First Week

Hello friends! I have now lived on a train for one week, and am pretty sure I have the best job in the world.

I flew from Toronto to Saint-John’s, NB on Monday morning, which was supposed to be Toronto-Montreal, then Montreal-Saint John’s, but when checking in was told my flight was cancelled (panic attack!!), and instead I had been rebooked for a direct flight (whew!). I was greeted by the other co-op student, Anthony, who is from a university in Montreal studying industrial design engineering. We then waited for someone to pick us up, got driven to a random train crossing, where we waited even more for the train to show up. Apparently it’s pretty common to wait, and a popular saying here is ‘hurry up and wait’, as things happen that cause delays all the time. But eventually the train came, we threw our stuff on board, and we headed out!

The train consists of 4 cars – there’s the engine car that pulls us, a generator car that has the generators to power everything, and also has a bit of extra storage space. There’s the living car that has 4 small rooms, 

a well-stocked kitchen, a table, couch and TV,

and there’s the testing car, full of computers and monitors and equipment, and also a table at the end where the track superintendents sit.

And that’s about it. It’s pretty cozy, but not all that restrictive.

There’s me, the other co-op student (Anthony), and 2 supervisors, George and Don, living on the train. The supervisors are on shift, usually 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, so next week George will leave and we’ll get a new one.  There’s the engineer and conductor, but they are in the engine car most of the time, and we only see them at the beginning of the day for the briefing and at border crossings. And there’s the track superintendants, the people who maintain the current stretch of track we are on. They sit at the back of the train to watch the data and oversee what we’re doing, as it’s their track we’re testing.

So that’s the setup. I’ll explain the daily routine and meals and stuff in another blog post so people don’t have to read a novel all at once, especially as I tend to raimble on. (get it? ramble? raimbault? haha…) (not my joke – credit to christina shum).

We started in Saint-John’s, NB, then headed east through Maine (crossing back into Canada at 2:30am) until Sherbrook. We then headed south into Vermont, I think as far as Lancaster, turned around and headed back to Sherbrook, and are currently stopped in Montreal for the weekend. Our start times have ranged from 6:00 to 9:00am, and sometimes we’ve travelled through the night to get to the next starting place

So what have I been doing this past week? Well, not much. We’ve been running light (not testing the tracks) and doing contract work (not testing everything) until thursday, so the machine that the co-op students run hasn’t needed to be used except for friday. We turned it on a couple times to test it out and familiarize ourselves with it, done some reading about railways in general and the maintenance required, safety, learned what the other testing equipment does, learned our other duties and what happens on weekends. But my favorite thing to do is there’s a spot inbetween the living car and the testing car where there’s just a waist-high door, and you can lean outside the train and watch the scenery go by.

 I’ve spent hours there, and it’s been some pretty incredible scenery at times. Mostly it’s just trees a couple meters away (sometimes just a couple centimeters), but sometimes it opens up and there's a small pond surrounded by trees, a marshy clearing, a calm river with sandbars, a rushing river tumbling over rocks, a small waterfall or dam, a larger lake with a backdrop of hills, some old houses, a small town with a train station. But whatever piece of scenery you are looking at is gone in an instant, as the train rushes on. The worst is a small river with a rocky bed just begging to be explored, begging to be travelled, to see what’s beyond the bend, what treasures and surprises it holds. But the train passes by, pressed by requirements to test and deadlines, and instead you only have a short time to appreciate the beauty. These picturesque snippets pass by in 1 or 2 seconds, not even enough time to get out a camera, so they often pass undocumented, barely even enough time to fully take in the beauty of it. I’m often caught breathless as it passes by, and a longing after it has passed, wondering what could have been had I had a day, or even an hour to stay at that spot and see what there was to see. But these short moments leave an impression, and after experiencing this successive awe and longing multiple times in a day I’m left with a strange sort of feeling that is difficult to explain. A vast appreciation of God’s beauty in creation, a thankfulness that I’ve been allowed to catch glimpses of what that stretch holds, a longing to return and explore it fully to do justice to the beauty that is there, but at the same time a contentment to leave it as is, that as a noisy intruder I was presented with a snippet, a representation of that stretch, but that the true treasures of that area are withheld for the deer, the birds, the fish, and the people with the determination to access the remoteness of that area. So I travel on, humbled by the opportunity to witness a sampling of the beauty of that area, and excited to see what else awaits me.

So that’s a shortish explanation of what’s it been like so far. I’m getting to know the people here, and talking with the superintendants and conductors who stay in the back (I even got to blow the horn J ), and learning lots about railways and how they operate.

I’m debating how to share the pictures I have taken. As mentioned above, most of the true beauty passes in a couple seconds, and I rarely get to take a picture of them. And the pictures I do take are taken quickly on a train moving 25mph, so they sometimes aren’t of the best quality. I’ll probably upload to facebook. If you are reading this and are not my friend on fb, just add me and let me know you want to look at the pictures (I usually don’t accept random strangers), or send me an email and I can email some to you.

Let me know if you have any questions about trains or suggestions or anything in particular you want to know. We have an internet stick on the train that provides semi-reliable internet, but it doesn’t work while the train is moving, so I might not answer for a couple days.

And now, off to explore Montreal! bye for now!

Pre-job Intro

Hello friends! (and anyone else who may stumble upon this blog). I’m Jeremie Raimbault, and after being told by a lot of people to write a blog about my upcoming term, I’ve decided to give it a shot.

Why am I starting a blog? Well, for those who don’t know, I am in Civil Engineering at the University of Waterloo. All engineering at waterloo is a co-op program, which means I do 4 months of school, then 4 months of work placement, then 4 of school, and so on until I graduate. I have just finished my 4A school term, which means this upcoming work term from September to December is my last one.

My job is with Canadian Pacific Railway, working on their Track Evaluation Car traveling all over North America testing the tracks. From what I remember from the interview 3 months ago, testing the track is very important for the railroad to ensure it’s all up to par and can carry the trains without derailing them. As derailments are very expensive, CPR puts a lot of money towards track evaluation, maintenance and repair. The evaluation train consists of three cars – an engine, a living quarters car, and the testing car. The testing car is loaded with instruments to measure all sorts of data about the track – location, distance between the rails, horizontal and vertical stiffness, quality of the connectors, etc. This data is all collected real-time as the train is travelling at regular speed. The operators of the evaluation car look at the data, and if it falls outside of allowable limits they flag that area for a repair crew to come in and fix up the track.

My job will be watching the data streaming in and not only notice when the data falls outside acceptable limits, but determine if it’s a glitch, a calibration issue, or if the track actually is unacceptable. This can involve stopping the car and performing manual tests on the track. One of the things being tested is the horizontal stiffness of the track, and to do that they measure the position of the rails, then apply a horizontal force using a bar lowered from the testing car and measure the position again. If there is a switch in the track, this bar can jump the switch, potentially derailing the testing car. So another of my jobs is to watch for switches coming, and if I see one I press a button that raises the applied force, and press another button to lower it back down after the switch has passed. The car also takes pictures of the rail connectors, and crack detection software flags any cracks it sees. The crack could be a blade of grass or a spiders web, so another of my jobs is to look at all the flagged cracks and say if they actually are cracks or not.

Again, this is what I remember from the interview 3 months ago. We’ll see what it’s actually like. But it doesn’t sound like the work itself will be all that riveting. But what will make up for it is the traveling – aside from the view from my office window, every weekend I will be in a random city in North America with a rental car, hotel room, and meal allowance all paid for. The regular crew flies home during the weekend, so I will be left in charge of the train. I will still have duties – cleaning the train, buying groceries, performing any basic maintenance, and being available to unlock the train in case an electrician/mechanic needs to perform more advanced repair. But aside from that I am free to explore whatever city I am in, and see what there is to see.

What I am planning to do with this blog is post what adventures I have had while exploring whatever city I am in, as well as post a couple pictures. I haven’t decided how many to post, or if this is the right place to post lots. I will try and update it once a week, but as there will not be reliable internet while on the train it might be a week behind.

As a reward for reading this, I’m going to allow everyone who wants to guess 2 cities anywhere in North America, and whichever city I get to first for a weekend I will send you a postcard. Here’s the official map of the CP network: (http://www.cpr.ca/en/our-network-and-facilities/Pages/Default.aspx). However, the track evaluation car does test other tracks, so there is a chance I will be in other cities. For example, my start position is likely Saint-Johns, New Brunswick, so if you want you can take a risk and choose somewhere outside the official network. I legitimately have no idea where I will be, so your guess is as good as mine. I will only send one postcard per person though – I’m allowing 2 choices because I won’t be visiting every single city, and I don’t want to make it too unlikely that someone won’t get a postcard. It’s still a lottery though – no guarantees! So you can comment on this blog (hopefully – this is my first shot at blogs), or email me (jeremie.raimbault@gmail.com) or facebook. Don’t forget to give me your address as well!

I start on the 27^th of August, likely in Saint-John, New Brunswick. Travel details are still being worked out, but I will have a flight paid for me. I will likely post again after my first week.

As this is my first time blog writing, I appreciate all feedback! If you want to hear more or I’m rambling too much, if you want more or less pictures, etc. I’m doing this for you guys, so let me know what you want!

Anyways, enough rambling. Bye for now!