(The following story by Chip Jones appeared on the Times-Dispatch website on June 21. A.D. “Doug” Riddell is a member of BLET Division 14 in Washington, D.C.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Even as a boy, Ryan Riddell looked as if he were in charge when he boarded Amtrak trains.
“When he was 7 years old, this kid had a two-way radio and a conductor’s hat and was walking down the aisle of the train,” recalled his father, Doug Riddell.
By the time Ryan was a lanky teenager, passengers often assumed he was the conductor and held up their tickets for him to punch.
None of this surprised his mother. Sandy Riddell could see the family’s railroad ties continuing. Her husband, Doug, has been an Amtrak locomotive engineer since 1986. And Doug’s grandfather worked on the old Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.
Ryan’s infatuation was evident even as a young child, Sandy said.
“We were at Bob’s Hobby Shop on Cary Street,” she recalled, “and for a few minutes, I couldn’t find Ryan.”
The boy had wandered off to the store’s display window, where his mother found him running a model train.
His father stoked the fires, of course, buying a Lionel train set for his son’s first Christmas. Ryan was about 6 months old at the time.
“My wife said, ‘Get a life – there’s more to life than railroads,'” Doug recalled.
That might be true, but the Riddell boys kept finding plenty of action out on America’s rails. When Ryan was 5, he rode the cross-country train with his father to Disneyland in California. But the boy was more excited to see a vintage Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad locomotive near Los Angeles than he was about seeing Mickey Mouse.
Over the years, Ryan received conductor’s hats and coats from Doug and other Amtrak employees. He started dressing for a job he didn’t yet have.
“People thought he was a member of the crew because he dressed the part,” Sandy said. “He answered questions and helped Doug with the baggage.”
His mother drew the line at heavy lifting.
“Finally I said, ‘Son, you’re not allowed to open the trap door!'” she said, referring to the mechanism that lowers the steps at the rear of each train car.
A librarian for the Henrico County school system, Sandy had hoped her son would attend college. And he might go, someday.
But after graduating from Atlee High School in 2002, Ryan applied to Amtrak and was hired as an assistant conductor in early 2003.
It took him only a year to be promoted to conductor – a quick rise to such a responsible position.
Some days, Doug, a train engineer since 1977, runs passenger trains from Washington to Richmond while Ryan is conductor.
The engineer runs the train, but the conductor commands it. Ryan enjoys reminding his father of the railroad’s pecking order.
They talk about trains the way other fathers and sons might follow NASCAR.
The rail link began with Doug’s late grandfather, John Everett Beazley, a conductor on the old Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.
“When I was a kid, Richmond’s Main Street Station and Fulton Yard was a second home to me,” Doug recently wrote in the introduction to “The Faces of Railroading,” by Carl A. Swanson. “The engineers, conductors, and porters were my family, and I knew them by name.”
His prized possession is his grandfather’s gold watch with “Hamilton Railway Special” on its face. It’s still ticking.
Despite his nostalgia for the railroad’s glory days, Doug is realistic about life on the tracks.
His grandfather was thrown from a caboose, breaking his neck, ending his career and shortening his life.
“Grandpa’s first railroad retirement check arrived the day of his funeral,” he wrote. “It had to be returned – uncashed.”
Still, over his father’s objections, Doug, who holds a college degree in mass communications, chose to make a career of railroading.
Early on, veterans warned him not to let the job derail his family life.
“I can’t tell you how many holidays or weekends I’ve had to raise my son by myself,” Sandy said. “You become mom and the dad.”
Yet she persevered, sometimes taking her son on the train to meet Doug if couldn’t get home for Christmas.
They still laugh about opening Ryan’s presents around a Coke machine at a Holiday Inn in Pittsburgh.
And about Ryan’s reaction when they went to Richmond’s Acca Yard to pick up his father’s paycheck.
When the boy spotted CSX locomotives, Ryan would holler, “Hey, Mama, look – there’s the paycheck train!”
Now Ryan, 20, lives in Alexandria. He usually works out of nearby Union Station, where he regularly sees his dad.
Looking back on his locomotive life, Doug reflected, “Sometimes I feel guilty about being away from home so much.”
But his pride was evident as he recalled the rave reviews of his co-workers who say, ‘You know, you really raised a good son.'”