that have no effect on the overall performance of the vehicle, but they do remind you that it was a human that built the vehicle, and not a machine. When a person builds vehicles, they all have some slight variations, no matter how many he or she builds.

Economy cars are designed with a different mentality than any performance vehicles. They are built as consumer products, for a market where features like having a fancy radio display, iPhone connectivity, or backup cameras are more likely to sell the car than engine performance figures or handling qualities. Most drivers are looking for comfort and gadgets first, and specific engine and performance characteristics second, if at all. AMG has a completely different approach, but they also build vehicles for a completely different group of customers. First and foremost, AMG products are designed with specific engine performance and handling characteristics as the primary objective. Creature comforts are always secondary to performance. As a result there are occasionally weird little quirks with the car. For example, the passenger window has been a bit uncooperative lately. It still works, it just seems to have a mind of its own. If you roll it down, it may not want to go up later. But if you shut the car off and leave it alone for a while, chances are when you come back, the window will roll back up with no problem. It may not want to roll back down right away, but again, if you give it a while, it might change its mind. It is not a major problem at all, and it really does not effect the performance of the car, but it can be a little frustrating. Sometimes when you make a nice slow stop, the brakes squeal a little. They are not worn out and there is nothing wrong with them, they just squeal. I guess they use different braking materials on high performance cars than on economy cars, and they are just known to squeal on slow stops. If you come racing to a stop and hit the brakes hard at the last minute, they do not make a sound. When it comes to the stuff that matters though, the handling and mechanical performance, the car functions great! It seems that no matter how hard you drive it, it stays just as responsive and performs exactly as expected. It fires right up when you start it, and then right from the moment you put the transmission in gear, it handles great.

We only drive the AMG in the summer. She takes the winters off and stays in a climate controlled garage, waiting for the return of warm weather. The temperature is not really the problem, and we do drive the AMG in the cold, but once snow and ice hit the roads, we put the car away for the winter. During the winter months it can be easy to ask ourselves whether owning such a car is really worth it. We have to share the other car in the winter, which is not impossible but can be a little inconvenient at times. We only really get to drive our AMG about half of the year. In the spring, when we drive the AMG for the first time that year, it only takes about a second to decide that it is totally worth sharing the other car half the year! Alaska may not be the ideal place to own a high performance vehicle, California, Arizona, or Florida would be much better, but it is still a great car to drive, and I enjoy owning such a vehicle, even with its quirks.

The Land of the Midnight Sun

2013-04-18T13:34:00.001-08:00

Since I moved to Montana, I've always had the idea that it would be temporary. While I like Glendive and my coworkers, I have no connection to the place and it was farther from an airport or train station than I liked. During my time there, I applied for a few different jobs with Amtrak. They called me back once for an engineer job in St. Cloud, MN, but I declined because of the pay. I've always wanted to work around passenger trains, but Amtrak pays quite a bit less than freight railroads typically do. That left me thinking about other possibilities. There are few passenger railroads in the USA that are more than a tourist or commuter line, and even fewer that pay like freight railroads. A transfer with BNSF looked unlikely, at least as long as there is an oil boom in Montana and the Dakotas. They are pretty understaffed there to begin with, and unless something changes, the last thing they would do is willingly let people move to other parts of the system. Admittedly, I had not put in a transfer request, but since I took the engineer program, it would have been denied for three years anyway. That's part of the agreement when taking the engineer program.

Back in October, I started thinking that the Alaska Railroad might be a good option, if I wanted to work around passenger trains. I was not really sure what they paid, but I thought I would look into it a bit. I also looked at a few others, like South Shore Line, Florida East Coast, and the Long Island Railroad, though Alaska was more appealing. I sent a few emails, and basically found out that the Alaska Railroad was not hiring then and they were not sure if they would in the spring.

Over the next few months, I checked the Alaska Railroad website regularly to see if anything would open up. Towards the end of February, they posted an opening for a "Locomotive Engineer/Conductor Trainee," and I decided to apply. Several weeks went by, and I was beginning to figure they had found someone else. Towards the end of March, they called me back, and asked if I could be at an interview the following week, just six days later. The interview would be in Anchorage, and would have to be conducted in person. I told them I would be there, and then I booked a flight and asked for a few days off. Fortunately, I had three paid leave days left, so I took those last minute.

The interview was scheduled for a Thursday, so I flew to Anchorage on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I went over to the railroad offices for the interview. There were a total of nine people there. They started with a four minute reading comprehension test. At first, I thought hat was a mistake, and it must be forty minutes, but it actually was only four minutes. At the end of that, they pulled one person out of the room, and that was the last we saw of him. After that, someone brought a box of safety gear in the room and we were told to grab a pair of gloves, safety glasses, and an orange vest. The next part would be our strength test. We all had to sign liability waivers before we could do that part.

For the strength test, they took us out behind the offices, to the yard. First they showed us how to line a switch, and then had each of us take a turn at it. Next they had us each climb on and off of a freight car. Then they wanted us all to climb on a car and hang off the side for ten minutes. Once we had done that, they showed us how to apply and release hand brakes, and they had us all take a turn at that. Next we all had to lace air hoses, and then we all had to pick up and set down a coupler knuckle. After that, we went back in the office and they scheduled our interviews.

Interviews were scheduled for the same day, with people who had earlier flights home going first. Interviews took about 20 to 30 minutes each. Most of the questions were geared up for people with no previous railroad experience. The fact that I have railroad experience answered all but a couple of the questions. The interview was pretty casual and informal actually, so we had a nice chat and went over everything. At the end of the interview, much to my surprise, the person conducting the interviews told me I had the job if I wanted it. He hesitated for a minute and then told me he wasn't really supposed to tell me that, but he had done all the interviews up to that point, and I was the most qualified person they had had in there so far. He also told me they would be making calls the following week to officially extend job offers.

After the interview, I walked around downtown Anchorage for a little while. The weather was nice, although a little chilly. The next day, I had an early morning flight back to the Lower 48. I returned to Montana and went back to work over the weekend.

The following week, my vacation started. That had been scheduled six months earlier, and ended up being perfectly timed, as we found out later. Originally we had been planning another cruise during that time, but we cancelled that back in December. That Tuesday, the Alaska Railroad called and offered me the job, and I accepted it. We began making plans to move to Alaska. We would have liked to pack everything in a shipping container and meet it in Anchorage, but that was not very affordable. So, we planned to rent a truck, load it with all of our stuff, and drive to Anchorage. It would take four days to drive from Montana to Anchorage. While that whole week was a bit of a blur, several things did happen last minute that really worked out well for us.

We actually found a truck in Glendive to buy. So instead of renting the truck, we ought it, with the plan to sell it in Alaska. The guy we bought it from was just happy to get rid of it, so we may even be able to make a little money on it, and offset the cost of gasoline to drive up here. We had quite a bit of help loading the truck, and so our move went as smoothly as could be expected, especially considering the short notice. Despite the short notice, we were able to get the truck registered, and some new tires put on it.

On Monday, the 8th, we departed Montana, in a snowstorm, ironically. We drove out of the snow in the first couple of hours though. Our goal for the day was Edmonton, 708 miles away. The border crossing, into Canada, turned out to be easier than I expected. I gave them the list of everything that was in the truck. They looked it over, scanned my passport, and that was it. They did not ask to search the truck or anything. It was very easy. We spent less than ten minutes at customs. From there we continued driving all the way to Edmonton. We stopped in Moose Jaw, SK, Borden, SK, and Lloydminster, SK, for gas, and finally arrived at our hotel in Edmonton just after sunset. We were both exhausted from a long day driving, so we got a quick meal and headed off to bed. It seemed like the drive would never end at that point, when we thought about having to do that for three more days.

On Tuesday we got up and hit the road again. That would be slightly shorter of a day. Our goal was to make it to Fort Nelson, Bc, a distance of 656 miles. We filled up with gas just outside of Edmonton, and then followed signs for the Alaska Highway. We stopped again in Valley View, AB, and Dawson Creek, BC, for gas, before getting on the Alaska Highway. The Alaska Highway begins in Dawson Creek, BC, and once on it, we knew we would be on that road until Thursday afternoon. Once on the Alaska Highway, there are few other places to go. Only a couple of highways meet the Alaska Highway. Unlike most highways in the US and Canada, the Alaska Highway is a two lane, undivided highway. It is paved the whole way, but it is much smaller than what most people thing about when they think of a highway. The stretch between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson is pretty well traveled, though primarily by truckers. From Fort Nelson it is possible to get to Alaska and Yukon, or to Northwest Territories, so trucks going to both places use that segment of the highway. We topped off the fuel one last time in Fort Saint John, BC, and then drove for hours along the Northern Rockies, until we got to Fort Nelson. Fort Nelson is a pretty small place, but has a surprising amount of services for a place as small as it is. It is a major stopping point on the road to Alaska or to Northwest Territories, which probably explains the numerous restaurants, hotels, and gas stations. In fact, the hotels there were considerably larger than those in Glendive, which is three times the size of Fort Nelson. Fort Nelson was about 20 miles beyond the halfway point in the trip.

On Wednesday, we got another early start. Our goal was to get to Whitehorse, YT, which, at 594 miles, would be our shortest day. We filled up with gas and hit the road. We found that to be the quietest stretch of highway. There were times when more than an hour would pass from when we had last seen any other traffic. We made a brief stop in Toad River, BC, to top off the fuel tank. That was the most expensive fuel on the trip, equivalent to approximately $7.50 USD per gallon. After that, the highway headed into Yukon, and left areas covered by 911 service. Up until that day, I had thought 911 was everywhere in the US and Canada, but I was wrong. There are remote locations in Yukon where there is no 911 service. Fortunately, we did not need 911 service. Our trip went quite smoothly. We made a lunch and fuel stop in Watson Lake, YT, and another fuel stop in Teslin, YT. As we got closer to Whitehorse, we ran into some short lived snow flurries. Traffic picked up a little just outside of Whitehorse, as that is the capital of Yukon and the territory's largest city. Yukon Territory is about the same geographic size as the state of California, but Whitehorse only has about 25,000 residents. It is a popular tourist town in the summer, being only about 100 miles from Skagway, AK, which is a busy cruise terminal. Whitehorse also figured heavily into the Klondike Gold Rush, in 1899, and because of that was an industrial city. It is the north end of the White Pass and Yukon Route, a railroad that was built during the gold rush, and being on the Yukon River, it had a fairly extensive shipyard at one time that built paddle ships that sailed up and down the Yukon River. The Yukon River, which is the longest and largest river in North America, runs right through downtown Whitehorse. Whitehorse is over 1,000 miles up the river from its mouth, but even that far up, the river is navigable. The river was an important transportation link during the gold rush, and still sees a little traffic today.

On Thursday, we got up early again, got gas, and hit the road. The goal was Anchorage, some 704 miles away. We stopped for gas one last time before crossing the border, in Haines, Junction, YT. I hoped the border crossing would go as easily as getting into Canada had. Before we got to the border however, we had to navigate the worst frost heaves I had ever seen. They stretched on for over 150 miles, and they were huge. Most of the time, it felt like being at sea on a particularly rough day. Vehicles behind me, which I could see in the mirrors, would completely disappear behind frost heaves and then reappear a minute later. Despite their size, the only casualty of the frost heaves was the sun visor in the truck, which fell off. Fortunately, that was easy to fix. When we arrived at the border, we noticed that there was no one in sight anywhere, other than the one person in the booth. He seemed lonely more than anything else. I asked him if he needed a list of what was in the truck, and he said he did not. All he asked was if I had any firearms, which we did not. He asked nothing else about the contents of the truck, or anything about the cat with Sarah, in the car. He asked where we were headed, and what brought us to Alaska, and told us weather and road conditions between there and Anchorage. I guess when you work more than 90 miles from the nearest town, you are happy to see anyone! He just wanted to chat. Much to my surprise, crossing into the USA had been even easier than getting into Canada had been!

After crossing the border, we continued on the Alaska Highway to our next fuel stop and lunch stop, in Tok, AK. After paying high gas prices in British Columbia and Yukon, the $4.50 per gallon we payed there seemed like a bargain! Tok is also where we left the Alaska Highway, after 1,314 miles. The Alaska Highway continues to the northwest from there, to Delta Junction, about 90 miles from Fairbanks. In Tok however, we turned to the south, on the Tok Cutoff, to head towards Anchorage. We made one last stop in Glennallen, along the famous Trans Alaska Pipeline, to get gas. There we got on the Glenn Highway, which was the final leg to Anchorage. The Glenn Highway, in my opinion, was the most scenic part of the whole trip. It follows the Chugach Mountains for its entire length, and they get more spectacular as you get closer to Palmer. There are mountains, glaciers, and a beautiful glacier blue river all along that road. Once we got to Palmer, traffic picked up considerably, and the highway became a divided highway, more like an interstate. That was the first divided highway we had seen in over 2,500 miles. We got into Anchorage at about 10:00pm, which is when the sun was setting. We were glad to finally be done the driving, although it had been a beautiful drive. I would recommend that drive to anyone. I think everyone should do it, but because of its length, I don't think anyone should have to do it more than once!

Since arriving in Anchorage, a week ago, we have found an apartment and started unpacking. We are waiting for the title to the truck to catch up with us, and when it does, we will sell it. I start work with the Alaska Railroad on the 22nd, which is Monday. Wile there is still a little snow on the ground here, I have to say, it sure is nice to be back! And Montana has had snow more recently than Anchorage anyway!

Bucket List

2013-03-13T13:43:00.002-08:00

If you follow this blog, you know by now that this is not the place to be if you are expecting frequent, regular posts. I think I average about two a year!

Since I last wrote, in September, I have had a few noteworthy things happen, which I will discuss before getting into the main thoughts of this post. The most noteworthy is that I have received my Locomotive Engineer certification. I began the Engineer Program last June. It started with three weeks of classroom training, at the BNSF Technical Training Center, in Overland Park, KS. After those three weeks, they turned me loose to drive trains, although not by myself. For the next five months, I got to work with different engineers, who taught me all the important things about running different kinds of freight trains. Turns out it is a lot more involved than just making it go fast or slow! At the end of that five month on the job training, I went back to Kansas for a final review and exams. There were three exams, all multiple choice, and two graded simulator runs. The passing grade for everything was 90% or higher. I passed everything on the first try, and returned home afterwards. Once back home, I had to do one final checkride with the Road Foreman of Engines. He apparently thought I did a satisfactory job, and signed my card at the end. Since passing the checkride, I have been qualified to work as either an Engineer or a Conductor.

In February, Sarah and I celebrated our first anniversary. It is hard to believe that we have been married a year. It is also hard to believe that it has now been more than a year since we spent a week on the Nieuw Amsterdam. That voyage was wonderful, but far too short. Hopefully we will be able to go on another cruise later this year or next year at some point. We do enjoy being at sea very much, and going to new places.

Anyway, I got thinking about "bucket lists" the other day after a couple recent conversations I have had with friends, acquaintances, and some coworkers, many of whom have commented on some of the unusual things I have experienced, even in the relatively short time I have been on the planet. One coworker in particular was quite envious of how much time I spent on and around the ocean growing up. He has lived his whole life in Montana, except for vacations, despite his love for the ocean.

For those who have never heard the term, a "bucket list" is usually an informal, and often unwritten list of accomplishments a person wants to have in a lifetime. The qualifications for a bucket list item are rather vague, but they usually consist of things that are not routine or day to day. There does not need to be any significance to them to anyone other than the person making the list. Often they include places a person would like to visit, certain achievements they would like to realize, and various other goals. Most bucket lists items are addressed with an attitude of "when I get around to it," so for many people, placing something on their bucket list means it will probably wait until they have nothing even a little bit more important to do and no other immediate desires for their free time. Usually bucket list items do not include day to day chores and tasks, current projects, or items to be purchased.

What I go thinking about is all the "bucket list" items I have already checked off my bucket list. For a person of 25, I actually have done a surprising amount of "bucket list" things. For example, as a kid I always wanted to go to the Olympics. Well, in 2010, I worked at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, and got to go to several events. As long as I can remember, I have wanted to go to the Panama Canal, and I did that just a few weeks before the Olympics, also in 2010. Now I'd like to go back to the Panama Canal, it was quite fascinating. Ever since I was very young, I wanted to be a train engineer, which, as I described above, I am now. It is not nearly as glorious as I imagined as a kid, actually it is considerably more of a mental exercise than I ever imagined, but that is another goal accomplished. Many of my coworkers know that I'm the guy who lived in Alaska for a couple years, and almost every time I go to work, Alaska comes up in our conversation. Many of them have talked about wanting to go there to visit, fish, hunt, see the Northern Lights, or any number of other things. I want to move back there, and I know several of my coworkers and friends will be jealous if I ever manage to make that a reality!

Of course, there are many things I still want to do. I still would like to visit Europe. In fact, I could probably put together a fairly extensive list of just things I want to do in Europe! And I am sure when I do eventually get there, I will find there is enough to do and see to keep busy for several lifetimes. I also want to return to many of the places I have been, such as Panama, Newfoundland, and British Columbia, just to name a few. Even more locally, there are places I would like to go see and explore, such as the old railroad right of way between Terry and Miles City. I want to go to Medora, to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I've been through there on the train and eaten dinner there, but I'd like to go see the park. The Beartooth Mountains are another spot nearby that I'd like to go see again. Beartooth Pass is quite incredible. It is one of few places on this continent where the road goes over 10,000 feet above sea level! From Beartooth Pass, Yellowstone Park is not too much farther, and there is plenty to see and do there. It would be easy to spend weeks in the park. I'd also like to get up to Glacier Park, in western Montana, again. I have not been up that way since 2008.

I have often been asked how I have done what I have done, for being as young as I am. My response is always the same. I tell people that you just have to get out and do the things on your bucket list. Obviously, you have to eat and so you have to work, at least a little, but most employers give vacation allowances and days off throughout the year. You just have to sit down and decide what you want to do, and then make the plans to make it happen during one of those vacations. There are tons of cool things to do out there, but if you want to do things like go to the Panama Canal, you need to plan for that. Don't go on vacation to Billings, MT, if you really want to be in the Bahamas! Start planning early to make what you really want a reality. Of course, there is always a little bit of luck involved. It is highly unlikely that I would have gone to the Olympics in 2010 if I had not been browsing for jobs and stumbled upon the driving job I had there. But at the same time, it is not all luck. I was lucky enough to have a job in Alaska for as many summers as I wanted, but before I even heard about that job, I was making plans to go to Alaska for a month in 2009. The job came along a little later, and I got to stay for several months instead, but either way, I would have gone to Alaska in 2009.

Blog Update

2012-08-22T23:44:00.006-08:00

No really...this is actually an update on the blog, not just a lame title crafted at 1:39am!

I am working on a few updates, and adding pages to the blog. I'll try not to published stuff until it is finished, at least enough to make sense, but bear with me if funny stuff happens over the next few weeks. It is a work in progress. Basically, what is happening, is I am combining two sites. I have had this blog for quite a while, and I have had a second website, hosted by Google, and I have decided to put the two together. The main reason for this is because I have thought many times that it would be nice to have a blog with that website, and a website with this blog. Well, I really do not have the time to maintain two sties, as you can see by the infrequency with which I update this blog, so it makes the most sense to just combine them here. Why here? Simple, I like the tools and layout better!

I'll publish a more relevant life update later, hopefully this week. In a nutshell however, things are going well. I still work for the railroad, and I am in training to be an engineer, which means right now I am actually operating freight trains. That has been keeping me pretty busy, and I anticipate it will keep me busy through the rest of the summer and into the fall. I will be done training at the beginning of November. Anyway, because of the late hour, I will talk more about that later.

Living the Dream, and a few Nightmares

2012-01-30T09:41:00.001-09:00

If you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, most will tell you that they want to be a firefighter, police officer, train engineer, or pilot. I was the same way when I was a kid, and most adults will admit to having wanted one of those careers at some point in their lives too. However, most people "grow up" and get "real jobs," sitting in a boring old office in front of a computer screen, which I guess that is fine if they like what they do. But some of us never really grow up, and we go and get the job we wanted as a kid. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a railroader most of the time, although at different times I also wanted to be all of the above, plus a garbage man, doctor, veterinarian, mailman, construction worker, car mechanic, and numerous other things. I still want to be a pilot, although just a recreational one, but that is a different story. As a kid, when I thought about all the various careers I thought I wanted, they all seemed pretty glamorous and interesting. People who worked in those jobs seemed like they really led an interesting life.

As I got older, I began to realize that there was reality besides all the glory. Firefighters, for example, put their life on the line regularly, and really are quite underpaid for their services. That career, as much as I appreciate those that do it, began to look less appealing to me. Doctor and veterinarian seemed nice, except they required more schooling than I could comprehend, and they involved blood. I never have liked either of those! Police officers keep the community safe, but they too take risks to ensure the well being of often ungrateful people who curse about the officer who wrote their last traffic citation. Being the guy everyone hates, but also the guy everyone depends on and expects to help them started to seem less attractive. Being a mechanic still seemed interesting, but more as a hobby. I took a few classes on mechanics in high school and quite enjoyed them, but primarily as a hobby. By high school, working for the post office or sanitation department sounded rather dull, and construction management was what I finally decided to study in college. I still thought railroading and flying sounded interesting, but getting a pilot's license seemed prohibitively expensive.

Twenty years ago, though I said I wanted to work for the railroad, I had a hard time imagining it would ever happen. Actually, I was pretty sure I would never grow up, and that grown ups had never been kids. I never completely believed my dad when he told me stories from his childhood. I was pretty sure he had always been an adult! The stories were good, and I believed them, just not the fact that he had been a kid once! As I got older, I did realize that flying or railroading, as awesome as they seemed as a kid, would still have good days and bad days. Every job is like that. Occasionally, as I see kids wave to me in the engine, I think about when I was quite young, and Dad used to take us to the local railroad yard, or just the tracks at the end of the street, and we would wave to the train crews, who always seemed so friendly up in the cab. Those train crews always seemed to be living the dream.

As life would have it, I ended up in the cab, and now I am the one waving to kids and their dads along the tracks. I am the one "living the dream" now. Some days it really feels like I am living the dream, as I go to work on warm, sunny, summer days, and put my feet up and open the window and get a pleasant breeze through the cab. Other days I wonder what I was dreaming, as I do walking inspections of trains in muddy yards, as the rain falls sideways and a cold wind blows! In any case, I certainly cannot complain that I do the same thing every day! That is one of my favorite things about working for the railroad, every day has new challenges and surprises, and it really never gets boring, even if the weather does get lousy.

I get asked a lot, by my non railroader friends, and often their children, what it is like to work for the railroad. Most of them see me as the guy that does what every kid in the world wants to. In some of the quiet, night time hours, when little is happening and I have a little time to think, I have thought about all the things I could possibly tell them about railroad life. There are so many things that go on besides the "dream" that kids imagine it is. In many ways it is one of the scariest, most stressful jobs I have ever had.

I could tell them what it is like when you are running on some really beat up old track, and the locomotive is rocking rather badly. I could tell them what it is like when that rickety old track finally gives under the weight of a 392,000 pound engine, and it leaves the rails, and the ride really starts to get wild. Even at a low speed, the first thing you think about is how out of control the situation is. You feel completely helpless, because there is no way to stop the engine or control where it goes. The seconds seem like hours, and all you do is wonder when it will stop. When everything does finally stop, and the dust settles, you look around for a second, and then hop off the engine to see what the damage looks like. Even though the engines are still upright and in the track area, something just looks very wrong, kind of like looking at a beached whale. It looks out of place and awkward. The rails are bent and twisted in all sorts of weird angles, making them resemble paperclips more than railroad tracks, and all that is left of ties is a whole lot of splinters. As you take in the situation, you just think how happy you are that it is not your responsibility to clean up the mess!

Derailments are just one of the extras to "living the dream," and fortunately I have managed to miss most of them, and none have been serious at all. A much scarier and more stressful extra involves grade crossings. As the train approaches a crossing, the gates light up and descend across the road, and bells ring. Additionally the horn and bell are sounded on the locomotive. Yet it is relatively commonplace to see vehicles dart around the crossing gates, right in front of an oncoming train. Some dart around as the gates start down, and there is still enough time for them to get by before the train gets to the crossing. Others dart across at the last second. Sometimes larger vehicles surprise you, and dart across the tracks. I could tell people about the time the driver of a tanker truck decided he could make it across the tracks and badly misjudged the timing. The cab of the truck made it across, which is perhaps the only reason he survived, because a 17,000 ton coal train takes well over a mile to stop from 50mph when it is headed downhill. When you see a tanker in the crossing, you think the worst. Fortunately it was full of water. The trailer was hit and split in half, sending the rear two thirds spinning off into a field. The front third, still coupled to the tractor portion went flying and landed in a ditch. Much to everyone's surprise, the driver not only survived, but only had a few minor scratches and bruises. He was one of the lucky ones. It is people like him, and the many others that dart around the gates, that give most train crews regular nightmares about their job, and mostly about crossing incidents.

I could also tell people about the crossing with an elementary school nearby, and about the time we watched in horror as a teacher led her class of about 25 second graders across the tracks after seeing the gates start down. At 30 mph, a train simply does not stop before the crossing once it is close enough to activate the gates. In desperation we did the only things we could do: keep blowing the horn, ringing the bell, shout at them knowing they could not hear us, and go to emergency braking. Fortunately those children were a lot smarter than their teacher and most of them waited, and actually waved to us. We had to stop to pick up cars there anyway, and when we did come to a stop, both the engineer and I had a several choice words for that teacher. She seemed slightly embarrassed about having two people, who looked young enough to be her sons, yelling at her in front of her whole class and a coworker, but otherwise she really did not seem phased by the incident.

When people, especially kids see us, and think we must be living the dream, they never think of the "extras" we get for it. I never thought of it when I was a kid. Sometimes people ask what railroading is like. Usually a few thoughts run through my head on what I could say, but ultimately I tell them it is great. I really enjoy my job, and I usually make that pretty obvious. I mean, they pay me to play with trains! It just does not get much better than that! I encourage kids to pursue it if it is something they really like, and I always fail to mention the "extras." I think it is better to let them keep dreaming. Reality will catch up with them sooner or later anyway.

Six Months

2011-08-31T06:48:00.003-08:00

Yeah...it has been a while since I last posted. Sorry. Here is what I have been up to though!

A few days ago, I hit six months working for the railroad. For the last few years, I have been in seasonal work, so this is the longest consecutive time I have worked at the same place for a while now. In that time, here are a few things that I have been involved in:

Traveled 10,291.8 miles by rail
Moved about 610,000 tons of freight
Spent approximately 950 hours on trains
Traveled on 105 different trains
Handled approximately 12,375 rail cars
Switched 1 passenger train
Picked up about 185 cars from customers
Dropped off about 180 cars to customers
Dealt with mechanical problems on 3 occasions
Fixed 1 broken knuckle
Rode out 1 derailment

I could not even make a slightly educated guess as to how many switches I have lined or track warrants I have copied. Both those activities happen numerous times every time I go to work.

I know I have only been working for the railroad for six months, which really is not very long. While the above statistics seem like a lot, I still feel very new, and I am still learning how everything works. There is a lot more to know than they could possibly cover during the training period, and I continue to learn more every time I go to work.

On the Job Training

2011-03-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

For the last three weeks, I have been doing on the job training. I started out working on the freight trains between Glendive and Forsyth, about 125 miles west of here. That went well. The schedule was a little crazy, but I guess I had better get used to that! I was mostly on either empty or loaded coal trains, depending on the direction I was going. I was on a few other freight trains too though. Empty coal trains are some of the lightest trains we have go through here regularly, and loaded coal trains are among the heaviest. I was on several loaded ones that weighed over 17,000 tons!

Adter spending most of the first week on the road, I was given a different assignment. I was moved to the yard, as a Utility employee. The utility is responsible for moving locomotives around. Glendive has a roundhouse and a service area, so a lot of locomotives come off trains when they get here to be fueled, serviced, or repaired, if needed. Generally we fuel locomotives if they have less than 1,500 gallons in their tanks. Most hold around 5,000 gallons of diesel. Sometimes locomotives also need to have repairs made. In that case, we would also pull them off the train and bring them over to the roundhouse. Before trains go out again, they need to have locomotives added, and the utility crew was also responsible for that. The roundhouse has four tracks, called ready tracks, where they would park locomotives that were ready to go out on trains. We would go over there and pick up locomotives and then run around the yard and put them on the trains they were assigned to. If that was all done, then the crew taking the train did not have to worry about getting their engines before they left. They could get in the train and head out of town right away. That saves them a lot of time. Besides that, utility crew handles a lot of the other odd jobs around the yard area. Sometimes it is as simple as throwing switches for a train that is coming in. Other times it is walking the length of a train to conduct an air test and inspection. Walking trains always takes a while. Most of the trains are over a mile long, and the air test requires an inspection of both sides, so you walk the length of it twice. The first train I had to walk was over 7,000 feet long, because it did not fit in the yard track it was on.

I spent about a week working in the yard, on utility, and then I was supposed to go on the helper locomotives. When our coal trains head east from here, they get a helper locomotives. Some other trains also get a helper, but the coal trains always get one. They go up Beaver Hill, into North Dakota. The helpers push form the rear, and basically just give them some extra horsepower over the hill. Once they are at the top of the hill, the train stops, they uncouple the helper locomotive, and the train continues east, while the helper locomotive returns to Glendive. There was a mix up with that though, and I ended up being put back on the road to Forsyth. I did not get to do the helpers this time around. I spent all of this week running back and forth between Glendive and Forsyth again. This week was a little crazy though. At the beginning of the week, there was a derailment in Idaho, on a different line. That meant that a lot of trains were detoured over this line, while they cleaned up the mess on the other one. Things were busier than normal, which also meant everything went a bit slower than normal. Later in the week, there was a minor derailment in Dickinson, ND, which is on this line. Because of that, nothing could get through, and so everything was quiet for a day and a half while they sorted that out. Those two derailments really made things crazy around here, even if they were not here.

Next week, we go back to the classroom. We will be in the classroom for the next three weeks. In two weeks, we have our first test. It is called the Hostlers Exam. It is a basic exam, going over basic operations, air tests, safety rules, and operation rules. We have two opportunities to pass that, with a 90% or more. If we do not pass it, we continue with training and take it again at the end, with the rest of our exams. If we do pass it, we are licensed as a Hostler. That allows us to operate engines without any cars and perform conductor and brakeman duties around the yard. In three weeks, we take a practice exam. The practice exam does not effect our training or our job, but it gives the training people an idea of how we are doing for the real thing, which will be six weeks later. Ideally, most of us will get a passing grade on it. We will be studying a lot more rules over the next few weeks, and in three weeks, we are doing more on the job training.

So that is my life. I have no schedule anymore. Sometimes I go to work at 11:30pm and work until lunch time. Other days I go to work just after breakfast and work until dinner time. Basically, if I am not at work, I spend most of my time sleeping, so I will be rested enough when the phone rings to go to work again. The classroom will be on a more regular schedule for the next few weeks.

Well, that is all I have to say!

Switching

2011-03-04T11:52:00.000-09:00

This post comes at you from eastern Montana!

Last Saturday, I made the LONG drive from Utah County to Glendive, MT. It took 13 hours, and I covered 927 miles. Along the way I made exactly three fuel/rest stops, in Idaho Falls, ID, Bozeman, MT, and Miles City, MT. It was a very long drive, although shortened a bit by the ability to drive at relatively high speeds for most of it. It started out in the snow, but that only lasted as far as Ogden, UT, which was fortunate. I really did not want to drive in the snow if I did not have to.

On Sunday, I managed to find the ward here, the Glendive Ward, and get to church. The church is located right next to the railroad tracks, so it is actually a pretty noisy place at times. At least it does not shake whenever a train goes by! The ward is well attended, but it also covers a huge area!

On Monday morning, I began my first day at work with the BNSF Railway. Several of us met in a conference room on the second floor of the Glendive station building. The class was supposed to have eight students, however one did not show up, which is a bit odd, because apparently he called our instructor and talked about coming, and he formally accepted the job last week. But when Monday came around, he was missing in action. Since then he has not called or emailed or made any contact. At this point he has lost the job even if he does turn up somewhere. We have covered so much stuff that catching up would be difficult. We began class as normal, despite the absentee. Monday was a lot of very general safety information. We started reviewing the rule book, which is the size of a toddler, and going over safe practices around trains. We learned about the "Eight Deadly." They are eight things that pretty much guarantee a very serious injury or death of you do them. We reviewed a lot of rules, and watched some short safety videos. Most of the stuff we covered on Monday was pretty obvious, and it makes you wonder how stupid someone was to get such a rule in the book!

On Tuesday, the coldest day all week, we decided to go outside. It warmed all the way up to -2. We learned some basic operations such as setting hand brakes on cars and coupling air hoses for the brake system. We also learned how to disassemble the couplers and replace the knuckles if they break. We were probably only outside about an hour, but it doesn't take long to want to somewhere warm when it is that cold! The rest of the day was spent indoors, with more rulebook stuff. Wednesday was even more rule book stuff.

Photo from www.trainpix.com

On Thursday things worked out such that we could go outside and actually use a train. Not only that, it was the warmest day all week! The switch engine had a crew, and they had an hour to work with us in between their regular duties, so we all got to work around a moving train. There were three freight cars we found laying around, which were not being used, so we decided to practice coupling the engines to them. Of course, being conductor trainees, we were not be operating the locomotives, but rather spotting for the engineer. We took turns using hand signals to instruct the engineer to pull away from the cars left on the siding, and then we would guide him back to make a joint, or coupling. Once the coupling was made, we would give him a signal to indicate that we would be stepping between the locomotive and car to couple the air hoses. Once that was done, it was the next person's turn to start the process over again. We were also instructed to go to the cab of the locomotive, so we could see the hand signals from the engineer's perspective. We had a pair of locomotives, and so the engineer was sitting well over 100 feet away from the coupling, in the far locomotive. He was also facing away from the coupling, meaning he was watching these hand signals in a small mirror outside his side window. We felt like we were giving huge signals, but from the cab, they did not look quite so huge! We all got to ride back and forth a couple times to get an idea of what he sees and how he reacts up at the head end during such an operation. After about an hour, we all had a chance to do that, and so we headed back inside. The locomotives and cars we were using wandered off with the switch crew, and we picked up where we had left off with rules and practices.

Today was a very short day, but it did involve more rules. We spent a couple hours studying the rules for conducting different types of air brake tests on the trains. Those rules and exceptions and really complex. Not only do we have to know when to conduct such tests, we have to know how. Typically it is the conductor who takes charge of such tests. On Monday we have to be back at work, and we will be putting ourselves on a call board for trains. Starting next week, we will be doing on the job training. We will mark up with a crew and ride the trains with them to get an idea of what operations are like outside of the classroom. We will have three weeks of on the job training before we return to the classroom again. This job is a lot of fun, but I think it will be better in warm weather!

That locomotive above is one of the pair we were using yesterday. I did not take the picture, but it is the actual locomotive that someone else spotted out there.

Well I Promised You Updates...

2011-02-24T18:32:00.000-09:00

As all of you know, if you have been stalking my blog for more than a few weeks, I had a job interview for a Conductor position with BNSF Railway. Let me update you on that situation. As a reminder, the interview was at the beginning of December, and it was up in Forsyth, Montana. They had positions open in both Forsyth, MT, and Glendive, MT. During the interview process, I told them I would prefer to work in Glendive, if possible. They basically told me to check my email for further updates. I figured that would be the end of the process, but as it turned out, it was just the beginning.

About a week after the interview, I got an email from BNSF, in which they offered me a job in Glendive. The job offer was conditional on me passing quite a few different background checks, in the United States and in Canada. It was also conditional on passing drug and alcohol tests, as well as a physical and vision and hearing exams. Shortly after receiving the job offer, I received several emails containing electronic copies of quite a lot of paperwork. I spent a large part of that week gathering information and filling out paperwork, and forwarding it all back to the railroad. After Christmas they contacted me a couple more times to get additional information for the background checks. The paperwork was not complete until the middle of January. At that point, I received an email from them indicating that the next openings were not until some time in April. They did not give me an official start date, but they let me know when I would likely be starting, pending all the background checks going through.

Last Thursday, a week ago, I received another email from BNSF, again offering me the same job, in Glendive. They let me know all the background check stuff had gone through and I was eligible to work for them. I accepted the job offer. I will start working on Monday, February 28, at 7:00am. Yes, that is just a couple days from now. I got about ten days notice. So now the task at hand is to move myself to Glendive, MT, which is over 800 miles from here. I am packing everything up, and Saturday morning I will stuff everything in the car and make the drive. I estimate that it will take about twelve hours to drive up there, so I plan to leave early in the morning. Once there I have to find a place to stay and get settled. Work is six days a week typically. Monday will mark the beginning of the training period, which will last 15 weeks. Following that, I have to take some exams issued by the Federal Railroad Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation. Upon passing those I will be a certified Conductor for BNSF Railway.

Can you believe that they are going to pay me to ride trains?!

Double Clutch Madness

2011-02-17T20:17:00.000-09:00

A few of you blog stalkers have asked about work from time to time. As most of you know, I drive charter buses in Provo, which takes me to a variety of destinations throughout the western United States. The thing that always gets questions is when I mention that some of our older buses have manual transmissions. Needless to say, driving a manual bus is quite different from a car with a manual transmission!

As many of you know, when you drive a car with a manual transmission, you give it a little gas, put it in first, and then let the clutch out to get the car going. As you accelerate, you shift gears by putting the clutch in, moving the shifter the the appropriate gear, and then letting the clutch out. It is all very simple. To explain the exact mechanics behind all this would take a long time, and be pretty boring reading without pictures. If you want all the details, go to www.howstuffworks.com and look it up! (They have pictures!) The reason it works that easily in a car is because of devices on every gear called synchronizers. For the gears to be able to engage, the wheels and internal parts on the transmission must be spinning the same speed. When you change gears, going up, your engine, and there fore transmission, are turning fast. When you push the clutch in to change gears, the engine slows down, but it is no longer connected to the transmission, so the internal parts of the transmission could continue spinning at about the same speed, until they eventually slow down on their own. However, as you stick it in the next gear, the synchronizers slow it down faster, to match the speed of the wheels for the new gear, allowing the gears to line up perfectly. Then you engage the clutch again, and you are off, in a higher gear. Everything I just explained is true in a car, but only kind of true in a bus.

Buses have double clutch transmissions. This means, if you want to get going, it is almost the same. While you are stopped, you push the clutch, and then move the shifter towards first. However, it will not go into gear. There are no synchronizers to help line everything up. Since your engine was turning, the internal parts of the transmission are still turning, until they eventually slow down. They wheels however are not moving, and without the synchronizers, you just have to wait until the transmission parts slow to a stop. Until then, it will not go into gear. But it will make an awful grinding noise while you try to force it! So after a few seconds, you get it into gear. Just like in a car, you let the clutch out slowly and you begin to roll, but then it is time to change gears so you can go faster. This is where things get a little tricky. You push the clutch pedal, and pull it out of first gear. The engine is revved really high, but it has to slow down to get into the next gear. Consequently, the transmission parts are also revved really high, but need to slow down to get into the next gear, but the synchronizers don't exist to help. So, once out of gear and in neutral, you let the gas off, and you let the clutch out for just a second. This slows the transmission down quickly. Then you push the clutch in again and stick it into gear. If you did it right, it goes smoothly into the next gear. If not, it grinds, shakes, lurches, and basically tells you and everyone on board that you did it wrong! This pattern of clutch-shift out of gear-unclutch-clutch-shift into gear-unclutch should last maybe a second, which means you are moving fast. But you have to be gentle, then at least if you do goof it up there will be quieter grinding, less violent shaking, and and minimal lurching.

Down shifting is where things get really tricky. This is partly because there are three pedals on the floor, and you only have two feet, but you really need to be using all three. Since you cannot possibly hit all three pedals just the way you need to at one time, you sort of end up doing a crazy hectic down shifting dance in your seat. As you get to the speed where you need to down shift, you push in the clutch, and pull the shifter out of gear, as usual, and then let the clutch back in. Before you can put it in the lower gear however, everything needs to get going faster, so you rev the engine as fast as it will go. Once it is revved, you step on the clutch and put it in the lower gear, then release the clutch. However, while you are stepping on the gas to rev the engine, you cannot be stepping on the brake to slow down, so hopefully you planned a bit of extra space for this! Once again, if it was done right, and at the proper speed, it is nice and smooth. If not, a few things could happen. If you did it while going too slow, and somehow managed to get into gear anyway, when you let the clutch out, the bus suddenly surges forward. If you were still going too fast, and somehow managed to get it into gear, then it suddenly grabs you and slows you down in a hurry when you let the clutch out. Usually though, it just doesn't go into gear. And then you sit there wondering what to do next because you have slowed down enough that going back to the gear you started in an option. You have to find a gear somewhere. So then you start looking for a gear, but they all grind and shake and nothing seems to be working. Then you wish you had planned that down shift a bit better, but it is too late to think about that. Then, as you are drifting along in no gear, traffic begins to move again, so you have to find a gear to get going. It is either that or coast to a stop in the middle of a busy road!

Why is it this way? Well it all boils down to those little metal pieces called synchronizers. In a car, they make everything go the right speed so you never have to think about it. Buses, and trucks for that matter, simply don't have them. They would have to be so big to be effective that they are not practical, which means the driver is responsible for synchronizing everything. It is a pretty tricky operation when you thing about it. You are trying to get a few little teeth 40 feet away to line up just right, which you cannot see at all. Not only that, they are spinning anywhere from 500 to 2500 rotations every minute!

Now, I am sure you are wondering what exactly happens when you do mess it up, besides the grinding, shaking, and lurching. There are a few ways to fix it. When you are shifting up, if you miss the gear, you can try again, but if you cannot get it into gear within a few seconds, chances are you will not get it in after that. You will lose too much speed. So, if you miss the gear you try again, once, and then you let the clutch back out, rev the engine, and then go back to the gear you started in. You stay there until you are back up to shifting speed, and try again. Some gears are more stubborn than others, and sometimes, even though you nail the speed, it still takes a few tries. If it just will not go, one thing you can do is get off the clutch, and then rev the engine just a little. Then step off the gas, put the clutch in, and quickly stick it into gear. Usually doing that will help it find the gear, but it has to be done very quickly to work. When down shifting, if you mess it up and cannot get it into gear, the first thing you check is your speed. If you are going too fast, your best bet is put it back into the gear you were in and slow down some more. If you are going too slow, you need to step off the gas as you step on the clutch, because the engine will not need to be going as fast. That will allow it to find the gear. It will still make noise, but it will find it. When all else fails, you simply slow down to a crawl until you can stick it back in first and start over. Sure everyone in their cars behind you hates you for it, but they aren't paying as much in taxes to use the road as the bus is, so they can just deal with it!

Some buses are more forgiving than others. Some will let you goof it up a little, and they will no jerk you around as badly for it. Others are not forgiving at all, and if you mess it up, they simply will not even let you have the gear! Basically it is a lot of work and takes a lot of thinking ahead to do it. If it is stop and go traffic, you will probably break a sweat. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that these clutches are so stiff that the only thing that keeps me from standing on them is my seatbelt. Without that, it would take most of my weight to push that pedal down! It is totally a chore, and it really makes you hate the person who darts out in front of you and then slows down. But that is how it all works. If that was not technical enough, do a little research online, and you will get it. www.howstuffworks.com is a good one.

Coming at You at 80mph!

2011-01-03T15:36:00.001-09:00

For the first time ever, I am writing a post from a moving train. Gotta love technology! According to the GPS on my iPhone, the train is moving at 80.2 mph, which sounds about right. I am on Amtrak's California Zephyr, in eastern Iowa, heading west to Salt Lake City, UT. The train is scheduled to arrive there tomorrow evening.

The holidays have been fun and exciting, as always. I left Utah on Christmas Eve, just before midnight, and flew overnight to Kennedy Airport in New York. I arrived there early in the morning on Christmas Day. The weather was good, and I got out to my grandparents' house without a hitch. Everything was pretty quiet since it was Christmas, but being New York, it was not entirely dead, the way most cities are. Transit still ran every half hour, some stores and restaurants were open, and things generally moved, although slower than usual.

After Christmas, it began to snow. Steven and Michael were scheduled to take the train from Boston to New York, and got on without any problems. It was barely snowing when they started out, 250 miles away. As they traveled, and as the day progressed, the snow continued to fall, and continued to fall harder. Tim and I kept shoveling the driveway to stay ahead of the storm. We were anticipating that we would have to go out to pick up Steven and Michael, when they arrived at the Mineola station. We figured it would be easier to shovel a little snow several times, rather than a lot all at once.

Steven and Michael arrived in Penn Station, in New York, without any problems. Their train had been delayed only about ten minutes by the weather. They got ready to catch the Long Island Rail Road to Mineola as planned. By this point, over a foot of snow had fallen. By my standards, that is not a lot, but in New York, it is a ton! Just as Steven and Michael went to catch their train, it was announced that all service on the Long Island Rail Road had been suspended due to the weather. No trains would be running until further notice, and no one knew when further notice would be.

Fortunately, Steven and Michael are usually pretty resourceful. The New York subways were still running, at least where they operate underground. A neighborhood in Queens, called Jamaica, is the main hub for the railroad, and the subway operates underground out to there. Steven and Michael hopped on a subway, in hopes that once in Jamaica they could catch one of the last operating Long Island Rail Road trains. Unfortunately when they got to Jamaica, they found that the situation was the same. They were less than ten miles from their destination, yet they couldn't get any trains there. Next they began looking into taking the bus, which is slower, but not out of the question. As they went looking for a bus, they found several stuck in the unplowed streets. No plows had been around at all, and the buses were simply abandoned where they had gotten stuck. It seemed that they were not going any farther soon.

Steven and Michael kept me posted on their progress, which was great until they got to the Big Apple. There it simply stopped. They elected to remain in Jamaica, since the station was warm and sheltered. They found a piece of floor that looked comfortable and went to sleep. There was nothing else to be done. The next morning, we all awoke to another foot of snow on the ground. Tim and I looked out the window in Garden City and found that the streets had been cleared. Although a lot of snow had fallen, driving was not a problem. Steven and Michael reported a different situation though. In Queens, the snow was still all over the streets. Buses were still stuck and nothing was running. The Long Island Rail Road had made no announcements on an anticipated start time or date. Everything was just silent as far as the railroad was concerned. In Mineola, where Tim and I were, buses were running and things were getting going again. There were delays, but things were starting to move. Again, Steven and Michael reported the opposite. They waited there most of the day, hoping for something, and seeing very little activity. Eventually, i got a phone call from them, to let me know they had found a bus going to Mineola. It was one of just two that were able to get through the still buried Queens streets. I met them at the Mineola station, where the buses drop off. It took them a record 27:30 to travel about 250 miles between Nashua, NH, and Garden City, NY!

The next day, the Long Island Rail Road announced that it was operating again, although on a very limited schedule. A couple of lines would be running hourly trains to Manhattan. We all went down to the station, because we were scheduled to take the train back to Boston, to go to Nashua for a few days. We waited at the Mineola station for two hours. When the train finally came, we could no longer feel our noses or ears or toes, but we were happy to be going somewhere. People on the platform clapped and cheered as the train pulled in. From there, things operated pretty smoothly. There were minor delays here and there, but once we were on the train to New York, things ran pretty well. The Amtrak trip went smoothly all the way to Boston. Once in Boston, we took the train to Lowell, MA, where we were met by my mom. She drove the bunch of us up to Nashua, and we spent the next couple days in that area.

Over the next few days we had some fun adventures. We would have like to get up to Montreal, but time really did not allow for that. We did go up to Vermont to visit the Joseph Smith birthplace. That was quite nice, although rather cold and windy. We also spent a day in Boston. We saw the Old North Church, and Copps Hill Burial Ground, both of which predate the American Revolution. Copps Hill Burial Ground was founded in 1659. Two people buried there were actually born in the 1590's! Some of the newer graves in there are from the early 1800's. The Old North Church is near the Paul Revere Home. Paul Revere made his midnight ride from Boston to Lexington and Concord, to warn the residents that the British were coming. He went by horseback in the middle of the night. At the same time as he was riding out to those towns, a signal was shown for a few minutes from the steeple of the Old North Church. There would be one lantern if the British went by land, and two if they went by sea. Two were shown, indicating that they were going by sea. This was to warn people in those towns in the event that Paul Revere was caught. He would have been arrested for breaking a curfew imposed by the soldiers in Boston at the time. The next day the fighting broke out between the British and the colonists in Lexington.

After spending some time there, we went over to Haymarket for some pizza. Michael showed us around the North End. He is most familiar with that area, as he will be going to school there in a few weeks. From there we went over to the Charlestown Navy Yard, on the other side of the Charles River. There we went aboard the U.S.S. Constitution. That ship is an old wooden Frigate, built in 1797. It is the oldest ship afloat in the world, and it is the oldest commissioned naval vessel in the world. She is known as, "Old Ironsides," because of her ability to stop cannon balls during the War of 1812. Today she is the flagship of the American Naval Fleet, even at 213 years old!

On Saturday we decided to visit my Memere, in Sanford, ME. Rather than drive, as we usually would, Tim rented a plane and we flew up there. It is normally a drive of just under two hours. It was a flight of thirty minutes. Memere met us at the airport, and then we visited with her for a couple hours. Mom decided last minute to come along and surprise her mother. It had been a while since we all visited together, and it was quite nice. When we left Sanford, we could have flown straight back to Nashua, but we decided to do a little flightseeing along the Maine coast. There are lots of lighthouses we wanted to see, so we flew east from Sanford, and then followed the coast south for a ways. Since we were over the Atlantic Ocean, we did not have to be very high. We got up close to the lighthouses to get a good view. This did get a little attention from people walking on the beaches. I guess they were not used to having an airplane fly over just 500 feet above them! It really was a beautiful trip back from Maine. That evening we visited with some the Davises, some other friends in the area.

Yesterday afternoon, we boarded the Lake Shore Limited in Boston. That train got us to Chicago five minutes ahead of schedule this morning. In Chicago we went to the top of the former Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower. We also got ourselves a Chicago style, deep dish pizza, much to the envy of some of the other passengers, and crew, on this train. Now, as I write this, I am sitting on the California Zephyr, racing west across Iowa. Tomorrow we will the end the trip, in Utah.

A Little Life Update

2010-12-22T08:46:00.001-09:00

As promised, I am going to update all of you, my faithful stalkers, on how things are going with the potential job, and other aspects of my life. As you know, about two weeks ago, I had a job interview with BNSF Railway for the position of Conductor Trainee in Glendive, MT, and Forsyth, MT. I have heard back from BNSF about that. Actually, I heard back from them about a few things. I had also applied to similar positions around the same time, in other locations. The first email I got from them after the interview was to let me know I was not being considered further for the position. I was a bit disappointed, but it happens. Maybe I need to read these emails more carefully, because about an hour after that I got another email from BNSF extending a conditional offer of employment for the Glendive, MT, position! I went back and checked on the other email, because I was confused at first, and I think it was Great Falls that sent me the rejection letter. But it is okay, because they want me in Glendive! The offer is conditional on me passing all the background checks, TSA checks, Coast Guard checks, Canadian background checks, a previous employer check, a previous address verification, a drug and alcohol test, a fitness test, a physical, and me accepting the offer. Just one or two little things. Actually, I have spent the better part of a week filling out, turning in, and mailing paperwork for all of that! I am done with the paperwork at this point, and my fitness test and physical have both been scheduled. I have the fitness test tomorrow and the physical on Tuesday. The drug test has probably gone through because I turned in the hair sample for that when I interviewed. If I pass all of that stuff, basically I have a job. Once all of that goes through, they will let me know what my start date is, which could be as early as January 17. That is when the first group will be starting Conductor class. The training period is fifteen weeks long, and is a combination of on the job training and classroom training. At the end of training is the test, which we get two attempts at. Passing grades are above a 90%, and upon passing that, everyone in the class is a real life Conductor. So I am still in the middle of that whole process. I will continue to keep you posted on that.

Life is a Highway

2010-12-09T18:21:00.000-09:00

Lately I have done quite a lot of driving. Maybe some of you faithful followers, or stalkers as the case may be, are not very surprised about that because you know I drive buses for a living. Well, this is more driving than usual. There have been good reasons for it though.

Last week I got called into work and I rode down to Scipio, UT, where I spent the night. The next morning, I work up, crossed the highway, and picked up a bus load of kids from American Fork High School and Lone Peak High School. From there, just 90 miles south of Provo, I drove them to West Covina, CA. I had never been there before, but I had a map. I think their leaders did not believe me when I told them I had never driven to southern California before! But they asked! I made it down there without any problems, and without getting lost. I had always heard people complain about Los Angeles traffic. Honestly, I was quite surprised at how good it was. Driving there was simple. The roads are crowded, but generally people are pretty sensible drivers there.

I stayed with that same group of high school students for the next few days during their activities in the Los Angeles area. They were down there primarily for a regional cross country meet. The day after we arrived, I drove them over to Mount San Antonio College, in Walnut, CA, for them to practice and to see the track they would be running on. They spent the morning over there, and then wanted to go to the beach. It had been below freezing in Utah, so even though it was the dead of winter to many of the locals, it was nice and warm to all of us! It was in the 70's, and quite pleasant. We drove down to Newport Beach, and parked over by the Balboa Pier. Most of the kids went swimming. Some buried their friends in the sand. Others went to lunch. We spent a couple of hours there, and even got to see some dolphins swimming offshore. I thought the water was awfully cold to swim in, at just about 60 degrees. The water in Maine is quite a bit warmer!

The next day was the actual day of the competition. I again drove the teams over to the college, in Walnut, and they ran their races. As I understand, those went pretty well for them. After the races were over, they had a chance to go back to the hotel, shower, and change. In the afternoon, we went to Anaheim, CA, to visit Disneyland. I had never been to Disneyland, and I figured I would just sit out in the parking lot and take a nap for several hours. I did not want to pay the high admission price to go in alone! Well, one of the other bus drivers had managed to get his hands on some o the extra tickets from his group, and he gave one to me. Since it was free, I happily went into Disneyland! I had no idea what to expect, and was quite lost at first. It sure was easy to lose touch with reality in there though!

I spent a couple hours in Disneyland before I was completely exhausted. I was a little disappointed honestly. Some of the rides were really neat, but the lines were outrageously long! Basically you wait to get into the park, and once you do get in, you spend all your time standing around waiting some more. Some of the rides were nice, but really were not unique to Disneyland. I really enjoyed the Disney themed rides, most of which had either been made from movies, or had been made into movies. I thought those were the ones worth seeing. The park was large, and easy to get lost in. It was very crowded. The thing that really bothered me is how so many people save money to bring their kids there. Some families save for years to do that, and when they get there, they spend most of the day standing in line and hoping that their kids, who are bored, don't start causing too much trouble. It would be nice if something were done to help speed the lines up so these families who put so much into it get more out of it. It is not fair to them to make them pay so much to stand in line. For me it was a little different, and I did not really care if I had to stand in line. My ticket had been free and I was getting paid to be there. (Some job, huh!)

The next morning, we got up early and began the trip north again. We got a later start than we would have liked, because some of the kids dawdled about getting out of Disneyland the night before. Since we started later, the coach and I decided that we would stop for fuel in Barstow, CA, and then drive until the kids started complaining or until we got to Cedar City, UT, whichever came first. The distance between those cities is 320 miles, or about five hours driving on a good day. Usually three hours is about as far as you can go in a stretch without a break, especially with a group of kids. These kids were pretty quiet though, and we warned them that it would be a while before we stopped again. I was completely blown away because they made it all the way to Cedar City! At that point we had to stop and drop a few people off anyway, and I would not have made it much farther either! That was a long push, but I was content to just keep driving until Cedar City, and I was quite happy that we did not have to stop anywhere else. We caught up to the other buses too. We had left the hotel, in West Covina, about an hour behind the other buses, and in Cedar City we were fifteen minutes behind them. They had all made other stops. The rest of the trip to Scipio went well, and another driver took over at that point and I was driven back to Provo.

I had just a couple days in Utah before I hit the highway again, also for work, although less directly. I was not driving a bus, and I was going farther. I got in my car yesterday and drove 747 miles to Forsyth, MT, which is about an hour and a half east of Billings. Now, this trip was not paid, unlike the one to California. The purpose of this one was to chase a job and a dream. The BNSF Railway is hiring Conductors in Forsyth and Glendive, Montana. Today they had a practical introduction meeting, testing, and interviews for the available positions. I was invited to participate in this, and so I drove to Montana for it.

BNSF get thousands of applicants when these positions open, so just the fact that I was invited was impressive. About 100 people showed up for this meeting. It started off with an introduction to the job. They talked about the pay, the benefits, and the retirement package. Then they talked about the lifestyle. They wanted everyone to realize what they would be getting themselves into if they got the job, and they wanted to filter out those who could not, or did not want to live such a lifestyle. Being in the transportation industry, things move all the time. It is the nature of the job that Conductors and Engineers are on call 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. Just because a shift starts at 2:00am one day does not mean it will start any time even close to that the next. There is very little regularity to the schedule, and it is likely that holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and other important events will be missed. The railroad never stops moving stuff, and someone has to be there to make it move.

That introduction meeting lasted about two hours. They had some time for questions, and then they invited everyone who felt like this is not for them to leave. When the next part of the process began, 79 people were left. The next part was a test. The test reviewed basic reading comprehension and workplace practices. It took about three hours. It was not particularly difficult, but it was long! Those who passed the test would be allowed to interview. As people finished the test, they went for the drug test. Hair samples were collected. They will only be tested for drug use if an offer for employment is accepted.

Out of the 79 people that took the test, 56 people passed, if I remember correctly. I was one of them. Everyone went on to interviews next, which were also scheduled for today. The interviews were to be short, just fifteen to twenty minutes. They were trying to get as many done as possible, so they were short out of necessity. I think mine went well, but it is hard to tell. It ended with them telling me to check my email. If I am to go any farther with this, they will notify me by email. They are looking for 30 new Conductors for Glendive and Forsyth. Just looking at the numbers, it seems that I have a good chance at getting a position. I suppose I will find out for sure soon.

Tomorrow I hit the road again and drive back to Provo. When I arrive in Provo, I will have driven 3,000 miles in just one week. That is a lot of driving, even for a driver!

I will keep you, all my fans, posted on what comes of this job selection process with BNSF. I would love to have one of those Conductor positions, and I know I would enjoy it a lot. We will see what they decide though.

St. George

2010-11-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

My job is pretty much the best thing ever.

This weekend, I was asked to take a high school marching band to St. George, UT, for a competition. Sure, most of the driving is at night. In fact, we leave St. George tonight at around 10:00pm, which means we get them home at about 3:00am, and me even later. But really, they pay me to go to St. George, eat free food, stay in a nice hotel, and relax in 80 degree weather, and look at palm trees! The kids do need to be shuttled around for rehearsals and competitions, but most of the time I am just hanging out. I drive them for ten minutes, and then hang out for two hours while they practice. Then when they are done practicing, they have lunch. After the crowd dissipates, one of the staff always invites the drivers to eat some lunch too. This is only the beginning too, they are planning on paying me to go to Disneyland in the future!

On this trip there are two buses. The other one is being driven by my boss actually, Jerry. We picked up the marching band at Lone Peak High School, in Highland, UT, yesterday before dawn. We got on the road and headed south, to sunny St. George. They are attending a band competition at Dixie State College. We drove them to the college first. They spent a little time getting oriented and eating lunch. Then we drove them to the hotel, which was not designed to have even one bus at it, never mind the nine that are here for the other bands besides us. That was a bit of a fiasco, but we got through it alright. Later yesterday afternoon, we drove the kids back to the college for the actual competition part of the event. In the evening, we picked them up. This morning was similar. We drove them to an elementary school for a few hours of rehearsal this morning, and then over to the college after lunch for more competition. Tonight, when everything is done, we will drive them back to Highland. While they are at the competition, we have a bit of down time. I have used it to catch up on sleep, since I usually do not stay awake until 3:00am, and even when I do, it is not awake enough to drive. I have been resting up, and the rest of the trip should go just fine. It has been a great way to spend a weekend too!

...and to think they're paying me for this!

Wyoming

2010-10-19T08:14:00.002-08:00

This week my mom came to town. She has some business in Salt Lake City, so she is in the area. Well, at least more than usual, even if she is over an hour away. She flew in Saturday, and I met her at the airport. She stayed the weekend in Morgan, UT, so I drove her up there. Her plane got in about 40 minutes ahead of schedule though, so we had a bit of time to get to Morgan, so I decided to take her for a scenic drive. I learned that she had never been outside the populated valleys in Utah really, so she had not seen some of the beautiful canyons and mountains there are here.

As we left the airport, the most direct route to Morgan would have been to head north to Ogden, and then east over to Morgan. Instead, I decided to take her east, across Salt Lake City, and up Parley's Canyon towards Park City. We took the Interstate 80 around that way to Echo Canyon, where I-84 meets it. At that point, you can get on I-84 west to Morgan, or stay on I-80 east to Wyoming. She made the comment that she had never been to Wyoming. It is only about twenty minutes away from that junction, so we took a little detour to Evanston. She has now been to Wyoming. In Evanston, we turned around, and headed west until we got over to Morgan. It was a nice little drive, and it was nice to have some time with my mom again. I hadn't seen her since April. She is in Salt Lake City all week for business, so I will probably get to see her again before she leaves, on Saturday.

Train Travel

2010-10-12T10:48:00.002-08:00

On October 4th, I began the last part of my journey from Anchorage, AK, to Mapleton, UT. The last part would be by train.

I boarded a SoundTransit train in Everett, WA, which took me to Seattle. At King St. Station, I waited for Amtrak. I would be taking the train to Sacramento, and then on to Provo, UT.

I boarded the Coast Starlight in Seattle. I had a roomette on the lower level of one of the Superliner Sleeping Cars. This train operates a first class parlor called the Pacific Parlour. This is unique to the Coast Starlight. The Pacific Parlour came from the Santa Fe Railroad, back when they operated passenger trains, before the creation of Amtrak. It is a Hi-Level car, which was a revolutionary new design for passenger cars that the Santa Fe and Pullman worked on. The Hi-Level cars were the inspiration for the modern Superliner cars, which Amtrak uses today on their western trains.

Early the next morning, we arrived in Sacramento. We actually arrived there over an hour ahead of schedule, so I was not awake yet when we got there. My attendant had warned me the night before that we would probably be there early, as that has been the trend lately. He also said not to panic if we got up and saw that we had arrived. He told us there was no rush, just as long as we were off the train by the time it had to leave, at 6:35am.

In Sacramento, I had a layover of a few hours. I actually wrote my last post on here from the station, and then finished it up on the next train, the California Zephyr. I boarded the California Zephyr around lunch time, and we began heading east towards the Sierra Nevada mountains and Donner Pass. The train climbed up over the pass, and eventually down the to the side to Truckee, CA, and Reno, NV. We crossed Nevada in the middle of the night, and then got to Provo, UT, early the next morning. Tim met me at the train station and from there we drove down to Mapleton, which is only a few minutes away.

Since my arrival Mapleton, I have been looking for a job and a mode of transportation. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Travel is Always an Adventure

2010-10-05T11:39:00.001-08:00

Long Post Alert: block out the next 3 hours to read this!!

Somehow, whenever I travel, I have a way of having random, unplanned adventures. This trip certainly has not been an exception to that rule! As I write this, I am sitting in the Sacramento Valley Station, waiting to catch another train. This is a beautiful old station. The floors are marble, and the old wooden benches still have the Southern Pacific Lines logo on them. It has a high ceiling with chandeliers hanging above the main concourse. On one end of he concourse there is a large mural of the groundbreaking ceremony for the first transcontinental railroad in the USA, which took place not far from here.

My trip began nearly two weeks ago in Anchorage, AK. At Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, I boarded a rather empty Alaska Airlines 737-800 which ultimately would head to Seattle. This was flight #66, unofficially known as the "Milk Run." this flight had started in Fairbanks, stopped in Anchorage, and after I got on, it also stopped in Cordova, Yakutat, and Juneau, before continuing on to Seattle. Cordova, Yakutat, and Juneau are completely inaccessible by road. You can only fly or sail to those towns. Juneau, being the state capital, does get quite a few commercial flights every day, bit Cordova and Yakutat are both very small. The only flight they get is this milk run. It brings in supplies, packages, and the mail. Basically everything comes into town and leaves on the milk run, unless it's too big. In that case it takes the ferry. When we landed in Cordova, we found that the only stretch of pavement was the runway, and the airport was right in the middle of town. At 7,000 feet, the runway was significantly longer than the entire town! Once we landed we pulled up on a concrete pad. Exiting the plane was by a set of stairs placed near the door, and rather than check people in electronically, they did a head count before we left to make sure everyone was there. The Cordova terminal, as it was labelled, was a garage for the one luggage cart and the pickup truck that pulled it.

When we stopped in Cordova, they immediately unloaded the luggage, packages, and mail. That only took a couple minutes. Several people got off and a couple got on. The mail and their two suitcases were loaded on the plane, and ten minutes after landing, we took off. Now the Cordova airport has no taxiways, so we went out on the runway to taxi. Since we had to start our takeoff roll at one end of the runway, we taxied to one end and then simply made a U turn on the runway and took off. About half an hour later we were in Yakutat, which was slightly larger, but only slightly.

The airport situation in Yakutat was about the same. We stayed a little longer, about 25 minutes, because we loaded over 100 cases of fresh silver salmon bound for San Francisco and Newark, NJ. The terminal was the same size as in cordoba, but there was also a small store at the Yakutat airport. The sign simply said, "food shelter booze." once the fish was all loaded, we taxied to the runway, then down to the end of the runway, then made our U turn and took off. It was about forty minutes to Juneau

Juneau is the third largest city in Alaska and the capital. It is the only state capital in the nation to which you cannot drive. It also has an international airport. I was a little stunned at the airport in Juneau, due to its size. It wasn't large, on the contrary, it was small. There was a terminal, with four gates. Three gates had the moveable jetways, which was nice since it was raining. The other gate was simply a door out to the Tarmac for boarding small propeller planes. There was no security to that gate. Anyone could walk out onto the Tarmac if they wanted. The other three gates had security but it was just one metal detector which you walk through. There was no luggage X-ray machine. There was one baggage claim and one check in counter.

I spent the night in Juneau, right downtown. Now I did not have a lot of time there as I got on the ferry the next morning, but from my perspective it seemed that Juneau consisted primarily of liquor stores, bars, and gift shops, with a few historic or culturally significant buildings thrown in for good measure. There were a couple cruise ships in town when I arrived, and so the liquor stores, bars, and gifts shops were still open, until the ships sailed. All the historical and capital buildings were closed though since it was the evening. I went to bed early since there was not much I was interested in available.

In the morning I got up and took a cab out to the Alaska Marine Highway terminal. There I boarded the FVF Fairweather for Skagway. The Fairweather is a fairly new, fast catamaran ferry which takes both vehicles and passengers. It was headed to Skagway and back, stopping in Haines in both directions. The weather was bad but we were still able to move pretty quickly up Lynn Canal, towards Skagway. The voyage was just over four hours. In Skagway I was supposed to take a bus to Fraser, British Columbia, and there catch the White Pass and Yukon Route back to Skagway. Time was very short so I called the bed and breakfast I was staying at and asked if I could just leave my luggage with them. They were extremely accommodating and then I headed down to he train station.

We started out on the trip up the Klondike highway and over the White Pass. It was raining and at higher elevation, it was snowing. The trouble was as we drove up the highway towards the top of the White Pass, we gained elevation and eventually ran into snow. At first it was not a big deal, but eventually we couldn't to on and bad to turn back. As a result, I did not get to ride the train. After we got back to town, I went and took pictures as the train came into town. The snow had not presented a problem to the railroad, so the train ran anyway. They ended up taking people to Skagway who had originated in Whitehorse but had not been able to get over the pass in a bus either. The train saved the day, although it was still disappointing that I did not get to ride it.

The White Pass and Yukon Route is really the reason Skagway exists at all today. Skagway got started during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. They had running water and electricity, even though very few people stayed in town long. People used Skagway as a transfer point. They would arrive on ships, then go by land over the White Pass up to the Yukon river system and the. Boat to Dawson City, where the gold was located. Dawson City is nearly 600 miles from Skagway and was once one of the largest cities in Canada. Most of the stampeders, the people looking for gold, took about a year to get to Dawson City. By 1898, when they were arriving, most of the area already had gold claims staked by those who had lived in the Yukon or nearby Alaska. There was no gold left for the stampeders. As all this was taking place, some business men in Skagway determined that there was money to be made operating a railroad over he White Pass and they formed the White Pass and Yukon Route. They laid a narrow gauge line from Skagway to Whitehorse, about 110 miles. The gold spike was driven in 1900. By then the gold rush was over but Skagway remained an important gateway town to the Yukon and the railroad was able to carry both people and cargo over the pass to Whitehorse. This kept the railroad going, which kept Skagway going. Skagway has not changed a lot since the gold rush. It still has wooden sidewalks and false fronted buildings. Most of the town today is a national historic park. It is very small, just four blocks by 23 blocks. There are no commercial flights to Skagway although there is an air taxi to Juneau. It is one of just three southeast Alaska towns that is on the road system. As you head out of town, the next lanark place is the Canadian border, just 15 miles away. Today the town heavily relies on tourism. Many cruise ships stop there in the summer, but in the winter only four stores stay open. I spent the weekend in Skagway and did a bit of hiking and sightseeing while I was there. The following Monday, I was back on the ferry, heading south.

That Monday I boarded the M/V Malaspina. She was a bigger ship, but also an older one. I was headed for Bellingham, WA on that ferry, and we were scheduled to arrive on Friday morning. After we left Skagway, we stopped again in nearby Haines and then continued south to Juneau, arriving there late Monday night. From there we sailed over to Sitka, which was the capital before Juneau, and it was also the capital of Russia's American territories. That was a very small, but very interesting town. The Russian Orthodox cathedral is located right in he center of the downtown area. There are quite a few little shops and stores, many of which have items imported from Russia. There are also many historic buildings in town, many of which date back to the 1700's. I was able to visit the old bishop's home. The national park service now maintains and restores a lot of these old buildings. Saint Michael's Cathedral is still owned by the Russian Orthodox Church and the occasionally do offer tours, although that was not available while I was in town.

As the ferry sailed from Sitka, we retraced some of our route and then continued south. In the darkness hours of Wednesday morning, we stopped in the towns of Petersburg and Wrangell. They are both very small places. Later that day we stopped in Ketchikan. Ketchikan was very rainy and rather dreary. That is another town which is heavily supported by tourism and cruise ships. Since no cruise ship was in town, it was very quiet and very little was open.

Thursday ended up being a beautiful day and we spent it at sea, I'm the coastal waters of British Columbia. The voyage spent very little time at sea, because we were able to stay in more protected and calmer waters which were more inland. I am actually tracked the whole voyage with GPS, I'll post maps in the near future, indicating where we sailed.

Since I had the whole day at sea, and the weather was beautiful, I found myself a chair and dragged that out to the stern and spent most of the day out there. I also decided to get to know the ship a little. The M/V Malaspina is known as the "First Lady of the Fleet." She was built in 1963, and her replacement, the M/V Kennicott was built in the late 1990's. Oddly enough, the Kennicott gets tied up for the winter and the Malaspina runs year round, even after 47 years in service. There are no plans for retirement either. She was the first of the Alaska ferries and is one of the larger ships in the fleet. There is a plaque on one deck honoring the captain and crew for their service rescuing people from a burning ship in the Georgia Strait. Because of her efforts there were no fatalities on the ship that burned. It was very interesting learning snout he ship and spending a day at sea.

Friday morning found me arriving at the Alaska ferry terminal in Bellingham. We arrived right on time. I spent the weekend in Bellingham. On Saturday we decided to go to Victoria, BC. I did not know much about how to get there, but I knew we would need to take a ferry. We drove to Tsawwassen, where we caught one of the BC ferries to Swartz Bay. Not knowing exactly where the ferry went, I figured Swartz Bay was the bay the ferry terminal was in for Victoria. As it turned out, that was about 40 minutes away from downtown Victoria, and we were unable to get to Victoria due to no planning ahead. We got some dinner, and then got back on the ferry. Despite not going to Victoria, it was a beautiful day and just perfect for three hours on a ferry. It was a great day on the water.

At this point I am on the train. I'll write about that more when that let of the trip ends, seeing as this post is already eternally long!

Summer 2010

2010-10-03T11:20:00.002-08:00

These are the totals for the entire 2010 tour season in Alaska. This summarizes what I did during the summer. This is just me, not the entire division or motor coach fleet.

Miles Driven: 17,474

Passengers Carried: 5,589

Hours Driving: 515.5

Hours Worked: 1,093.25

Average Speed: 33.90 mph

Percentage Driving: 47.2%

Average Hours/Day: 8.75

Days Worked: 125

Incidents/Accidents: 1

Passenger Miles: 97,662,186

2009 Passenger Miles: 139,433,724

September 2010 Statistics

2010-10-01T07:00:00.001-08:00

Miles Driven: 1,928
Passengers Carried: 816
Hours Driving: 57.5
Hours Worked: 130
Average Speed: 33.5 mph
Percentage Driving: 44.2%
Average Hours/Day: 7.65
Days Worked: 17
Incidents/Accidents: 0

September was our shortest month with the last cruise ship sailing out on the 18th, for Asia. Once that ship, the Diamond Princess sailed, things got very quiet. It was a little strange at first actually. That is the reason for the lower numbers though.