STAYING SAFE IN RAILROADING’S MOST EXTREME CONDITIONS
A snow wall is formed to protect the track from drifts.
ALCOCK TO CELEBRATE 25 YEARS WITH HCRY On July 29, Huron Central Railway (HCRY) Trainmaster Thomas Alcock will mark his 25th year with the short line railroad. “It doesn’t feel like 25 years; I started at the railway when I was 16, and I don’t know what life would be without it,” he says. Alcock’s railroad career began in 1979 as a shop laborer with Canadian Pacific Railway in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. In 1980, he transferred to the Transportation Department. Afterward, in 1986, he went to work at the North Bay station for six months as a yard foreman. From 1988 to 1990, he trained and worked as a locomotive engineer based in Mactier, Ontario. In 1997, he joined HCRY. He accepted his current role as trainmaster in 2014. Alcock notes that some of his career highlights include qualifying as a locomotive engineer in 1989 and as a trainmaster in 2014. 26 AroundG&W
“Just being able to be in this business going on 43 years in June also is an achievement,” he says. “My whole life has been railroading.” He hails from a family of railroaders. His grandfather, Mert Alcock, retired from Canadian Pacific in the early 1970s. His father, Mert Alcock Jr., retired from the railroad twice — first in 1997 with Canadian Pacific and then from HCRY in 2010. His brother, HCRY Locomotive Engineer Bob Alcock started railroading in 1982 with Canadian Pacific, and he then transferred to HCRY in 1997. “This railroad offers a good quality of life in terms of scheduling and being able to be home at night,” says Alcock. Aside from work, he remains dedicated to his family. He and his wife, Kellie, will celebrate their 32-year wedding anniversary in June. He has two sons — ages 27 and 24 — and a 19-year-old daughter. His busy lifestyle doesn’t leave him with much free time. However, one of his past hobbies that he did for 15 years starting in 1995 was training racehorses and competing throughout Ontario. The lifelong railroader has thought about retirement but says that he’s in no rush to set a date.
Knob Lake & Timmins Railway (KLT) employees do their jobs on a remote tundra. Their colleagues on nearby Western Labrador Rail Services (WLRS) also work in challenging conditions. Both railroads facilitate the region’s iron ore mining trade and have stellar safety performances since being acquired by G&W. Assistant Vice President of Safety and Compliance Denys Del Cardo is among the leadership team that supports both railroads from Wabush, Labrador, which also is where WLRS is based. “We go on site on a regular basis to provide support,” he says. “The employees understand they have to step up when it comes to safety and stay aware.” Del Cardo notes that heavy-duty PPE is a must in both Wabush and Schefferville, Quebec, where KLT operations are centered. Employees can be called upon to walk a train amid a snowstorm or other severe weather; specialized equipment is necessary. Train crews haul as much as 8 million tons of iron ore annually. After expansion projects, train volumes are set to double, and 15 million tons will be hauled. Given the tonnage and weather conditions, Engineering employees have plenty of repair and maintenance work to do at both locations. Extreme cold is a consideration for both railroads, but few railroaders in the world work in conditions as challenging as KLT’s. There are no access roads to worksites; trains move employees. Clearing snow in temperatures of -40°C below zero is common during winter, which starts in September and doesn’t begin to release its grip until June. Summer snowstorms aren’t abnormal. Track can become blocked with as much as 50 feet of snow and, as in this past January, it can take weeks to dig out using excavators because conventional snowmoving equipment won’t suffice. At least 2 miles of track is adjacent to “rough cut.” In this case, it’s mountainside with strong winds whipping across. To protect track from drifts, a massive wall of snow is built to keep 164-car trains moving. To operate in these locations where whiteout conditions exist, the railroads adhere to strong safety protocols and partner with the mines they serve and first responders to plan for emergencies.
