ALL:
I enjoy the “Alaska Railroad” series, but have many doubts about the dramatic events and conversations between crew members. In real life, they don’t happen and I have ridden enough freight trains to know that. Also, I enjoy seeing the off gridders and how they fend for themselves.
Ed Burns
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis
The series needs better writers - there is nowhere near the drama in real life that the writers put into their ‘reality’ series.
I am amazed how the crew can change power three or four times on a run!
Yeah, and the same crew of engineer and brakeman go the entire 470 miles - in 10 hours or so. And no conductor? And the writers want you to believe that if the M/W machinery doesn’t clear up in time, the train will just keep coming at them. There is SO much wrong with the way the situations are depicted.
You have to remember, this TV series is made for the general public, most of who are very ignorant about railroads in general and how they operate, so they seem to think they need to throw in some “Hollywood Drama” to keep the audience’s interest.
I find it amazing that every problem is a crisis. I also find it hard to believe that the ARR would put off clearing out any anticipated problems until the day they are critical to a movement.
Not knowing the frequency of operation on any particular segment of the ARR system - if you are ‘fixing’ a weather caused problem, you don’t want to fix it too far in advance of the train, or the situation may happen again before the train actually runs.
I can go along with Weather related, but cutting the rock walls back and not cutting the weeds until the day the train has to run is VERY POOR PLANNING indeed.
Sure, the public generally has no idea how railroads operate, but the way the TV folks are doing it, just adds to the public’s misunderstanding of the industry. They could, and should, have taken the opportunity to educate the public a little bit about how railroads actually go about their business. That bit about cutting the brush at the last minute appeared to be entirely contrived. If the brush was so bad, it would have been an FRA violation, and thus would have never been allowed to get so bad. And they were cutting a 30 foot swath, wanting us to believe a train couldn’t get past if they didn’t cut it. The ARR, as do most railroads, would have an annual M/W program which would include brush cutting. The TV folks could have had an M/W officer explain the ARR’s maintenance programs and how they are planned and executed, instead of making everything seem like a dire, last minute emergency, just for drama’s sake. My whole career was in the railroad business, so to see things distorted like this does irritate. Plus, there is no train crew anywhere that will operate a train 470 miles - union contracts and federal rules don’t allow it. And every mainline train has a conductor, but apparently not on this show.
ALL:
I agree that there is too much drama in the show. Maintenance is scheduled well in advance of a train’s passage. Yes, MofW equipment does breakdown, but not at the frequence as indicated on the show. Granted, mechanics do respond quickly to repair equipment. I worked as Roadmaster’s Clerk at Northtown (Twin Cities Terminal) for five years and am familiar with daily and AFE (Authorization For Expenditure) [authorized capital] maintenance.
In addition, I rode with enough train and engine crews to know that the conductor and engineer remind each other about slow orders and maybe a bit of chit chat, but the drama as shown on the show doesnot exist.
The ARR crews operate Anchorage to Seward and Anchorage to Fairbanks. Sometimes the crews have a brakeman, sometimes not, depending if there is switching on line. I suspect that we are seeing the same crew handling different train on different days using a variety of power.
Ed Burns
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis.
Most likely because other crews felt the ‘drama’ being introduced was beneath their level of railroad dignity.
To what JoeUmp mentioned about the crisis and drama introduced into the program. Most of us here would be very satisfied to see the ‘normal’ daily operation of the ARR.
BUT what about the short attention span of the General Public? It seems that every TV program Must contain eklemets of ‘reality’ and consequently the writers feel complled to treat even the most mundane daliy task with a spellbinding level of crisis. HGTV even seems to want to hold their audiences with the drama of a crisis as houses are remodeled or ‘flipped’.
Remember the drama filled TV programs, “Movin On”( the story of a long haul trucker team of Will & Sonny or the show) " BJ & The Bear" (The Bear being a truck riding chimp) ?
Thank God, for most of us the drama exists in our lives in the simple act of driving in traffic. [banghead]
If you watched the live episode of Railroad Alaska you would have seen how much “drama” there really is.
Yep, ya gotta have the “drama” in life, otherwise it is just the “daily grind”, and how interesting is that? Ya can’t sell cars and Viagra on mundane life now, can ya?
What really irks me is the overall lack of safety awareness in all these spellbinding “reality” shows. I’ve been in the mining business for 38 years, and the lack of safety awareness is just amazing. I love the Gold Rush series, been there, done all that, burned the shirts long ago, but only one mine inspection in five years?? Something is up there, for sure, especially when you see that they roll a truck or dozer way too often.
And all the stupid sh . . that those guys do, especially contractors on some of those home reno and flipping shows. OMG!! Where are OSHA and MSHA???
I think the different engines is just the result of the filmmaker’s mixing film of the train they’re actually following in the episode with ‘stock’ footage of other trains going over the same line they had taken at some time in the past.
Not sure it would be impossible for one crew to go 470 miles (if that’s the length of the run). It may be because the railroad is owned by the Alaska Railroad Corp., which is owned by the state of Alaska, that the work rules are different than a private company would have - or just that the union and management negotiated something allowing the longer trips in their contract.
I doubt that the people who put the show together have any idea as to what railroading reality is, and so present their idea–and the majority of the viewers are sucked into believing that REAL railroad operation is presented.
ARR is covered by the FRA and all applicable regulations, including Hours of Service; same as railroads in the lower 48.
When I rode the Anchorage-Fairbanks summer passenger train about 20 years ago, the trip took about 12 hours. The crews of the northbound and southbound traded trains at the midpoint siding, so they could return to their home terminal that day. The freights were somewhat slower. I took a Seward-Anchorage train a couple of years ago, and it was about 4 or 5 hours.
I don’t get to see it because my Dish network package does not include this channel. But I know how they like to beef up drama to catch non-railroaders attention. Just like Unstoppable-which is a great movie and one of my favs. A buddy of mine saw it and liked it, but he said going around that curve would never have happened, physics would have taken over and the cars would have fell, never stayed on the track at that angle. But it made for a thrilling action shot.