Name: Curtis Dancy
Background: Dancy was born in Shuqualak, Miss., and raised in East St. Louis, Ill., where he became a switchman in 1969 for what is currently the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad. In 1974 he transferred to engine service and functioned as a fireman until 1975. A year later he was promoted to engineer and worked out of Memphis, Tenn. for 11 years. In 1987 he joined Amtrak and is an engineer on the Chicago to St. Louis run. The North Side resident is married with has two grown children and one grandson.
Years on the job: 20
I am the grandson, son, nephew and younger cousin of railroad men. My grandfather worked on the Gulf Mobile & Ohio for 40 years, and my father worked on the Illinois Central for 32 years. From the ’20s through the ’50s, someone without a relative on the line was unlikely to get job there.
Family members could no longer work in the same division when I started out. My older brother and I, for example, began as switchmen in a freight yard. We were part of a five-man team that separates an amassed number of cars into cuts of 15 to 20, according to destination, and switches them to appropriate tracks. They become the trains hauling freight to a city on one track, an industry on another a railroad on a third.
From the freight yards my brother moved in the direction of management and is now superintendent for Gateway Western out of East St. Louis. I didn’t want to look out the same office window at the same view everyday and went into engine service.
My workplace, a locomotive cab, isn’t as comfortable as his office. When a train is running 79 miles an hour and a wintry wind is blowing 20 miles an hour, the wind chill inside a cab feels like zero. The opposite happens in summer. A 100-degree day feels like 140 degrees inside a cab without air conditioning.
My clothes never feel clean because I’m always working around oil and grease. Dirt comes flying through open windows at any speed and manages to get through loose window frames and doors.
The company doesn’t provide uniforms, only coveralls to protect our own clothing. I wear them on those zero-degree days to keep warm.
None of these physical discomforts detract from the landscapes I can see from a locomotive cab. They change with the seasons, the weather and new construction. But looking out a window is no idle pastime for me or my assistant engineer who shares the cab. Watching where we’re going is a good part of our job.
Someone unfamiliar with railroads might imagine a steering wheel inside the cab. There isn’t any. The train runs on rails. Or they envision someone stoking a firebox to raise steam to start the engine. The fire, so to speak, went out when diesel trains came in, and yesterday’s fireman is today’s assistant engineer.
A cab is basically equipped with a throttle, an accelerator, a reverser, automatic brakes for general use and an independent brake for the engine. They allow me to regulate speeds, make stops and starts and fulfill my major responsibility: getting passengers to their destination safely and, hopefully, on time.
Every move I make from point A to point B is governed by specific rules.
Various wayside signals prepare me for track conditions ahead. One warns me to be on the lookout for another train or a broken rail or a switch improperly lined up. Another tells me when to: slow down but keep going; stop before I proceed; or stop and stay stopped.
Still others let me know how far apart I’m traveling from the train ahead. The distance between two trains on the same track has to be three blocks before I can run at 79 miles an hour, the speed limit set by government regulations.
A perfect run, every railroad engineer’s dream, is a clear signal from start to finish. When I’m able to maintain normal speed, the train gets in on time. When it’s slow or late, some concern for passenger safety caused the delay.
A railroad engineer’s work is far from boring. We blow whistles at railroad crossings for the same reason we blow car horns. It’s our warning, not our entertainment. Train whistles forewarn motorists, pedestrians, animals and the people working around the track that a train is coming through.
A train is hard to stop short at 79 miles an hour. If a car is on the track, I brake at once. I’d better. An animal is a different story. If I stopped for every stray cow and lost deer, my passengers would never get to their destination.
I’ve narrowly missed some creatures, and I’ve hit some. If a cow owner ever complained, I never heard about it. Besides, animal owners need to be more responsible, just as motorists and pedestrians should stop at closed crossing gates and heed red flashing lights. Railroads install them as a protection, not as a challenge.
I was involved in one fatality in my 25-year railroad career. A lady in Effingham, Ill., drove her car around closed gates on a sunny Easter day. Witnesses said she never stopped, just went around the gates. I was unable to brake in time and we hit. I felt terrible. It’s not something anyone wants ever to experience.
The dispatcher called an ambulance service, police and coroner as soon as he was notified. Then railroad officials asked me: “Did you blow the whistle? Was your headlight on? Was your bell ringing? How fast were you going?” I got a little peace of mind knowing I did all I could to prevent the accident.
People aboard the train put themselves, and others, in danger too. One night a woman from Auburn, Ill., pulled the emergency cord, opened the door when the train automatically stopped and got off. The Auburn station was farther away than she cared to walk, and she didn’t want to call someone to pick her up.
So much could have gone wrong. A sudden stop can derail a train and jolt other passengers. The woman herself might have stepped into a hole, and another train could have been coming the other way. To top it, anyone who pulls an emergency cord on a whim breaks the law. That woman could have gone to jail.
I work six days a week, 12 hours a day, and have the kind of schedule that’s hell on a personal life. Once I leave Chicago for the St. Louis run, I’m gone 24 hours. I return the next day to do the run all over again. The only hours I can plan for are the 24 between the morning I’m off the job and the time I go back.
Amtrak puts me up at a motel at its expense, and I pay for my own food. It also reimburses me $5 for every 12 hours I’m away from my home location. An hourly service law doesn’t allow railroad employees to work longer than half a day at one time.
I consider myself lucky to be able to carry on a family tradition. It may be a long time before my son, 21, can continue it. Most railroads have downsized even the freight crews from five men to two, and jobs just aren’t there. I guess I’m even luckier in the sense of having this kind of job at all nowadays.
