A railroad is a business. The primary reason a business exists is to
make money. A business makes money by
selling a product or service for more money than it takes to produce that
product or service. Railroads are
service businesses. The service railroads
offer is transportation.
Railroads transport goods over a fixed network of
rails in accordance with an operating plan.
The operating plan is a system-wide scheme for moving trains between
terminals (where goods are sorted and rerouted) and to and from customers.
A trainmaster is a field-level operations officer
whose primary responsibility is the safe execution of the railroad’s operating
plan. The operating plan is
asymptotic. It is aspired to but never
fully achieved. Myriad things go wrong
each day, all across a railroad’s network, that cause actual operations to
diverge from the operating plan. A trainmaster’s
job is to apply knowledge, leadership, and relationships to swiftly recognize
and respond to the infinite variety of problems that conspire to flummox the
operating plan. The core challenge to the
trainmaster is to identify, contain and reverse divergences before they ripple
too far out into the system—constantly striving to recover and resume operations
in accordance with the operating plan.
There are two basic types of trainmaster: the terminal trainmaster and the line-of-road
trainmaster. Most new trainmasters start
out as terminal trainmasters, where they learn to apply the basics of railroad
operations within a fairly limited geographical area under the tutelage of a
terminal superintendant. Line-of-road
trainmasters, who are typically more experienced, cover large geographic areas
of the railroad between major terminals.
The primary resources a trainmaster manages to execute
the operating plan include people, locomotives, end-of-train devices, track,
and time. Railroads operate on
relatively thin profit margins. The best
run railroads spend about 75 cents for every dollar they earn. It doesn’t take much to go wrong in terms of
efficiency to get into negative margin territory. So, by business necessity, the railroads must
run very lean operations. For the
trainmaster, this means there are no resources to spare, so they must be
managed very carefully.
People who directly report to the trainmaster include conductors,
switchmen, yardmasters, operators, and clerks.
Trainmasters typically provide direction to both conductors and
engineers, even though (for most railroads) engineers report to a road foreman
of engines.
Trainmasters also interface constantly with many
people, both internal and external to their territory. Internally, trainmasters must establish
excellent rapport with the managers in the local mechanical and engineering
departments. The mechanical department
is responsible for the inspection, servicing, and repair of locomotives,
rolling stock, and end-of-train devices.
The engineering department is responsible for maintaining the railroad’s
infrastructure, such as track and signals.
A terminal cannot operate without close constant coordination between
operations, mechanical, and engineering.
Externally, trainmasters must interface with
dispatchers, division-level operating managers, locomotive managers at
headquarters, crew schedulers, union representatives, managers at other railroads with whom the
trainmaster has interchange operations, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
inspectors, union representatives, and customers.
Railroading is not inherently dangerous, but it is
inherently unforgiving. If performed
properly, with properly serviced and maintained equipment and infrastructure,
rail operations are very safe. If people
make mistakes, or take shortcuts, they can die, or they can kill other
people. Above all else, a trainmaster
must ensure that all railroad operations are carried out in a safe manner. Railroads have very precise operating rules
and procedures to cover pretty much every type of operating scenario and
situation one can imagine. These operating
rules are, as they say in the industry, “written in blood.” Most railroad operating rules are based
directly upon federal laws that govern rail operations. Trainmasters will get to know their local FRA inspectors
quite well, as these inspectors will constantly be auditing railroad
operations, making sure the railroads are fully compliant with federal law.
By far, the most unpleasant aspect of being a
trainmaster is enforcing, through disciplinary action, the railroad’s safety
rules. Trainmasters must get comfortable
with confronting and effectively dealing with railroad employees who are
violating operating rules. It is not fun
to have to take another person off a job and send him or her home for a
three-day suspension. It is not fun to
fire someone who simply cannot or will not comply with safe operating
procedures. It is much less fun to have
to tell that employee’s spouse and children that the employee was killed on the
job.
Ideally, a trainmaster will be able to establish and
maintain in his or her territory a culture that embraces safety—one in which
peer pressure to be safe is the primary force driving compliance.
The basic flow at a railroad terminal is much like that
of a production factory. Resources
arrive in the plant. They are
inspected. Value is added. The finished product is inspected, tested,
and shipped. In the case of a railroad terminal,
the incoming resources are rail cars.
When they arrive, the mechanical department inspects them to be sure
they are in good working order. Yard switching
crews then add value by sorting cars and building the final product: outbound trains. When a train is built, it is inspected and
tested. When a train is ready to go, a
train crew (conductor and engineer) take the train away.
The operating plan typically repeats on a daily
basis. Railroad operations run 24 hours
a day, 365 days a year. They never stop. Never.
Operations diverge from the plan, converge, then diverge again. Operational problems ripple and migrate
throughout the system. Problems, delays,
and crises emerge. Trainmasters, using all
the resources at their disposal, deal with these issues, always striving to
recover to the operating plan.
In a nutshell, this is the role of the
trainmaster. In future posts, we will
explore in much more detail all of the topics introduced above.
