At the 2016 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Rail Conference, rail operators from the U.S., Canada and Japan came together to compete. The International Rail Rodeo was hosted at Valley Metro’s Operations and Maintenance Center (OMC) yard and the competitors were tested in maintenance, customer service and operations. The test course ran from the OMC to Mill Avenue and 3rd Street and went back to the yard. This year saw the largest amount of participants for the APTA Rail Rodeo.
During the rail track test operators ran trains three to four miles down the tracks. While running the trains, operators also needed to respond to signals, pull into a platform and announce the train. Operators were judged on how smoothly they operated the train and how they brake; the trains go 35 miles per hour and they have to reduce their speed when coming to the platform. The operators were required to act as if the trains were in maintenance.
The goal of the rodeo is to test operator’s skills, safety, knowledge of equipment and customer service all while being timed. As part of the customer service challenge they had to deal with unruly passengers to demonstrate how they reacted to pressure and conflict in the workplace.
Located inside a large tent that had been set up — which Valley Metro paved and prepared specifically for the competition event, was the maintenance challenge. The teams of three went behind the black curtains and were timed to discover what was wrong with each piece of rail equipment — and fix the mistake.
Valley Metro, which was this year’s host, selected their top operators around the beginning of May.
The rodeo ran from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the competitors only learned during the following day’s award ceremony, who placed and what their scores were.
“At the awards ceremony they receive the recognition of course, and prizes,” said Susan Tierney, communications manager for Valley Metro.
After the challenges were over, operates from all the different systems came together to compete in a different fashion, challenging each other in games like Jenga and cornhole to create a sense of camaraderie between the different systems.
“This is less of a spectator event, unlike the Bus Roadeo, so they’ve established this to get people together so they can have fun together,” said Ray Abraham, chief operations officer for Valley Metro.
Both Abraham and Tierney said that Valley Metro put a great deal of effort into the planning process for the event — ensuring that they would be ready. One aspect that was different from other cities that have hosted the rail rodeo is that Valley Metro has the used their main location and still needed to keep their trains running
"We can't shut down the shop so our operators and maintenance people had to work still," said Abraham "The operators who competed, if they were scheduled to work today, we had extra people to cover for them."
Abraham said that for Valley Metro, it's something their operators work up to. To compete they are required to have a certain service and safety record.
The first place winners for the rodeo were the Regional Transportation District of Denver (RTD), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) for maintenance and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) for the team achievement award.
