May 27, 2010

Today we had an uneventful drive to Omaha.  It is good to have the regular crew back together.  I have a huge room at a brand new Hampton Inn. The old adage of "the better the room the shorter the stay" may be broken here.

We headed over to the new headquarters of the Union Pacific this morning.  Our plan was to look at their simulator program for training conductors, engineers, and in particular, ground control engineers for yard operations.  In this regard, yard controllers generally no longer ride the locomotive.  The engines are remote controlled from packs used by men on the ground.  It’s a safer and more efficient manner of moving cars around a yard than the old manner of putting an engineer in a cab.  I was really impressed.  The Union Pacific has put a great deal of time, effort, and brainpower into building these sim programs.  So you can start with a simple pull on a string of cars, to a complicated work order involving hazardous materials cars, repositioning scenarios, all in varying industrial situations.  The software people have even created an avatar to demonstrate the right and wrong way to do things.  And all this can be run from laptops with high end graphics cards.  The trainers said that it was so exciting to see students finish lunch early just so they could come back and work on these programs, and then compare scores.  There is also an engineer simulator system, actually run from Salt Lake, that can simulate every kind of motive power, with every kind of load, under any weather or safety situations.  As I said, it was pretty impressive.  We shot some yard action and then headed back to the hotel.  Omaha’s Old Market area is a lively, action packed area of trendy shops, pubs, and restaurants.  This was a Thursday night and the place was packed.  I can’t imagine it on a weekend.  Tomorrow we are off to Abilene. 

It was a lot longer drive today than I had anticipated, so we did not arrive in Springdale until around 4 PM.  We learned that the railroad would be doing some switching and yard work around 7 PM, so we dropped our luggage at the hotel, and headed back to the rail yard.  The next two days promise to be long and hectic.  We are beat.

To be quite honest, I was fretting about this visit.  Initially it seemed that we did not have enough time to cover all the aspects of the segment.  My fears (so far) have proven groundless, due to the superior organizational skills of our contact, Brenda Rouse.  Her able and willing Arkansas and Missouri Railroad employees have provided us with an immense amount of guidance and help today.  I can’t say enough kind things about the people we have met and worked with.  This ranged all the way from the Chairman of the railroad, who flew in from Chicago just for us, down to the engineers, brakemen, station agents and office staff.  We shot six interviews, did a short passenger train ride, shot yard action, and covered the shop and dispatch center.  The railroad is the largest owner and operator of Alco 420’s around, even beating out my friends at the Minnesota Commercial.  It turns out the first owner of the line found that he could purchase these Alco units as they were going out of service in the Class 1 operations, and was able to get lots of spare parts.  While the railroad does the tourist passenger trains and special passenger events, it's primary focus is freight.  It is a true bridge line, with 139 miles of track in NW Arkansas to link the BNSF, UP, and the KCS.  I must say that I had not expected the amount of industry, traffic and number of people in this area.  This northwestern corner of Arkansas has grown so fast that the infrastructure has not been able to keep up.  So roads are crowded and narrow.  Be that as it may, it’s a pretty area, and the businesses of Tyson Foods, Georges, and Wal-Mart and all their related sub-industries make this a huge employment base.  Tomorrow we ride the passenger train down to Ft. Smith.

It was early morning as we checked out of the hotel.  We had to be on site at 7 AM.  Fortunately, the rain has held off, and it has merely been in the upper 90s and humid.  While that is mighty uncomfortable, at least it is sunny for shooting.  One of the railroad employees shuttled our van down to Van Buren, and then on to Ft. Smith, so that we could ride most of the way.  The website designer and photographer for the railroad, Dick Hovey, stayed with us and stopped the train at five locations so that we could shoot run bys.  That's his photo on the left.  This was a good thing, as there was no way we could easily get to these locations.  We are in the Ozark hills, and roads are few and the hiking arduous.  There is a tunnel, several high trestles, and ample trees and rivers to watch as the train runs along on ribbon rail.  We stopped in Van Buren to get some additional interviews, and ended up also shooting a gun fight between the good guys and the bad guys - all staged for the tourists, of course.  Then the crew hopped into the cab to cross the Arkansas River, which is a 2,000 + foot long span with a center lift portion.  At the end of the line we stopped at the Ft. Smith Trolley Museum, where rides were provided for the passengers.  And by that time, we were finished.  There was nothing to do but pack up, say our good byes to the lovely people here at the A&M and head north for southern Missouri.  Tomorrow we should be home, right on schedule.