(NOTE: This is the third in a multi-part series examining the Texas State Railroad and its uncertain future.
(The following story by Megan Middleton appeared on the Tyler Telegraph website on May 8.)
TYLER, Texas — A cloud of uncertainty has plagued the dedicated employees of the Texas State Railroad for more than a year as the fate of the railroad has hung in the balance. Employees who have worked at the railroad for decades say they love their jobs and would like a final resolution.
Early on a rainy, spring morning at the Texas State Railroad shop in Rusk, the crew is busy preparing the steam train for its day’s run to Palestine and back.
Around 7 a.m., or earlier, the work begins.
A long list of tasks must be completed before the train even pulls into the depot. Oiling the engine, oiling the air compressor and testing the brakes are just a few.
Sitting in his designated spot in the engine cab, Fireman Robert Gore’s workspace looks and sounds pretty intimidating to the casual observer. As he twists red and black valves and examines pressure gauges, a fire blazes inside the “fire box” and the sound of hissing steam can, at times, be deafening.
Among Gore’s chief jobs as fireman are maintaining the fire in the engine cab and checking to make sure enough water stays in the boiler to make steam.
“You must maintain water in the boiler. If you don’t have water in the boiler, and you have a fire in it, then you create a situation,” he says calmly.
On a full run, the engine — made in 1917 — will use 600 to 850 gallons of fuel a day and 6,500 to 7,000 gallons of water a day, Gore explains.
Once preparations are complete, the train leaves the shop and chugs a short distance down the track to the depot in Rusk, where a crowd waiting at the gate eagerly waves to crew members as if they are rock stars arriving at a concert.
Gore, like several of the 60 employees of the Texas State Railroad, enjoys his job — one where the customers always seem happy to be there.
“I enjoy talking to people who come and board … making children smile and laugh,” Gore said.
While employee after employee talks about their love for the job, the uncertainty of the future of the Texas State Railroad has left them anxious about whether they will have jobs come September, when the train is slated to become a static display.
Efforts are ongoing to keep the train moving and from becoming a museum — either through continued state operation with additional funding for Texas Parks and Wildlife or through legislation that is currently pending in the Legislature, coupled with funding, that could pave the way for a private operator to run the train.
If the railroad becomes a static display, there will only be a need for nine employees.
Gore, an employee of the railroad for eight years, said the idea that the train could stop running is “terrible.”
“It would be a great loss if the railroad was to go away,” he said. “They’d be losing a piece of Texas history, but they’d also be losing a piece of American history. I mean this is how this country was made. It was done by steam locomotives hauling freight and passengers from one place to another. It’d be real sad to lose it.
“I hope someone in Austin finally wakes up and sees the error of their ways.”
CLOUD OF UNCERTAINTY
Riders ask “constantly” about the fate of the Texas State Railroad, employees said.
Janet Roach, the store manager at the railroad, said some riders tell her how their grandchild emptied out his money into a donation box, how they have signed petitions and called their state representatives.
“…And is there anything else I can do?” she said they ask. “No one wants to see this close.”
Hearing the concerns from riders is difficult — but what’s really tough is seeing coworkers who “you have grown up with” have to leave to find more secure jobs, she said.
“What’s heartbreaking is to see people you’ve worked with who came here to work at the railroad when they were 16 years old and started sweeping up the floor out of high school and then they were promoted up the ranks … and then he married and he had a wife and a new baby, and then another baby. And then he had to leave to go get employment because he had to support his family.
“They’re coworkers — but they’re family too.”
Engineer Roger Graham, an employee of the railroad for 32 years, was laid off in December when the recent financial troubles of the railroad began and caused the Palestine train runs to be cut. Having the option to retire, he did so, and was later hired back when the Palestine runs were reinstated.
“I think something’s going to be done — but I don’t know what,” Graham said. “They’ve been trying to shut us down for years. You’ve got this cloud hanging over you all the time. You don’t know if you’re going to have a job tomorrow. I wish they would make up their mind and do what they are going to do and get it over with so we know what we’re doing.”
The Texas State Railroad narrowly missed a shutdown at the end of last year, when it was originally set to be turned into a static display. Funding was identified to keep it open through Aug. 31, allowing time for the state Legislature to possibly make a decision.
“Last fall, we were worried about Dec. 31,” said Curtis Merchant, an employee of nearly 28 years. “And now, we’re waiting on the Legislature to tell us what’s going to happen by August.”
Merchant said several employees had to leave — some who had 20 to 25 years service put into the railroad — to go work for another state agency.
“They couldn’t wait around for someone to make a decision,” he said. “Now the ones that are left of us, we’re just kind of waiting until the Legislature decides, then those folks will have to move on. There’s a lot of us that’s left that are just going to have to go to another state agency or find something else to do.”
They still love their jobs but have to be concerned for their families, he said.
“For our families, we need to decide what we are going to do because if we don’t, we could end up here in two or three months, and not have a job, no insurance,” he said.
The key to working for the state, he said, are the benefits, particularly in retirement.
“Every day that it gets closer, you think, ‘wow, I need to do something,’” Merchant said. “It is very stressful right now for a lot of the guys. You can tell it by just sitting and talkin’ to them. They don’ know whether to go or whether to stay.”
A NEW OPERATOR?
There are concerns from those who oppose a private operator taking over the train about what would happen to the employees.
But Steve Presley, president of the Texas State Railroad Operating Agency, which has pursued the alternative method of saving the railroad through finding a private operator, has said the current employees of the railroad would all be offered jobs at the railroad if a private operator takes over.
However, those employees would not get to keep their state benefits. They would have to take another job within Parks and Wildlife or go to work for another state entity to retain those.
Several employees interviewed said they would like to see the train remain with Parks and Wildlife as a fully operational state park and have the state fund it for another two years.
“They way I look at it is, if it’s continuing to be funded for another two years, then we have another shot again,” Merchant said.
They also worry about losing state benefits if the park leaves Parks and Wildlife’s control and expect those who want to keep those benefits to leave.
But they said they would rather see it running than become a static display.
“We think we have done a very good job of running this operation all of these years,” Merchant said.
All those involved in the effort to save the railroad — regardless of the method — have nothing but high praise for the employees of the railroad.
“Parks and Wildlife, make no mistake, they have done an excellent job within the framework they were given to operate, and we are very pleased with them and very proud of that,” Presley has said. “And had they not done such a good job up until this point, we probably would not have had anyone interested in bidding on it.”
Funding for continued state operation of the train appears to be increasingly less likely, some connected to the Legislature have said.
And Presley sees his group’s plan for saving the railroad as a “once-and-for-all” resolution to the uncertainty employees have faced for years.
“We feel like, based on what the politicians have told us, it’s the only long-term option that can keep the railroad running,” he has said.
A JOB YOU CAN LOVE
As an engineer at the railroad, Graham has met famous actors while they were filming movies on the train. Children ask for his autograph. He’s even been able to see children he pulled on the train years ago bring their own children to ride the train.
It’s a job he loves.
And his co-workers say they still enjoy their jobs too — even after decades spent working there.
They say they enjoy the people — both their fellow employees, many of whom have worked together for about 25 or more years, and the guests.
“There are not a lot of jobs you get to be around a lot of happy people almost all the time,” said Bill Langford, superintendent over the camping parks at Rusk and Palestine. “Ninety percent of the people are just happy. It’s a great work environment.”
Ms. Roach, who has worked at the Texas State Railroad in various roles for almost 29 years, said it’s been a “really wonderful place to work.”
She still gets goose bumps when she hears the whistle on the train blow.
“I have grandchildren who love it as much as I do,” she said.
Merchant, who works in the maintenance of way department, said, “You get to see so many different people — and the kids love this stuff. They just love riding the trains.”
His 3-year-old grandson is even hooked.
“He rode here a while back and every time I see him now, ‘Papa, when are we ridin’ that train again?’” Merchant said.
A ride on the train “is an experience that you don’t find very often,” Ms. Roach said. “A child, age 3, and an adult 103 can ride the train together and experience something ageless, really. Several generations can ride the train together. Where can you go where several generations … can do the same thing?”
Ms. Roach said riding a train is something usually the grandparent has experienced.
“And then the younger generation is experiencing something grandfather has done — or maybe grandmother rode the train when she was a young girl. And it brings tears to their eyes, it really does.”
And so far the children are still happy, Ms. Roach said.
“They don’t know the turmoil we as adults feel,” she said. “I have yet to have to tell a child that the train is no longer running. When we have to do that, that’s when it’s really going to hit home.”
Whatever the method of saving the railroad, the employees want some resolution. The worry on people’s faces is visible, they said.
“I think everyone now wants a decision to be made — one way or the other, tell us,” Merchant said.
In spite of the uncertainty and anxiety about the future swirling around them, these employees keep working and don’t let it affect how they do their jobs, they said.
They want people to continue to ride the train and enjoy it.
“We still have to keep moving — because we still have a chance,” Merchant said. “We have a job to do, and we can’t stop.”