Life on the Rails

[Iormlund]

I'm curious, does your supplier's name start with a 'T' and end with a 'c'?

[Savonarola]

I'm curious, does your supplier's name start with a 'T' and end with a 'c'?

That's the one.  Have you worked with them?

[Savonarola]

great reads, all of them. 

Thanks.   

[Iormlund]

I'm curious, does your supplier's name start with a 'T' and end with a 'c'?

That's the one.  Have you worked with them?

No, but it's a small city. It's on my way to work, as well.

[Admiral Yi]

Tempurpedic.

[Eddie Teach]

Technotronic?

[Savonarola]

I'm hesitant to write their name here and have it show up in Google; but if you Google "TETRA radio manufacturer Zaragoza Spain" you should find them

[Iormlund]

As I said, it's a small city. 

[The Brain]

Tetrapac?

[jimmy olsen]

You really should write a book Sav.

[Savonarola]

You really should write a book Sav.

Thanks, Tim, I think I'll go back to writing fiction once I'm done with this.   

[Savonarola]

Ports

Each one of the mining companies has their own part.  They're all lined up one after the other between Cienaga and Santa Marta.  The company where I spent the most time early in the project was CNR.

CNR was shut down by the government over a year before we started for failing to build a system which could load coal from the port itself directly onto ships.  In the past the ports all had loaded onto barges which then loaded the coal on the ships.  The other two ports had built a long system of conveyer belts into the ocean.  They lit these up at night, creating what looked like a strange, luminous city of octopus tentacles.

Even though there was no work at the CNR port, they still had a full staff.  The GE employees marveled at that, we would have laid everyone off and left the janitor to make sure no one stole our trains.  They had train crews with no trains to run and shop maintenance with only minimal maintenance to do.

This was an ideal place for us to build our prototypes.  We weren't ever in anyone's way, since they didn't have anything to do.  We could always get help when we needed it too.  They even gave us our own little air-conditioned office in the rail shop.  That last part proved crucial, because it's always miserably hot in that part of Colombia, and much hotter on the trains. 

As we were building prototypes we had a large contingency of on-board people there.  There was Max, the on-board lead; Mike who had been a project manager, when his project ended he was made an onboard engineer; and Flavio, a kid from Brazil who didn't look old enough to drive.  Max would get wound up over minor issues.  A dozen people would be stepping on a power cord; but then I did it and it's a five minute lecture on the importance of power safety.  It wasn't me personally, if he was in the wrong mood and you were there, you were the target.  Everyone coped with this pretty well; except our lead comms engineer, Gary; he and Max would engage in vicious shouting matches

The first one I witnessed was over a train.  The on-board people had taken our spot inside the loco shop.  The locomotive we wanted to work on was outside, baking in the Colombian sun.  Max offered us an extension cord and a ladder so that we could work on the train.  Life is good.  Gary refused citing safety issues and heat.  That escalated to the point that I thought it was going to come to blows.

Later on the on-board team was working on their loco as it came into full sun in the garage.  After about an hour of that we found all three of them sitting motionless in the office letting the air conditioning wash over them.  "Revenge," said Gary, "Is a dish best served cold," with glee.

Before I arrived the air conditioner in the office didn't work.  Gary dubbed the office the "CNR sweat lodge."  The AC was an incredible luxury, after working in the hot locos.  The unit could only be operated by remote control.  One day we arrived to find that someone had stolen the batteries out of the remote and there were no spares.  Fortunately the AC was on, but it was on full blast.  The office became an ice house, cold enough to store meat.

Max got his own revenge against Gary later.  Going into the ports requires going through security.  CNR's was pretty lax since there wasn't even coal to steal there.  One of the security guards, Gabriella took a special liking to Gary.  Whenever we were entering, if he wasn't there she'd ask us where he was, and when he was coming back.  One day, as Max was entering he gave Gabriella Gary's cell phone number.  That evening Gary got a text from Gabriella telling him that he had left his safety glasses there; she was very concerned about this, could they meet over coffee or juice to discuss this?  He got similar texts regularly for several months.

Our setup with an office at CNR was ideal; so much so that we had Sofia and Alejandra join us there at first; even though, at the time, they were doing no more than translating documents for us.  Rail is male dominated industry and they were the only women at the loco shop.  There was only one restroom, and the toilet had no seat.  Sofia and Alejandra would have to lock the door and hope for the best when nature called.

Max was Nicaraguan and Gary spoke passable Spanish from having lived in Panama for four years.  Even with the both of them as well as Sofia and Alejandra there it was difficult to get the Colombians to do what we wanted.  This all changed the moment Javier walked in.  Javier is our supplier's project manager.  He's a Spaniard, from the Extremadura, the land of the conquistadores.  That might explain why, when he told the Colombians what he wanted, they did it within minutes; they were afraid he would come back with an army if they refused.  Our trains were in the bins and a crew was there to assist us as we installed the antennas.  That was an enormous change from where we had been.

Javier always tried to dress the part of a manager, wearing a dress shirt and pants even in the loco shops.  Everyone else wore jeans and a work shirt.  Javier's look was odd with the hard hat and safety glasses we had to wear; and by the end of the day his nice clothes were soaked in sweat.

Jeff, our project drama queen, called CNR "Our slow country cousin."  For most of the project the port was a sleepy affair which seemed to have all the time in the world.  This changed at the end when they contracted with the port of Santa Marta to move their coal through there.  They ran their coal by train from the mine to their port and then loaded it onto trucks.  Then there was always a long line of enormous dump trucks at the entrance of the port.  One by one they left overflowing with coal.  Everywhere in the yard a thick, black dust was blown about by the wind.  The roads were black with coal, street sweepers ran back and forth, never seeming to allow pavement to be visible for more than a second.

Drummond was anything but slow.  Trains were constantly coming and going.  There wasn't the black wind from CNR, but the loco shop was filthy with black coal dust covering every surface.  Drummond ran twenty trains a day, more than twice as many as the other two companies combined.

Drummond occupies a large amount of land.  Throughout the area there were large chunks of coal set out like statues.  It was also an iguana reserve; trucks would slow down to let the iguanas pass.  The company's mascot was a tamed iguana who sat every day by the entrance.  Workers would pet the iguana for luck as they walked in.  If you were drinking water about it, it would open its mouth and tilt its head up in expectation of you dropping some for it.

The first time I was there I noticed that there was an "Alabama Crimson Tide" logo in the loco shop.  That struck me as the incongruous thing I had seen in Colombia.  It turns out that Drummond was an American company out of Alabama.  According to the shop supervisor Mr. Drummond had made his fortune as a pawnbroker and bought a coal mine in order to diversify.

Drummond was eager to get our product installed and get their locomotives in service.  We met with the Vice President of Operations, who gave us the talk about if we needed anything see him.  After he was finished Jeff said, "You speak English really well."

"I should," said Leroy, "I'm from Alabama."

It turns out that all of the executives were foreigners, either from Birmingham, Alabama or from Europe.  They had their own private compound in the Drummond port.  Jeff would invite himself to lunch there; they had their own private chef, ice cream that (unlike the rest of ice cream in Colombia) didn't taste like chalk and American television.  They always seemed to have it on Fox News, but it was still a relief to see a little bit of home.

Drummond was too large to have people walk about; instead they had a series of busses that shuttled people to the various facilities.  The busses were irregular and sometimes I'd be stuck at the entrance gate waiting half an hour for the bus to come.  In time we got our own driver that could go into the port.  Jeff tended to view the driver as his own personal property.  One time Gary was coming in with some equipment while Jeff was at the locomotive shop with his driver.  Gary asked Jeff to send the driver up, and Jeff refused; he might have needed the driver in the ten minutes it would have taken to pick Gary up.  The exchange got heated; with Jeff refusing to budge.  Both Gary and Jeff called Bill within minutes.  After listening to the both of them Bill sent out his dictate via text:

"Boys, share your toys."

Busses didn't run at all on Sundays.  Usually we got the shop supervisor to pick us up.  One time, when he was unavailable, Jeff, rather than flag someone down, called Leroy.  "You might as well go to the top," he said; so we had an executive arrange rides for us.

Drummond had tight security; but they moved people in quickly.  Prodecco, on the other hand, moved at a glacial pace.  There was always a long line to get in.  You'd see all sorts of people in line; on time the guy ahead of me had a swastika tattoo on his hand.  He was as red as the setting sun.  Another time there were three women in short skirts and high heels; all were carrying lunches.  I don't think they were there to load coal.

It was easy to bring a laptop in, but any other tool had to be registered beforehand, as we learned the hard way.  One time we tried to bring in a cheap spectrum analyzer; it looked like a toy from radio shack.  We tried to get permission, but the woman at the desk didn't have the authority.  She worked on her computer, her coworker's computer, her cell phone, her desk phone and made notes in her ledger, but couldn't get anyone who had the authorization to let us bring it in.  Eventually we called our driver back and had him hold onto it.

Even if you had authorization it wasn't always possible to get in.  We once had a couple engineers show up at lunch time.  Anyone with authority to clear their equipment was at lunch so again they got the woman with the computer, her coworker's computer, cell phone, desk phone and ledger.

That was typical of Prodecco.  One time Gary had an appointment with the Prodecco's chief radio engineer.  They were supposed to discuss a radio system that Prodecco was setting up in the port, and how it would interact with ours.  As he got passed the gate he called the guy for a ride and got no one.  So he went back to security and asked them to contact him; no one could find him.  Eventually Gary gave up and went to the locomotive shop.  There was never an explanation of why the appointment was missed, but Prodecco tried to set up another meeting.  Gary told them "No" using the most colorful language imaginable.

At Prodecco you always had to have long sleeves; but you could have them rolled up.  Why this rule was in place no one seemed to know, but rules were rules and we wasted an hour as another of our engineers had to go back to the hotel to get his long sleeves.

Once we got in then we had to arrange a ride.  This again was an enormous problem.  We had a GE liaison who worked full time at Prodecco.  We called him, he arranged a ride, the ride didn't come, we'd call him again and so forth.  Eventually we would get where we were going.

Once you got in, though, the rail shop was immaculate.  You could have eaten off the floor.  The shop was usually deserted; all the workers were above the shop in their cubicles.  Nothing ever seemed to get done, and they lagged far behind the other shops in installing our system.

[Admiral Yi]

I thought Galicia was the land of conquistadores. 

[Valmy]

After he was finished Jeff said, "You speak English really well."

"I should," said Leroy, "I'm from Alabama."

Huh. Speaking English really well is not something usually associated with being from Alabama

[Savonarola]

I thought Galicia was the land of conquistadores. 

I believe Cortes and Pizarro were both from the Extremadura.