We are excited to announce our wins from last month’s APTA International Rail Rodeo in Toronto, Canada. UTA’s rail team came back with two awards!

The first award is the 2019 Mechanical Measuring for Maintainers, where rail maintainers have to quickly and accurately measure various pieces equipment. Our maintenance team included Tyler Hardy, Jody Fairbourn, and Roman Dobre, and Sharanjit Saini as coach. The other was the 2019 First in Operating Course and First in Overall Operator Competition won by Michelle Smith and Logan Packer, coached by Jaclyn Smith Nelson. In the course, operators face a series of problems while maintaining safety and a smooth ride. The overall portion combines scores on customer service, written exam, uniforms and train inspection. 

As Michelle Smith said, “Logan Packer and I proudly brought home UTA’s first ‘First Place Operator’ team award. There is no better feeling than knowing that we are the top operators from this International contest, which included competitors from the US, Canada, and Japan. All of our hard work paid off.” 

Here’s full list UTA’s Rail Rodeo achievements since we began participating in 2015: 

2015 Operator Safety Test
2015 Second Place Operators
2015 Team Achievement Award
2016 LED Headlights for Maintainers
2017 Second Place Operators
2018 Mechanical Measuring for Maintainers
2018 Third Place Maintainers
2018 Third Place Operators
2018 Team Achievement Award
2019 Mechanical Measuring for Maintainers
2019 First in Operating Course and First in the Overall Operator Competition

This year the Team Achievement Award was won by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).

In addition to the awards and cash prizes, the competition allows for learning, an exchange of ideas with peers across the globe and acknowledgment of the craft. Transit is complicated and the work of our operators and maintainers often goes unseen. It’s great to have Logan, Michelle in the spotlight.  

Congratulations to the whole UTA team that took the time to compete!