Engineers learn to operate trains with 8-12 cars and a caboose. There are hills, curves, and road crossings. In the old days, the fireman would stoke the coal fires that operated the steam engines with coal. Today's firemen, now simply called assistant engineers, operate the train when the engineer needs a break and help their engineer with his duties, learning from their mentor's experience. In 1989, Eddie moved from freight service to passenger service with Amtrak and says that he enjoys it more.
Passenger trains get priority.
They sit around less. In fact, he says for every one freight train that holds up a VRE train, passengers don't see the 6 or 7 others that are stopped so we can proceed. In 1992 when VRE began service, Eddie joined our ranks as one of the first VRE engineers. He has been in VRE service on and off, mostly on, since then. He prefers VRE because its nice to have holidays and weekends off.