Come on Baby-Do the Locomotion!

CSX Corporation, based in Jacksonville, Fla., is a transportation company providing rail, intermodal and rail-to-truck transload services. The company's transportation network spans approximately 21,000 miles and connects to more than 70 ocean, river and lake ports.

CSX created the Train Game Railroad Simulation as a fun and challenging part of the Railroad Concepts class for hands-on learning. The class is required for all management employees as part of the CSX new hire orientation. Employees spend about two and half hours learning with a wood and plastic toy trains, tracks, bridges, signs and buildings. The locomotives and colorful rail cars are each about two inches long.

Participants are grouped in four teams of two or three and assigned a rail yard. Each individual plays the role of Engineer, Conductor and Switch Operator during the simulation.

Using the locomotive, participants are given work orders to build a train (flat switching) of designated cars while remaining within the limits of the rail yard.Switches, which must be aligned by the players for the direction of movement, are located throughout the rail yard and the main line. Once the train is built, the participants contact the dispatcher (facilitator), who directs the train's movement, to enter the main line.

The trains must stop and deliver cars to a customer en route to their destination.Designated cars must be delivered and placed at specific areas within the customer's location. Accuracy is emphasized for customer satisfaction. The trains then proceed to the receiving yards. At the receiving yard the participants are required to drop off the cars in a specific order to build the next outgoing train.

During the course of the simulation, real life scenarios are introduced by the facilitator while the participants complete the assigned work such as Locomotive Breakdown, Hazardous Material Cars, Priority Trains Movement, Derailment, and Turning a Car.

In this simulation the employees learn about:

§ Basic railroad terminology

§ CSX Transportation key performance indicators

§ The complexities of building a train, switching, and working a customer facility

§ The impact of congestion, derailments, and priority trains to the network

This simulation was submitted by Glenn Allen, manager of learning and development at CSX.