Across Australia the crews who climb into their locomotive cabins each shift have a piece of machinery weighing over one hundred tons, plus the train they pull behind them. The kinetic energy of this monster, when moving, is impossible to stop in any short distance.
"When I was a locomotive engineman on fast express passenger trains, I knew where to apply the brakes so as to slow the entire train and then bring it to a halt at a platform," M V Tronson recalled.
To bring a fast moving passenger train to a halt speed of 110 kilometres an hour, and smoothly glide it up beside a platform on a perfectly flat rail head, requires at least one kilometre to steady the train.
"A super-freighter at these same high speeds was something else again, as the crews would begin to steady the train down well before the 'Distant Signal' which was the first of three static signals an engineman would come across when entering a platform zone," M V Tronson explained.
Enginemen need to have their wits about them as it is never known what might appear on a railway line when the train comes around a blind curve such as cuttings.
In the days of steam and the early diesel era, it was not uncommon to find sheep, cattle or horses on a railway line.
"Numerous stories in my sixteen railway books tells the stories of such encounters," said Mark Tronson. "Moreover, some explained in detail how difficult it proved to be to release the carcasses of animals that had become caught between the cow catcher and the locomotive."
There are also, sadly, several ways in which people have lost their lives on the railways. Everyone has read of accidents as level crossings; but there also have been suicides, falls onto the tracks, the occasional heart attack of a passenger or driver and shunting accidents (for example, when uncoupling the carriages).
Locomotive crews who have the very unfortunate experience of a human death when at the controls have had to come to terms with this. In the vast majority of cases, the accident has not occurred because of something the engineman has done wrong, so the pastoral and counselling issues extend beyond the engineman to include his family and close friends.
"An accidental death also affects the locomotive crews in the depot," M V Tronson explained sadly. "When I was a young railwayman, I can recall an engineman being burnt to death when two locomotives crashed into each other, and I still have strong memories of how that affected all of us in the depot."
Now as the Footplate Padre, Mark Tronson has identified the concerns that a locomotive engineman has, in relation to the constant pressures of accidental death when at the controls.
First, the locomotive engineman is often worried that his concern about problems with a particular section of line, or platform, or problems with civilian protection, is not taken seriously or seen as having professional input.
There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a potential problem, knowing from experience that it poses real danger, repeatedly making mention of it, yet having the advice ignored.
Second, when an accident does occur, one of the very first official things that is checked is the tape (black box equivalent) and the engineman is automatically deemed at fault until the he can prove himself to be innocent.
There is nothing more humiliating to an engineman, generally with many years of experience and with a very solid record, to encounter such treatment, often meted out by people many years his junior, and quite often without any person-to-person sensitivity.
"These two factors are just as prevalent today as they were when I was a locomotive engineman for many years," M V Tronson noted. "For these reasons, pastoral care is a necessity, and an enormous responsibility."