Women engineers make debut as SunRail expands
Former conductor takes on new role as student engineer in male-dominated industry
SunRail is promoting for the first time women engineers as part of an expansion of Central Florida’s commuter rail this summer.
One of them is Christine Davis, 41, a veteran conductor, who plays volleyball, boxes and is grateful for a shot at a male-dominated job.
“All my regular passengers see me up here and they go, ‘Awesome, good job, we are proud of you, Christine, it’s about time there is a woman up there,’ ” Davis said. “It’s a really cool feeling.”
But her husband of two years said it would be a mistake to think the cool feeling is what drives his wife.
“Don’t get into a fight with her and don’t step on the volleyball court with her,” Drake Davis said. “She is the most competitive person I know. The sky’s the limit for this woman.”
Davis said that in his 20 years of rail, he has learned that women in the industry are “far and few between” but often bring a more solid aptitude — an overall awareness of surroundings — than men.
The Federal Rail Administration does not keep statistics on the number of women engineers. Asked what portion of its engineers are women, CSX, Florida’s largest railroad, said it does not disclose that “level of information.”
At SunRail, Stephanie Germosen was promoted as a full-time engineer earlier in May, while Bombardier will bring on Jonett Fiagro as a student engineer.
Drake Davis, a fifth-generation railroader, his brother and several others from Bombardier operations in New Mexico came to SunRail in time for its debut in 2014.
His future wife had arrived there a few weeks earlier with her brother from rail jobs in Texas.
“That’s how I ended up meeting Chrissy,” Davis said. “Me and her brother became best friends and she was the really cute sister I wasn’t allowed to talk to.”
Christine Davis will be a student engineer for at least several months. Her office is a modern cockpit perched near the top of a 22-foot-tall and 11-foot-wide locomotive that weighs 257,000 pounds.
Starting its engine brings to life 16 pistons, each as big around as a dinner plate.
When idling, the turning of the 3,200-horsepower engine imparts a rhythmic, seat-of-your-pants rocking feel to the locomotive cab.
When Davis revved the engine slightly, its whirling roar — though muffled by insulation — suggested a jet engine gathering for takeoff.
Lexie Cash, Bombardier’s mechanical manager for SunRail, said the locomotives are smaller than freight versions but are “locomotives through and through.”
They were manufactured in 1986 to tote passenger cars in Maryland and were rebuilt with a sleeker look for a new life pulling SunRail riders.
A SunRail car can carry about 150 people seated. Each train consists of two or three cars and a locomotive.
Burning an average of 2.5 gallons of diesel fuel per mile, SunRail trains hit 79 mph along four sections of the current track between DeBary in Volusia County and south Orange County.
The trains are just loafing at that load and speed.
“They can pull six cars at 110 mph hour all day long,” Cash said.
But SunRail trains have automatic speed restrictors that kick in above 80 mph.
The SunRail system has 13 engineers and 12 conductors, working a route that now spans 32 miles and requires as many as five trains running at once.
For a 17-mile expansion into Osceola County this summer, SunRail is increasing the number of both engineers and conductors to 19 and expanding the number of trains running at once to as many as seven.
Christine Davis said among what’s challenging but rewarding for her so far is learning to land, so to speak, a train at a station.
Stops are relatively gradual and trains are long, requiring precision in finally coming to a halt so that all doors are facing the platform.
She has had a couple of dreams already about driving a train that were “just weird and I don’t know how to explain them.”
If piloting a 130-ton machine requires a deft touch to avoid lurching the train and jarring passengers, the utmost priority is in watching the tracks ahead, both Davises said.
Christine Davis said she already has had to deal with a car stopped on tracks.
“That’s my biggest fear,” she said. “But I know I can do this.”
But a considerable downside to driving a train is the risk of a collision, Drake Davis said.
Davis as an engineer has experienced a fatality, a man on the tracks near Florida Hospital.
“It’s in the backs of everybody’s mind,” Drake Davis said, which is something he knows is helping to shape his wife’s approach as a student engineer.
That doesn’t stop Davis from enjoying her job.
“I try to get my head out there so they can see I’m a woman operating the train,” Christine Davis said of her little window high above boarding passengers. “It’s something to be proud of.”