(The following story by Barb Sieminski appeared on the News-Sentinel website on August 12, 2009. Sarah Yost-Cotterman is a member of BLET Division 153 in Gary, Ind.)
FORT WAYNE, Ind. — On the infrequent times Fort Wayne residents Anna Drabenstot and Sheri Yost-Cotterman get together, they don’t waste time talking about makeup, clothing or soap operas.
Instead, the two CSX Transportation freight train engineers are likely to exchange railroad news, catch up on their latest adventures from behind the throttle or share stunning wildlife photos taken from the high roost of their cabs.
They are among the limited but growing number of women conductors and engineers working on America’s railroads.
One of Drabenstot’s unforgettable on-the-job moments occurred during her early days of driving the train on its Willard, Ohio-to-Chicago run.
“Back then, women engineers were a rarity,” recalled Drabenstot, an Andrews native and Huntington High School graduate, who grew up in a railroad family.
“At train crossings, when people waved at us, we’d wave back,” she said. “When I first started out, I would wave and drivers’ mouths would drop in astonishment because it was the first time they’d ever seen a woman engineer. I got the biggest thrill out of that, but my heart nearly stopped when one surprised driver actually ran off the road when he saw me in the cab!”
Drabenstot, a world traveler, moved to Fort Wayne in 1975. She used her education to counsel addicts and alcoholics at the methadone clinic until 1979, when she took a job on the B&O Railroad, which now is known as CSX.
She worked for 10 years as a brakeman until becoming an engineer in 1992. At that time, the railroad hired five women — two of whom are still on the job. In order to qualify for the job, she had to run, jump, climb and lift 60 pounds. As she says, working the rails is an unforgiving position, and each hire was required to do his or her own physical labor.
Drabenstot’s husband, himself a former railroad employee, worked part time while raising their son, Bart. Without her family’s encouragement, Drabenstot’s job would have been more difficult. She saw her family only about 20 hours of each week, “when awake — while home. Mark always made sure I got my sleep.”
The railroad pays the engineers’ motel bills on runs to Chicago, said Yost-Cotterman, who travels with her Martin Backpacker guitar to strum away the lonely stand-by hours. The women rarely see each other, unless they are both coincidentally in Chicago on simultaneous runs.
Discrimination on the job? Absolutely, said Drabenstot.
“For eight years, I was totally shunned by about 90 percent of the guys,” said Drabenstot, “and my uncles were always there to ask questions, if I needed them. I had such support outside the railroad, and that was the only way I survived. The guys’ way of protecting me was to ignore me in hopes that it would make me quit. They were afraid I’d slip or fall when handling heavy equipment, such as the strenuous hand brake. Some of the same guys still shun me.
“The only people who did accept me were my Vietnam veteran co-workers — they’d been outside the United States and were more enlightened from their own experiences,” she added. “I was a good listener and could keep confidences.”
Yost-Cotterman, a 10-year CSX engineer, who praises Drabenstot as one of her mentors, credits the latter for helping to break through the railroad glass ceiling.
“I’m honored to be part of the growing field of women conductors and engineers and have come to accept my co-workers as my extended family,” said Yost-Cotterman, a North Side High School graduate, “although, in the beginning, I didn’t feel like this because of the narrow-mindedness, which today, has only somewhat improved.”
What Drabenstot treasures most about her career are the nature scenes she is privileged to witness from the high perch of her cab. She has seen red foxes, coyotes, wild turkey, bald eagles and more.
So has fellow photographer Yost-Cotterman, who regards such cross-country panoramas as intimate.
“Working in the outdoors is a great privilege, and the natural rhythm of the railroad brings the pace of life to a slower one,” said Yost-Cotterman, “so it’s easy to be in the moments that unfold.”
Another plus of the job is the challenge.
“Every day is different,” said Drabenstot, who plans to retire in four years after completing her 360 months of railroad employment. “And with so many rules and regulations, the biggest challenge is staying out of trouble.”
The job is not all moonlight and roses, however.
Drabenstot, like all engineers, has hit, “at least 50 deer, cows, wild turkeys and other animals,” who are attracted to the tracks by the grain that has fallen through freight cars.
“It’s very difficult to stop a moving train, and, when an animal is hit, it literally explodes,” said Drabenstot, a 30-year railroad employee who received mentoring from Marie Walton, a retired conductor and engineer.
Yost-Cotterman said a locomotive stands about 20 feet tall, is about 75 feet long and weighs about 432,000 pounds. Sometimes the load Yost-Cotterman hauls can stretch 2 miles — about 165 boxcars. A typical ore, iron or coal train with about 120 cars weighs tens of thousands of tons.
Finally, it’s only natural that these women, who thrill to the sightseeing aspect of the rails, closely identify with Robert Louis Stevenson’s words:
“I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”