Three Metra engineers were suspended after it was discovered that they let an 18 year old, who does not work for Metra, operate trains on several west suburban lines. From the Chicago Tribune on 10\24:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/transportation/chi-metra-24-oct24,0,1637529.story
CC
This is why you don’t post photos of cab rides and brag about them on forums. From the sound of this incident the railfan bragged about the cab rides and even posted photos of himself running the trains and also the engineers that let him do it. There is no doubt that railroads watch websites. They probably even watch this one for all we know! Remember, BNSF just told someone to remove some in-cab videos from Youtube a few months ago, so this is serious business. If it’s a public cab ride like the $30 cab ride at Mid-Continent Railway that’s a different story, but posting photos of cab rides on Metra is bad. Actually running the train is even worse!
I can’t imagine that an engineer would do this with all the problems and lawsuites these day.
Were the rules on the books but not worried about in the good o’ days?
In 1968, as a teen of 14 years of age, I spent several day “working” with my father in the Moses Lake, WA area. He was working out of town that winter and I went with him. He was the conductor on a loco that served the sugar beet factory and french fry processing plant. I rode the train all day, ate at the greasy spoonwith the crew, and got some great tours of the factories. I even “drove” the train for 10 miles while the engineer sat behind me. What a exciting experience that will never, never, never happen again to a young lad. (and never should)
Can anybody top that railroad experience at such a young age?
[sigh] More bad publicity for railfans…
NP Red: That is very hard to top nowadays. I know several commuter railroads had engineers that let railfans ride in the cab, although after the Chatsworth wreck, I’m surprised they still do. Some railfans give the rest of us a bad image, because many people generalize us. Many probably think we all text engineers and try to drive the locomotives…[banghead]
I had a similar experience when I was a touch younger, but on the CNW near my home and my father didn’t work for the RR. Somehow he did know the ENGR and CONDR. Looking back I can see why this is risky to do, but glad I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience.
American work life seems to be getting more and more like Las Vegas: someone is always watching. But surely the boy brought it on himself by bragging about it on YouTube. - a.s.
Actually, Al, I’m not sure the railfan brought anything on himself except the disdain of other railfans and the knowledge that he may have helped terminate three careers of the profession he claims to admire.
They don’t mention which line(s) this is on, but the way the article keeps referring to Metra employees I get the feeling that one can rule out the UP and BNSF services. The mention of a prior fatal accident doesn’t help me out, but maybe it will help someone else.
(I, too, have mixed feelings about this whole thing–I probably wouldn’t be working for a railroad today if I hadn’t been encouraged by engineers and other railroaders who knew that I shouldn’t be in the cab, throwing switches, passing signals, flagging crossings, etc.)
Maybe the three engineers should be immediately fired and each presented with a Darwin Award as a going-away present.
As railfans we must hang the railfan who boasted and posted. We’ve all had cab rides and other privliges at one time or another thanks to those in the RR busness who let us into their world to learn more. But we have been descrete and intellegent enough not to bite the hands that fed us. Agree, what the railroaders did was illegal especially under today’s law suit happy and terrified population coupled with a job that has become more intense and stressful than we ever knew. But this fan’s indiscretion was irresponsible to both the engineers who’s trust he betrayed as well as to the ability of future railfans to be able to get closer to the hobby. No, I am not advocating railfans flooding the cabs of locomotives or the floors of towers and dispatchers’ offices. But because of his actions the rest of our brotherhood will be looked at with more suspicion and disdain than ever. Text messaging to train crews, video and picture posting of illegal actions or from unsafe locations, and bragging in public places does not show that we, as railfans, have good judgement nor can be trusted.
You are 100% correct. I’m from the Chicago area and I’ve been around the block many times. I’m sure I’ve met the person who was taking these cab rides and bragging about them at least once. Not all of us text message engineers or try driving the train. I know I don’t! The Tribune pointed the finger directly at the entire railfan community in the article today for both this and the Metrolink incident. They also had to decrease the amount of time between the last text and the Metrolink incident from 22 seconds to “just a few seconds” in the article.
Back in about 1980 or 81, when I was about 15 or 16 years old, I was admiring a GP 38-2, from a distance at the small depot the local road switcher worked from near my home. I saw the train crew in the lunch room and went in and started talking to them. One introduced himself and said that he was the engineer, and if I came back the next day, they would take Me out with them.
Not surprisingly, I WAS back the next day, the whole crew was VERY FRIENDLY. I enjoyed it IMMENSELY, and also watched, listened and FOLLOWED any/all rules the crew told me. I was invited back many times, and once on the long spur leading to a now closed aluminum plant, the engineer stopped the train, and had me sit in his seat. He kept a close eye on me, and when we got near the plant “where there might be eyes watching” he took the controls back, it was a day that almost 30 years later is still a favorite memory.
Unfortunately being young, I didn’t relise the opportunity I had, and lost touch with the engineer, maybe if I had stayed in touch with him, I would today be a working Rail, and have some pretty good senority. OOHHH Well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, today I’m still running Diesels, just with six cylinders and just 18 wheels, all wrapped with rubber, and enjoy it too, BUTTT…
Doug
I would also like to add that my experience as a teen sitting in the “drivers seat” was on a slow loco out in the farm country. I think it would really be ill advised on the main line or God forbid, in the commuter/Amtrack service.
The article says
“Metra learned of the unauthorized rides about two weeks ago after someone called to report pictures of the teen’s joy ride on his MySpace page, sources said.”
Although that does not rule out railroad Big Brother behavior, there’s nothing that says the railroad was watching this particular website
I think the engineers should have known better than to let the kid on the train period. But, since they let him on the train, and allowed him access to things he should not have had access to, the least he could have done was not broken the trust. However, at 18 years old, it’s kind of hard to keep something like that a secret, at eighteen, someone generally does not have the ability to see the consequences of breaking that trust. When he took the photos, and posted them on MySpace, he probably figured “who is going to see them anyway??”
I completely understand why the engineers may have wanted to show the kid around. Just a couple of years ago, a couple of very nice employees of a railroad allowed my then 5 year old son in the cab of their locomotive while they were stopped waiting for clearance right where we happened to be watching trains. These nice guys let my son sit the engineer’s seat, and blow the horn, and they showed him how everythign works (the train was stopped, and would be so for about a half an hour). He still talks about that day, and will probably remember it for the rest of his life. Also, the crew of the train was very friendly, and allowed me to take some cab photos, but those photos will never be posted anywhere. We were on board the locomotive maybe five minutes, but I know it is five minutes my son will probably never forget.
It’s a shame sometimes, that kindness like that can’t be recognized, but I understand why. I also understood the risk these gentlmen took to be nice to a little boy. I know that it is not part of any railroaders job to be nice, and do what this crew did for my son, and I certainly do not expect it will ever happen again… but, that being said, I am grateful for their kindness.
I honestly don’t know what to think about this. I feel sympathy for the engineers, because they were only trying to be nice, but at the same time broke the rules, and they should ha
The actions of the “railfan” and the operating crew members were nothing short of DUMB!
The only things we can all count on happening as a result of this story are that we will be just a little less welcomed on and around R.R. property and (for sure) our “chance encounters” with operating crew in which we find ourselves in “unusual” circumstances will be totally eliminated…right or wrong!
I agree wholeheartedly !
What was this engineer thinking? And just after this big wreck involving railfans ! I wander if their engineers have full certification? Double dumb
If the charges are true I can’t see where Metra has any choice but to terminate the crew, if for no other reason than future liability issues, real or imagined. Just imagine the rhetoric in a future grade crossing accident.
Engineer will be subject to FRA action for allowing an unlicensed individual to operate locomotive.
I too had cab and caboose rides many times and places all thru my teen years, even a wee bit of throttle time. In turn, other fans rode with me during my career.
If it weren’t for kind crews the next generation of railroaders would miss the exposure to the industry . Had it not been for the railroaders that took me under thier wing I’d be a porn star and not a railroader . Flying these activitys in the face of the railroad was stupid. I was hiding in the toilet room to avoid detection , I wasn’t filming the activity … I wanted to keep those friends .
But you didn’t become a turncoat and blab and post your good fortune in a way that tattled on your benefactors. Nor have your beneficiaries done the same to you. This idiot railfan didn’t have the sense to know when he had received a discrete favor and in his actions destroyed three careers at minimum and certainly has given professional railroaders from the board room to the trackwalkers’s shack, reason to mistrust the rest of us railfans no matter what. He betrayed the engineers’ trusts as well as our “brotherhood” if you will. In railroaders eyes we are “foamers”, too much rapped up in the choo choo to know right from wrong, too irresponsible to act safely, and maturely around the railroad, and, in fact, could put jobs and lives at stake. We are not students of the art,the science, the economics, the history, the business, of railroading, but rather buffoons playing in a big railroad yard when we should be in our basements at home pinning Lionel track together and watching toy trains go around in circles. No, this idiot has done us a great disservice. It is unfortunate that only the three engineers and the rest of us will suffer because of his stupidity!
But I am not letting the engineers entirely off the hook, either. They know the rules and the laws under which they work and they had to know the risks they were taking. Yeah, its easy to say “when I was a kid…” but a lot has changed since the 40’s, 50’s and even the 80’s and 90’s. There is a lot more stress, a lot more “security”, a lot more legal and petty things, a lot more to the job, than back when we were young. We were able to learn from the ground up because there were so many railroaders around to tea
Actually so will the railfan. Operating an engine without a valid license is a Federal offense and the video will probably be enough to prove its a “willful” vioation, meaning a potential of big bucks on the fine ($25,000 ?).
Dave H.