harles R. Dillard, 79, really loves two things: railroads and Alaska. So the fact that he’s been able to combine the two by working at the Alaska Railroad for the past fifty years has been a dream come true.
“The US Army sent me to Alaska in 1961, and I saw the railroad here and decided that it would be my home,” says the carman/writer inspector, who has been employed by the railroad since July 12, 1965. “I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t doing this. This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
harles R. Dillard, 79, really loves two things: railroads and Alaska. So the fact that he’s been able to combine the two by working at the Alaska Railroad for the past fifty years has been a dream come true.
“The US Army sent me to Alaska in 1961, and I saw the railroad here and decided that it would be my home,” says the carman/writer inspector, who has been employed by the railroad since July 12, 1965. “I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t doing this. This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Dillard joined the Alaska Railroad as an apprentice carman with the Mechanical Department and learned to make repairs on the railroad’s rolling stock, including freight and passenger equipment. He took a short break between 1967 and 1969 before rejoining the railroad as a freight car carman in 1970. Within a couple of months, he was promoted to car inspector. In 1990, he was promoted to carman leader and has served in his current position as carman writer/inspector since April 2007.
“As the carman writer/inspector, my job is to inspect cars as they come into the shop,” he explains. “Some are repaired on periodic time frames; for example, airbrakes are inspected and repaired every year, and it’s mandatory that all cars come into the shop every five years.
“We also take care of mechanical repairs as cars develop defects while on the line,” he continues, adding that the main focus of his job is keeping railroad employees and passengers safe.
“Most of my family were railroad people; my dad was a conductor on the railroad, and he wasn’t surprised when I took the job since it’s all I’ve wanted to do since I could remember,” says Dillard, adding that his father, Charles Sr., was an Illinois Central Railroad conductor for thirty-nine years. “I thought it would make a good career—and here I am.”
“We start at 6 a.m., though I usually get here earlier to get a head start on things,” he says. “I take a count of the cars in the shop and what kind of work needs to be done, and then the mechanics start to repair them. When the jobs are completed, I make sure that everything is done and that the cars are ready to go at the end of the day. That pretty much takes up all of the day from Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.”
Charles Dillard
While Dillard is the oldest person in the shop with years of accumulated knowledge, he knows that he couldn’t do the job alone. “I work with a very good group of people,” he says. “Each person has to work together to accomplish our goals because it takes a total team effort.”
According to Ron Thompson, manager of car operations, Dillard has always been a team player.
“I’ve worked with Charlie since 1988, and he’s not just knowledgeable, he’s a great mentor,” Thompson says. “He’s so experienced, and he’s willing to help everyone that he can—he doesn’t keep all that knowledge to himself.
Alaska Railroad
As the railroad has evolved over the past five decades, so have the tools Dillard uses to do his job.
“Technology has played a major role, and it’s mostly all about safety,” he says. “Many of the repairs we need to make are electronically detected before the cars ever hit the shop. This provides far more accurate information than just a visual inspection.”
According to Dillard, wayside electronic detection devices now automatically detect defects in freight cars, and this information is relayed to a central location in the Lower 48. That information is then relayed to the Anchorage shop, which brings the cars in for repairs.
“When I was first confronted with it, I didn’t want to do it,” he laughs. “Now I depend on it greatly. It’s a big help to me and others on the railroad and gives us a much better range of safety. When computers and electronic monitoring came along, it was a big game-changer for us, but it was also a big learning curve.”
According to Dillard, when new technology comes down the line, the Alaska Railroad provides training for its employees, and he has also received training during his career through the Federal Railroad Administration. “As things change, we are constantly learning new things; the [Alaska] Railroad makes sure that we are updated and are able to keep up with the new information.”
Dillard also learns a lot during his vacation time, which he uses… to visit railroads.
In 1981, Dillard took a trip to China, followed by a trip to Russia ten years later.
“Traveling on those foreign railroads provided a lot of education,” he says. “It was quite enlightening to be able to be with railroad people in those countries.”
Alaska Railroad
The journey included some surprises and helped him make some long-lasting friendships.
“There were a lot of differences being in a foreign country, but it’s surprising how many things are the same no matter where you go,” he says. “The Chinese even allowed us to examine some American-made locomotives that they had received in World War II—they were still in service.”
Dillard also met the head of railway safety in Russia, who was the father of his guide, and was invited to get involved in humanitarian efforts in the country. “The Russians were very good to me, and I wanted to do something good for them,” Dillard says. “My brother, Robert, had connections with pharmaceutical companies, so we worked with Delta Airlines to fly medications free of charge to be used at a Moscow hospital.”
