DA’DEESTL’IN HÓTSAA and DZILYÍJIIN, Ariz. – When Thomas Long Jr.’s family asks him what he does for a living, he tells them, “I drive the train.”
“They think I drive a little train,” Long said, “but it’s a big train! It’s the best job in the world and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. That’s what I always say. That’s what we (employees at the Navajo Generating Station) say.”
Long, along with an assistant, operates locomotives on the Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad that hauls coal in hopper cars from Peabody Western Coal Company’s Kayenta Mine 78 miles to NGS near Page, Arizona. He works 10-hour shifts.
Long grew up in Gallup and graduated from Gallup High in 2000. He is Tódík’ózhí and born for Bitáá’chii’nii. In 2006 he applied for an Operations and Maintenance I position at NGS and the following year, Salt River Project took him on a seven-week-long training. He completed the program and relocated with his wife and children for his new job.
Long started off in maintenance at the plant’s railroad terminus and worked his way up to O&M III, which allowed him to operate the locomotives. “I’ve been a train (operator) specialist since then,” Long said on Friday morning, during one of the last runs for 8,500 tons of coal on four locomotives, which were once used by the national railroad of Mexico in the 90s.
For the rest of this article: https://navajotimes.com/biz/ngs-coal-train-operators-will-miss-best-job-in-the-world/