Asleep in the tower — why am I not shocked?

This week, a supervising air traffic controller, working alone, entered into a deep sleep shortly after midnight at Washington’s Reagan National Airport and could not be roused by radio shouts and telephone calls while jetliners landed without his supervision. This event became the lead story in the Washington Post. Railroaders everywhere must have smiled. It’s an occupational hazard most of them have at least witnessed if not participated in.
 
One recently retired engineer complained to me for years of the shiftless conductors who worked with him. Called out at night, on a territory with a heavy grades that causes coal trains to grind for hours at low speed, his skippers would be snoring before trains got to the yard limit, and if they could help it, remained comatose until the time came to go off duty. I suspect my friend was jealous; alerters in locomotive cabs didn’t give him that luxury.

“Bredenberg bit his nails in the hump tower early one morning as the Streaks neared Pine Bluff. The first hump engine sent 20 cars destined for the BSM fleet through the retarders and pulled back to let the second and third engines hump their priority cars. ‘Then,’ says Bredenberg, ‘the humpmaster told the first engine to resume. Nothing happened. I got this sick feeling. I mean, we had no time to spare. Finally I ran to my car, whipped around to the yard engine, and climbed in.’ The engineer was asleep. Bredenberg awakened him. The hoghead straightened up — and went back to sleep. ‘I poked him again. He got up, walked to the fireman’s side, said, “Why don’t you take over for awhile?” and conked out again.’ Now Bredenberg was in a pickle. To play by the rules meant calling other officers to witness the sleeping engineer, sending him to a hospital to confirm he was derelict rather than ill, and ordering a new engineer to work — all prelude to disciplinary action. Playing by the rules also meant delays to the BSMs. Or Bredenberg could do what the exhausted engineer suggested. He made his decision in an instant. ‘I sat down, whistled for the hump signal, humped all the cars, went into the bowl to couple the tracks, brought the engine to the tieup track, and got off. That’s when his switchmen learned that their terminal superintendent had run the locomotive. I told them, “You guys have 10 minutes to get him awake and straightened up.”’ And what happened to the engineer? Nothing. ‘He still works for us,’ says Bredenberg.”

And this just in from Bill Neill, now retired and living in the Republic of Conroe, Texas. Bill fired, pounded brass, and dispatched trains for more railroads than I have fingers: “When I was young and chipper between ages 23 and 24 and a fireman on the Great Northern out of Seattle, working 16 consecutive hours on the helpers out of Skykomish, a zombie mindset came rather quickly by the tenth hour of the first day on an assignment and by the fourth day, I was living in the Twilight Zone. The ancient mariners that I worked with varied in their reactions to exhaustion, but I can tell you that when I was running, I was wide awake more out of fear than anything else. Coming down off the Cascades, I'd keep the cab window open and cold air blowing on me. I'd drink coffee now and then. As a dispatcher, I can't begin to tell you how mystifying it is to be wide awake one instant and asleep the next and for maybe 15 to 25 minutes. Waking up was terrifying for me because I knew what I'd done and became fear-struck that something awful had happened during my mental vacation. With all of that being stated, Fred, I wanna meet the railroad employee who never fell asleep while on duty during his or her 40 to 50 years in the business.”