On the Job Training

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!