Devon Parsons.com

Day Three

Today was Mechanical Department day, much like yesterday was Engineering Department day. (The engineering dept. is responsible for all the track maintance, signals, gates, etc, etc.) I arrived at FEC's Bowden Yard, the mainstay of the operatons. Bowden is on the east side of Jacksonville, not far from the RailAmerica building. Bowden is essentially the northern terminus for the FEC trains, and there is a very active interchange on the other side of the St. John's river with Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, two very big "Class I" railroads.

In the morning, around 7AM, I met with Mr. Leo Helms, the manager of FEC's intermodal services. Intermodal is the type of container freight. It's like the LEGOs of transportation, it can be put on ships, placed on a train, then put onto a trailer chassis and delivered to the customer. There's no need to repackage it or use different methods, etc. It's just containerization. FEC is able to load intermodal freight and piggyback (the term used to describe putting regular truck trailers on railroad flatcars) trailers on the ramp. This is where I spend my morning, meeting various ramp supervisors and observing the operation of how the drivers bring in the loaded freight, and the crane places it on the waiting railcars. It's mesmerizing to watch. Mr. Helms drove around the large ramp once or twice so I could take it all in. I was very impressed by the size, and it was hard to keep in perspective that this is actually a small ramp operation compared to the bigger railroads and other terminals. FEC's Miami ramp is also bigger than the Jacksonville operation.

There's a lot of details in ramp operation, and it's a very neat process to watch and learn about. I also saw the car repair shop. It's basically a souped up auto mechanic garage. Very, very souped up. I learned about the various equipment and billing processes, and how the railcars are tagged for repair from beginning to end.

The second half of the day consisted of driving down 95 with Mr. Helms to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where FEC has its locomotive shop. This is where locomotives are inspected, taken apart, fixed, painted, you name it. The guys here can do it. Mr. Helms was just as interested as I was, as I realized that when I met some of these people that they were the right hand and they didn't see what the left hand was doing. And they were just as interested as I was. It's a massive operation. And this is a medium sized railroad by industry standards.

We spent about an hour at the FEC locomotive shop before heading back to Jacksonville and ending our day. The mechanical department starts early and tends to end early in regards to their workday. Fine by me, time for dinner and a little bit of Jacksonville Beach at dusk!