Wow, where do I start? I have had one very full week with my training for Engineer on the Walt Disney World Railroad. Training to drive the steam trains starts with one day of Steam Class, four days of training and then one day of assesment by another trainer and a manager. Steam Class is basically what it sounds like. You spend most of the day in the Roundhouse learning about how a steam train functions and you get practice with lighting and firing the trains in the Roundhouse. Your 8 hour day ends with two trips around the Magic Kingdom driving the train. It’s really fun!
Yesterday was the start of my real training though. This is when you take all the stuff you learned in Steam Class and have to apply it for real. You fire a train in the morning, take it out of the Roundhouse to the Main Line and do all the safety checks. From there, you get practice firing and driving. After finishing my second day after Steam Class, I am feeling pretty good. It is all so much to take in. I get to close the next two nights to learn that routine. Only thing I am having issue on is my stops. I am about 75% there. I can hit most of them but every now and then, I have over shot by two to three feet. Simple back up will fix it but I’m working on it still. After all, I’m still training.
So that’s the begining of my training. I will post more as I finish this week.
2 comments
Thats really awesome man. I’ve only ventured into the roundhouse out here in CA 3 times since starting with Disney. Most recently was just a few weeks ago to tour a fully restored Lilly Belle! She’s a beautiful car.
The engines actually really intimidate me. Huge respect for learning to run them!
Author
Thanks Rustin. Yea I can understand how the engineers can seem intimidating. I know that some of ours have 30+ years with the company.