(The following article by Angie Basiouny was posted on the News Journal website on August 30.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., slid his gray plaid suit jacket off his shoulders and slouched his tall frame to step inside the locomotive simulator at Amtrak’s training facility near the city’s Riverfront.
“I can’t wreck this thing, can I?” he said jokingly, taking a seat behind the controls in the $3 million virtual ride, the only one of its kind in North America.
The simulator is the centerpiece of a facility built in 1999 to teach students who want to become Amtrak train conductors, assistant conductors and engineers. Castle, a longtime proponent of increased funding for the nation’s passenger rail service, joined the students Monday to drive home his message and get a firsthand look at the system he’s trying to save.
“It gives you a sense of the significance of it,” he said of the simulator ride. “I guess you get used to it, but to me it’s a pretty ominous responsibility.”
Students from across the country come to the Delaware facility for seven to 10 weeks of classes, followed by up to a year of on-the-job training. Castle said that kind of training needs a financial boost, along with rail security and operations.
The congressman is co-chairman of the Passenger Rail Caucus created in May and plans to introduce a bill that would require the federal government to create a national rail security strategy. His proposal will ask for more security personnel, cameras on trains and at stations, public awareness campaigns and training for transit workers to detect anything suspicious.
Sens. Joe Biden and Tom Carper, both Democrats, also have sought more funding.
The House this year signed off on $1.2 billion for Amtrak, saving the rail service from proposed cuts that could have prompted a shutdown. But the money was less than the $1.8 billion Amtrak was seeking.
“The problem is getting any money for rails is so difficult in Washington, D.C., because the rails only serve certain places in the country,” Castle said.
During the simulation, with Amtrak manager Jay W. Gilfillan urging him to accelerate, Castle pulled on the throttle and broke 50 mph.
“This actually represents down to the last nut and bolt what our locomotives look like,” Gilfillan said.
The simulator moves and shakes to give the feel of a real ride, even jerking when the “train” comes to a halt. And there’s a “dead man’s” switch that checks whether a train engineer is still alive. If the engineer doesn’t respond to the automatic alarm, the train assumes the engineer is incapacitated and brakes itself to a stop.
Sitting in a padded chair, Castle looked down to struggle with the controls. When he looked up at the computer-generated scenery ahead, he could see the back end of a big yellow school bus dangerously near the tracks.
“Oh, my God!” Castle said, drawing chuckles from his staff and the Amtrak employees who were watching.
It may not have been the smoothest maiden voyage, but Gilfillan told him not to despair.
It just takes a lot of practice.
“You run a locomotive by the seat of your pants,” Gilfillan said. “That’s really how you do it. You feel it.”