(The following story by Abby Wihl appeared on the Albuquerque Tribune website on August 6.)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Tom Long is living his childhood dream of being a train conductor on the rails that weave in and out of Albuquerque.
And being a conductor is more than just blowing the long-long-short-long whistle that warns drivers that a train is approaching a crossing.
At Amtrak, conductors like Long are multi-taskers of the tracks. Some of their job includes but is not limited to taking tickets, greeting passengers, handling baggage and orchestrating the train’s movements from track to track, said Francis Browne, an Amtrak assistant conductor. And then there are the people.
“The hardest thing I deal with is unreasonable customers,” Browne said. “So far, I haven’t had to throw anybody off the train. But customers are also a source of enjoyment.”
Peter Ward, 39, an eight-year veteran as an Amtrak conductor, said a train sees every different kind of person from every walk of life. “The Mardi Gras crowd seven years ago was probably the wildest and most memorable,” he said.
In fact, folks can be so fascinating that Ward likes to carry a small digital camera that he uses to take pictures of his passengers enjoying their rides on the train, he said. He even lets kids wear his hat, he said.
Retired conductor Mel Holyhoke said he once confronted a man with a knife in his pocket on one of his rides near Flagstaff, Ariz.
He recalls telling the customer: “You get that hand out of your pocket or I’ll knock your ear out.” When the customer refused, he and another passenger booted him off the train, he said.
Holyhoke, 69, enjoys just being a passenger these days. He was recently on an Amtrak train traveling from Wisconsin to the West Coast to visit his brother.
Holyhoke recalled his conductor days while visiting with the crew in their car. Call it one of the perks of working on the railroad for 37 years and working for Amtrak for 10 of those years.
Bells and whistles
Two people supervise any train: the conductor and assistant conductor.
T.D. Long – conductors traditionally are referred to by their first two initials and their last name – grew up in the “railroad town” of Altoona, Pa.
In 1925, 14,000 of the 17,000 residents were employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad, according to city history. Long said he and his dad would take a long train trip once every year, and he fell in love with the rails.
Now 49, he has worked in the railroad industry for 26 years. He moved to Albuquerque a year ago and is part of Amtrak’s 18-person conductor crew here.
Potential conductors must take an eight-week course, a written test and complete a probationary period of 90 days shadowing a regular crew, Long said.
Conductors must qualify for a stretch of track, and to do this, trainees ride in the very front of the first car with the engineers, Long said.
From this vantage point, a conductor can see the stretch of railroad track looming ahead so it is easier to learn the route, he said. In a train, this spot is like a car’s windshield, he said.
Trainees also learn the step-by-step process for moving from track to track, Long said.
First, permission must be granted to enter a new stretch of track, Long said. Railroad controllers call and give a code to the conductor that allows the conductor to lead his train onto a different piece of track, he said.
If conductors lead a train onto tracks they do not have permission to be on, they are suspended by Amtrak for 30 days, Long said.
Beyond this permission, conductors carry a set of keys that open the locks that allow the train to switch tracks, Long said. But this is being phased out by electronic automation, he said.
To work for Amtrak, conductors must be members of a union, said Long. Most conductors are members of the United Transportation Union, but some also join the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, he said.
Bill Beebe, one of Amtrak’s general chairmen for the UTU, said 2,100 Amtrak conductors and assistant conductors belong to the UTU in the United States.
Currently, the most experienced Amtrak conductors make about $25 an hour, said Long. Amtrak employees also receive health insurance coverage, he said.
After eight hours, conductors are eligible for time and a half overtime and they get paid holidays, he said. If a conductor works on a holiday, pay is two and a half times their normal pay, Long said.
Federal law mandates conductors cannot work more than 12 hours at a time, Long said.
All Aboard
Amtrak hires primarily from within, so if a person would like to become a conductor, he or she might start working for Amtrak as a ticket agent, Long said.
Amtrak conductors can receive full retirement benefits after 30 years of employment and 60 years of age, said Long.
Wearing the conductor’s hat is becoming more rare as productivity increases and advances in train technology help to decrease the number of workers necessary to run a train, according to the United States Department of Labor.
However, many of the conductors on the rail today are expected to retire in the next few years. So at least until 2014, the Department of Labor projects the rail transportation industry – which includes railroad conductors and yard masters – will grow between 9 and 17 percent.
As to the fate of Amtrak, the U.S. House of Representatives on July 24 decided to keep intact the government subsidies that keep Amtrak afloat.
Despite not losing its funding, Amtrak is cutting back on amenities, Long said. He said more and more full-service dining cars and rows and rows of sleeping berths are disappearing.
A joy ride with a few bumps
Long said he enjoys his job and even met his best friend on a train.
But the railroad is not all fun and games. Sometimes the train will hit wildlife and suicidal people on the tracks, Ward said.
When conductors encounter stressful events, Amtrak provides counseling programs.
Browne also said the job can be very hard on young married people because conductors are gone so much of the time – four to six days of the week.
“I’m out here six days a week, so I have no life,” said Ward. “The people you work with you know better than your own family.”
The conductors who work the Albuquerque to La Junta, Colo., route stay the night in La Junta in a $100 room, much like airplane flight crews, Ward said.
Then it’s back on the tracks. Ward said he loves the scenery on the route. His favorite view is the stretch from Raton to La Junta, which is heavily forested and filled with wildlife.
Long said it’s common to see elk on the route and another of his conductor friends has seen cougars.
As the train whisks along the rails from Albuquerque to Lamy, passengers relax in blue reclining seats. And just like the conductors, they enjoy and appreciate the layers of sandstone, desert shrubbery and the bright blue sky out the train windows.