MERCED, Calif. - Amtrak engineer Tim Monahan awaits word from conductor Gary Fritz, and it comes soon by radio, the conductor saying: "Hiball Merced on a green signal indication," according to Merced Sun-Star correspondent Bill Sanford.
It's 10:31, and an on-time departure.
Monahan, seated high on the right side of the lead car, eases the throttle to notch two. From the rear, locomotive number 2014 begins pushing the four-car train toward Bakersfield, its destination. The locomotive receives its instructions by a "multiple utility line."
(Monahan is a member of Local 1732, San Jose, Calif.)
The train soon reaches its maximum cruising speed of 79 miles per hour. Next stop: Madera, then Fresno.
Why push/pull (the locomotive pushing to Bakersfield, and pulling on the return)? Because of a savings in time and money. When the train reaches Bakersfield, a crew does a quick cleanup of the coaches, but otherwise the train is all set to head out for either Oakland or Sacramento with the engine on the point, the engineer in the cab.
Monahan says that engineers feel a bit more secure in a locomotive cab, but extensive push-pull records indicate that accidents are no greater in the push mode.
Monahan will make five scheduled stops between Merced and Bakersfield. When it's time to move on, the decision is not his. The conductor is the actual "captain" of the train, and he will radio the engineer when all is clear for departing a station.
Engineer Monahan began his work day in Merced. He will take train 712 to Bakersfield, have a layover of two hours and four minutes before taking train 717 back to Merced.
His workday will then be done, and he will drive to his home in Ceres.
Incidently, trains 712 and 717 are two of 12 Amtrak trains serving the Valley daily. Eight originate or terminate in Oakland; four originate or terminate in Sacramento. The trains are supplemented by Amtrak buses which range far and wide, delivering passengers to such distant destinations as Eureka, South Lake Tahoe, Long Beach and Las Vegas.
What does an engineer do between starts and stops? He needs to see every signal light and do what it says. On this morning's run to Fresno, there was no other train -- neither passenger nor freight -- to be met, but if there had been, here's how it would have worked.
The dispatcher in San Bernardino would have opened a switch and set a light directing one train into a passing track. After the other train had gone by, the dispatcher would throw another switch and set a light inviting the side-tracked train to re-enter the main line.
The engineer must be constantly attentive to the condition of his train. Is anything dragging, overheating? In this task he has sophisticated help.
The first help comes only a few miles out of Merced. Expensive stuff (about $250,000 worth) in a small white building inspects the train and immediately reports any problem by radio. The first of these inspections will occur at milepost 1051, only a few miles out of Merced. There will be seven more before the train arrives in Bakersfield.
And further, the engineer must be constantly alert for people or things in the train's path. Posing potential problems are the many grade crossings.
About one-fourth mile before each one there's a post with a big capital "W" on it. Engineers are rule-required to "sound the horn" -- in the days of steam the phrase would have been "blow the whistle"-- the prescription being two longs, a short and a long. Monahan does this many times in the course of his run.
Asked if he had had any accidents at grade crossings, Monahan replied: "I once hit an unoccupied car. It was pretty intense."
There's a nonprofit organization which has as its purpose the reduction of grade crossing collisions. It's called California Operation Lifesaver, Inc.
Begun in 1981, OL has had a key role in reducing train-vehicles collisions by about 80 percent in the past 28 years. So, clearly, it is among an engineer's best friends.
Its task is huge. There are 10,871 miles of railways in the state of California. That correlates with a very large number of grade crossings. A lot of drivers approaching those crossings have little awareness of how vulnerable they are.
A train cannot swerve, nor can it stop quickly. A mile-long freight train traveling at 70 mph requires about a mile and a quarter to stop. And the tonnage disparity between car and train is such that when there's a collision the train always wins, except that there are no real winners.
Operation Lifesaver supports a number of programs to increase public awareness. One program features trained speakers who go out and talk to such groups as driver's education classes, commercial, school bus and professional truck drivers, law enforcement personnel, etc.
In 2008, OL ran a campaign in the Merced/Fresno area targeting the large Spanish-speaking population. Using both print and radio, an effort was made to spotlight grade crossing danger.
Monahan says he is grateful for all OL does, but there are still too many people out there whose actions are dumb and dangerous.
In 2008, just in California, 24 people lost their lives at grade crossings; there were 140 collisions. The problem, of course, is national in scope. The Federal Railroad Administration has assembled these statistics for the whole country for the 28 years 1981 through 2008: collisions 137,951, fatalities 14,616, and injuries 52,117.
An associated problem: people killed while trespassing.
In 2008, there were 59 such deaths in California.
Watching Monahan at work was in itself quite instructive, but when I had the chance in an off-train environment to question him, I learned a good deal more.
In 1996 Monahan noticed an opportunity to take engineer training with New Jersey Transit. Several years later he moved to the west coast and worked for BNSF Railway as a freight engineer.
Following four years of that, he changed over to passenger service with Amtrak.
Now in his third year, he likes the greater dependability of scheduled passenger service.
He says the downside of being an engineer -- especially freight service -- is irregular hours and being away from family.
Speaking of family, Monahan has a wife Cheryle, and three children Timothy III, 25, Sherrie, 23, and Evrytte, 10 For recreation he likes computer flight simulation and watching movies in the comfort of his own home.
Revisiting the job, he says running at night is not a problem. He notes that the signals show up so much better. What can be very stressful is running under conditions of extreme fog. He says he's been in "soup" so thick you can't see the rails in front of the locomotive.
Still, you're expected to maintain usual speeds. When it's really bad, Amtrak will try to deploy an assistant engineer, believing four eyes are better than two.
Monahan reports that there are increasing numbers of women engineers, and they are earning respect for their excellent job performance. Presently, in the Pacific Division, about 10 percent of the engineers are women. There are also women conductors and assistant conductors.
Asked if he had a locomotive preference, he said he was fine with either the F-59s such as we had this morning, or the newer Genesis models which have the plus of cruise control. Whatever the power source, the engineer must be constantly alert and fully focused. Monahan was, and I counted it a privilege to spend an hour in his world.
(This item appeared in the Merced Sun-Star Aug. 3, 2009.
