Retired

Signed the Papers Yesterday

Retired. Yesterday, effective today. Officially. Signed the papers. Cut the ties, moving on.

A formality, really. I haven’t worked in two years (March 13, ‘24).

Sounds simple, but really, the last two years have been hell.

It was March 13, 2024 when I ran my last train. In fact, haven’t even been on a train since. I was still having some PTSD side effects from my July, 2023 fatal incident. But that was more in the background waiting to come out. But there were some events leading up to that day that just put me into full mental breakdown and free-fall. Thank heavens for therapists.

The rail industry has changed, and not in a good way. From the day I started, top issue was safety. Safety this, safety that, Operation Lifesaver. At some point, that became nothing but lip service. Railroad executives were just that, corporate blowhards. Never worked a day in the field. Never had an operational position.

The “leaders” were nothing but corporate CEOs. Corporate hacks. All about the almighty buck, kissing the collective asses of stockholders. Hurry up and get loads across the railroads fast, no matter what. Oh, and what is one thing a CEO does best? Cut labor ! The cry for single man crews. Oh yeah, that’s real safe. Ever sit at a rail crossing these days. Trains are 2 miles, 200 cars long. Longer trains mean operating fewer of them with less bodies needed to operate them. No concept of what longer train entail, what kind of potential risks are involved.

PTC, or Positive Train Control is another joke. This is nothing but political theatre. The politicians cry for it. Its cost doesn’t justify its use. And it is not an infallible fix. It has its issues. First and foremost, it’s GPS functional. We all know how really reliable GPS really is. We know it will direct you into a lake or waterway to get you to a destination in a map app. There are and always been systems tied in to track and wayside signals that were more reliable. But no, the politicians had this idea that because a number of trains were sloppily operated and some serious collisions or derailments occurred. The battle cry was…”if it had PTC, that never would have happened. So it became mandated. All passenger and freight were required to have it installed and operational. But, remember this?

East Palestine, Ohio February, 2023

Funny (not really), when this happened, you never heard anyone barking, “if it only had PTC…”. It did. It happened.

And, instead of “preventing collisions”, potential collisions too a back seat to speed, work zones and crossing malfunctions.

Oh, don’t get me wrong the theory is good. But it’s not an ultimate fix. Especially when dealing stubborn people who refuse to listen.

So much for background and back to my story. So whether it was political pressure, FRA pressure, or some justification from someplace else, PTC became what many felt was its ultimate goal was, nothing more than a disciplinary force. Get too close to one of those “zones”, traffic, work area, crossing malfunction and ZAP PSSSSSSSSHHHHHH, penalty application. Whether or not you had the train under control, it didn’t matter. You were in the soup ! Get too many and you find yourself with an unpaid vacation. Each event required paperwork explaining the reason why. Did anybody actually read the reports ? I kind of doubt it.

Now, this tied in to an example of management not knowing the first thing of what they were managing or overseeing.

Example-

There was a work zone on a section of track in the vicinity of Grayslake, Il. A road crossing was being moved a 1/2 mile south of where it was. This was also about a 1/4 mile north of a CP rail crossing which Metra service operated. Long and short of it, the work area was set up so that it went through that crossing. The actual working zone was, what an 1/8 of a mile ? It was set up for about maybe 3/4 mile, a somewhat normal zone. In addition to physical paperwork and PTC inputs, and following FRA procedures, warning flags were set up 2 miles prior to encountering the start of the zone. To pass through a work zone, you are required to get permission of the Person In Charge. After getting to the yard after a morning run, an engineer seeing the flag on our railroad, and passing through on his, asked me if there was a work zone through the crossing, as there was nothing in their orders stating so. So, I brought it up to one of our Trainmasters the next morning.

This Trainmaster contacted our Safety Department, who contacted the Safety Department of the Canadian National (CN). This flowed into the their management not knowing the rules, FEDERAL SAFETY RULES on work zones. It also fell into the directive of no delays. Delays cost $$$. Trains must move at all cost, not stop or slow. How dare someone question the set up. But it was how things have become. I was told by our Trainmaster that the response from CN management was, “well, we’re not allowed to work in an interlocking (or in this case, the crossing of two railroads), so it’s no big deal, it doesn’t make a difference…”. I asked the Trainmaster if he heard what he was saying. He looked at me with a raised brow, shrugged his shoulders, and shaking his head said, “uh yeah”. He definitely understood what I was saying. To make matters worse, when I went out that morning that actual 1/8 mile work zone became 2 miles long. It still passed through the rail crossing, but the work zone flags were moved far away from the crossing, so nobody on the CP side would ever see them to mention them. I brought this up the next morning too.

Now, what this incident created, at least in my mind, was a bulls-eye on my back. Not with our people, but with the management of the CN. They began using the PTC as a means of punishment on me. Illegitimate PTC enforcements which were documented and reported became a means of threatened punishment. Problem was, nobody ever told me about it. Everything was done behind my back with an occasional wise-ass remark from one of the Trainmasters, starting with the comment, “oh, so you’re on the CN hit list, you’re #1 in enforcements”. Surprise to me. The next day, our union rep started what became his regular “anybody talk to you yet?” instead of good morning. I really had no clue what he was talking about, at least at first. A week or two later, I found myself being watched by a member of the senior PTC staff on a check ride. He didn’t tell me, nor did anyone else tell me, why suddenly I had a PTC officer riding along. Following this, the union rep greeted me at the yard with, “anyone talk to you yet?”

About this time, a newspaper article detailed how suburban mayors were complaining, and complaining loudly, of the length of CP trains and the time a number of crossings were being blocked. CP management responded with an obvious misinformation of “what’s the big deal. Our trains are no longer than 4600 feet”. That morning, I passed a stopped train that went through 3 towns, was sitting in 3 stations (nearly a 4th), and blocking 7 crossings (almost an 8th). That is a minimum of 2 miles (uh, 11,200 feet).

This in addition to being routed on tracks other than our normal, so freight could pass on a center track without waiting for us to cross over. No longer were station platforms and passenger loading a concern, it was secondary. It was definitely a safety issue. People would go back and forth from platform to platform trying to figure out where they were suppose to be. This while freight trains would be barreling down towards them. One member of the crew said it sounded like the game Frogger. When I saw the signal putting us on that track, I’d get on the radio and tell the crew we were going “The Frogger Route” so they knew which side to be on and open the doors at River Grove. To his credit, Karl, our conductor knew it bothered me. He asked me why I was going slow, well under the speed limit. I told him. Karl would come to the front car watching until we cleared the nonsense. He did comment that “this is nuts”. Safety? Hardly.

We had some newer engineers come to the district. The, no 2 trains entering the station rule, now ignored by freight, was now being ignored by newbies in our group. Not only would you be stopped and have traffic going through, but now there were people racing you to get their first. No way you’d be able to stop, safely, before you got to the platform they were now occupying. Get to the train room at the yard and it became, you (ie. Me) don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If there was one thing I was good at was knowing the rules. Safe operation was not only being disregarded, but you would be told you were in the wrong.

I started thinking to myself, I’m not going to be responsible for getting someone hurt because of this garbage.

I was snapping. I was having trouble focusing, or at least staying focused. My mind was so polluted with so much garbage going through it, I felt like I was seriously a risk. Add to that all the sleepless nights thinking about it. To myself, to the 300-600 people I transported, to my crew. The ability to assess, to anticipate, to simply operate was becoming impossible.

I made the decision to step away, to regroup. I moved 3 weeks of my vacation up to get away, to try and get the mojo back. It is said when you lose confidence in your abilities, you’re cooked. My confidence was at its lowest, for a lot of reasons.

After the time away, I gave it a shot again. The maintained focus was still lacking, anticipating was minimal. The third day back, I got the “anybody talk to you yet” good morning. All this time, this appeared to be discussed everywhere, every meeting, multiple departments. The union guy knew it, still nobody had the courtesy, the guts, the common sense to sit me down and say something, anything. But no. Crickets.

On that final trip home, March 13, 2024, I wound up with a double header (2 engines), something I hated dealing with. I didn’t need extra power for a stinking 5 car train. But the mechanical people knew that. They had it for me after I wrote up a series of engines on safety grounds, which nothing was ever done, until… Until someone else had a problem with one of them (there were 3, one specific). Two days later, these engines ran no more. They were parked in the Antioch yard, never to be run again. Every day I saw those 3 engines there, I felt vindicated. So, I start that final trip out. The first 1/4 of the trip was quiet and uneventful. But I still had this target on my back, the nobody talking, except behind my back. As I approached the Deval interlocking, which cross the UP tracks, there was a red signal. I started my stop at about my normal place. But, for some reason, the PTC put me into penalty. Even though I had the train totally under control, because of that second engine and its weight, the PTC had me going too fast. I was going so fast, the the stop was practically immediate. Trains don’t stop immediately. I was 1/4 mile short of the signal.

The rest of that trip, the 40+ miles of it. The 15 stops. I was in the same PTSD kind of fog I felt when I had the people get hit. I ran that trip on muscle memory. I don’t remember squat over that last 40 miles.

When I got to the yard, I couldn’t get off the train fast enough to call off for the next day. As far as I was concerned, I was done right then. Inside the train room, the conductor, who was always upbeat, positive, jocular, and high spirited, told me, giggling, of an incident downtown with a couple managers. I looked him in the eye and said, “Chris, I don’t know how the hell I got you here in one piece. I don’t remember a damn thing after Deval”. That mood of that happy go lucky guy instantly changed. The happy, giggly face became very somber. He got it. Nothing else needed to be said.

The reason this “retirement” thing is now, is simply because I went medical. The problem is that my situation is mental. And for all the nonsense you hear about, “we have a mental health crisis”, just know it’s all hot air. It’s 2 years now, and there are those who don’t want to recognize a disability because it’s mental not physical. I’ve talked to many people who felt I made the right decision. When I went to the Railroad Retirement Board, I applied for disability. The rep I spoke to said it’ll be at least a year, but “saw no reason why this wouldn’t be approved”. I felt, no, I knew, this would be a problem. I dealt with it at Metra. Nobody wants to admit something that can’t be physically seen has a problem.

I had a friend who referred me to an attorney who dealt with railroad retirement issues. He had worked for RRB at one time. I made contact with him. If nothing else, he could get things expedited. I had a friend who went out about two months after I did. Honestly, he’s a physical mess. Has the paperwork to prove it. He got his letter after 6 months. I thought maybe I would too. Mental vs physical. Wasn’t going to happen. The attorney did his thing, through his contact, things did get expedited. For whatever reason, they did not want to recognize the credentials of the therapist I’ve been seeing since 2021. They requested records from my MD at the time. All he really did was issue prescriptions based on what the therapists said.

The decision was made to deny the claim. Who knows why. Nobody understands it. Doctors, therapists, industry people. Made no sense. The decision was made without RRB sending me to a doctor of their own. In fact, as part of their decision, they made reference to the therapist with the designation they didn’t want to acknowledge. Just flippantly (the tone of their letter) said, you can go to work, there is no reason why you can’t operate an engine. Shattered. What the disability designation means in the end, is, you get you a full retirement benefit vs an adjusted amount. Since I retired “early”, about 24 months short of the industry “minimum” of 30 years and age 60, I was getting an adjusted amount. I was 63 then. 28 years of service. The adjustment is worth about $1000 per month in benefits. That is why I’ve often didn’t use the term “retired” as I was told, with RRB, it was either, or, but not both. Retired or disabled. There is a review, or reconsider process and appeal. Through my attorney we are in the review phase. The fact the Democrats shut the government down had a direct impact to me, as being a federal organization, did not process reviews or appeals through that time. So, we’re coming up on a year since the request for documents and are still waiting from RRB on that request. Who knows at this point if, how or when, what the outcome will be. It’s a reason I held back in writing this little ditty. At least including RRB side of it, as things are still open and ongoing. But, I need the release. The whole process has been bugging me again lately. I do have the annuity and insurance (Medicare).

Part of the reason to stay medical the past two years was to maintain insurance benefits. My wife’s spouse policy expired at the end of December. It’s set up through the union that upon leaving, the spouse is covered for a year , the holder is covered for two. I have my Medicare, I don’t need to hold on. I’m worn out on the paperwork and nonsense to keep the MLOA continuing. I made the decision to cut the ties. I made contact with our chief clerk and she was able to get forms out to one of the outlying terminals for signing so I didn’t need to go the hell hole known as downtown Chicago. They’re dated today. March 6, 2026. 26 years to the day I started with Metra. It’s symbolic and sentimental to me, doing it today.

It’s been a ride. A bumpy one more often than not. After 2 years away, I’m not really missing it. I was missing it while I was still there. The place, the so-called leadership, the lost camaraderie has changed so much, especially since the “c”-scam of 2020. DEI didn’t help too much. There were always those who got their gigs their through political connections. Most were competent and worked to justify their existence and be accountable to their contact. The DEI people are generally not competent and have no accountability to anyone, and they show it. The focus on safety, passenger comfort, the service standard is a forgotten thing.

I’ve always had a love for public transit, more-so buses over trains, and still do. It was about moving people. I will say I was fortunate to be able to work in an industry where, at one time at least, there were so many wise, knowledgeable, dedicated people who never hesitated to challenge, motivate and help make you a good railroad worker. I worked a lot of positions. I hoped for a few more over the years, but the deck was always stacked. There were some high times, and a lot of lows. But through it all, I made a lot of friends, good friends. Many are now gone, literally 😇😇😇, but all are to be remembered and appreciated. To them, I say simply, thank you. It was a ride.