(The following story by George Schwarz appeared on the Amarillo Globe-News website on November 3.)
AMARILLO, Texas — The wail of the train whistle and the low rumble of a diesel engine that float across Amarillo may conjure up the romance of the rails for some.
But for Greg Lawler, those sounds outside his office are all in a day’s work.
Lawler, the terminal superintendent for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, recently returned to Amarillo to supervise 400 miles of track – parallel lines of steel in two classification yards.
And while Lawler is deadly serious about his responsibilities, he recognizes that he lives the dream of many: working on the railroad.
“It’s not everybody who gets to play with trains everyday,” he said.
Lawler hits the office by 5 a.m. most days, doing “number crunching and bean counting” that prepare him for conference calls that will affect train movements for the day.
He talks with road managers and trainmasters to line up the tricky task of moving 100 to 125 trains through Amarillo daily. The Kansas City Division includes Sweetwater; Clovis, N.M.; and Trinidad, Colo.
“The first three hours of the day are dedicated to the details of yesterday and going over today’s plan,” he said.
With the sun chasing an early chill, Lawler was ready inspect his facilities when Dennis Mustoe, road superintendent, sauntered into the office.
Mustoe runs 317 miles of main line track from here to Kansas and works closely with Lawler. And they tease each other incessantly.
Mustoe said he worked up to management from the engine cab; Lawler said he came up from digging ditches in the Signal Division.
Lawler went from signals to overseeing locomotive use, to supervising stretches of main line, to helping manage switch yards before taking the terminal job here.
Both second-generation railroaders agree it’s a special life.
“You have to enjoy it,” Lawler said. “It’s not an easy lifestyle.”
With Lawler this day is Jeff Lederer, who started as an engineer and now serves as terminal manager.
“Railroading is a way of life,” he said.
Lederer is one of BNSF’s 450 employees in Amarillo and is part of a budget that approaches $2 million some months. The budget is the biggest challenge, Lawler said.
Lawler’s job requires getting around the yards, tuning to the workers. On this day he started in the tower that overlooks Interstate 40 and one of his huge train yards.
The tower, tied into the railroad’s computer system, marshals 100-car trains through the switches that control the five ways in and out of Amarillo.
From the tower, the trains arriving on the “trans-con” tracks that run from Chicago to California are broken up and rerouted.
The people in the tower discuss getting stopped trains moving and routing trains around a damaged rail in the 10th Avenue yard.
Lawler and Lederer decide to visit the 10th Avenue yard to check on the progress of rail repair and inspect the shanty that switchmen use.
A rack outside the shanty holds three pieces of equipment that look like a line of mechanical tadpoles with lights for heads.
Those are end-of-train devices, replacing the lights and the caboose, they explain.
An ETD costs $4,000 and railroads rent them to one another at a substantial cost.
So when Lawler finds one at the bottom of an outside storage locker, he isn’t pleased.
Lawler will discuss the find with someone, but in the context of his management philosophy, he said: “When you’re straightforward, and honest with people, you get that in return.”
Lawler also inspected the new track that routes trains from around downtown, saying he is pleased not to tie up traffic.
“I’d like our operation to be invisible to the community,” he said.