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Some folks like to watch trains or photograph trains or build model trains, but for Marc Opperman only the real thing will do. His love of trains led him to become a student conductor on a real, functioning vintage train.
The full transcript of this episode of KUT News Now is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
This Is My Thing: Vintage Railroading!
**Show opening and theme**
Michael Lee [00:00:13] I’m Michael Lee and you’re listening to This Is My Thing. You’re probably listening to this as part of the KUT News Now podcast feed. So, as always, I will warn you that this is not a news program. You’re welcome. On This Is My Thing we talk to people about the things they do just for themselves. It’s not their job and it’s not a responsibility. It’s just a thing that brings them joy or feeds their soul.
This week: vintage railroading!
Some folks love to watch trains or photograph trains or operate model trains, and for some folks only the real deal will do. My guest today is Marc Opperman, who’s a student conductor and a member of the Austin Steam Train Association, which makes runs through the Hill Country every weekend.
Marc Opperman [00:00:56] My name is Marc Opperman and I am a conductor on the Austin, Texas Central Railroad. And vintage railroading is my thing.
Michael Lee [00:01:07] You say you’re a conductor, but this is not your job.
Marc Opperman [00:01:10] No, it’s not my job. I’m a volunteer like everybody that operates that railroad, and I’ve been doing it for about five years. It’s real railroading. We deal with real trains, and we we have to interact with rail, freight, traffic and everything else out on the railroad. But it is a volunteer job.
Michael Lee [00:01:29] Where did this interest come from?
Marc Opperman [00:01:30] Really, I started out just really liking trains as a kid, as a lot of kids do. But my dad really fostered that, and he had model trains and we live near a railroad track, and I’d spend time out there watching trains go by, and sometimes something really interesting would go by, and that would kind of piqued my curiosity, and I kind of kept that alive.
Marc while preparing the train: Sometime last year, we pulled our millionth passenger in this operation, so that’s actually quite a milestone, apparently, for a lot of these sorts of tourist excursion railroads. But we, we run a fleet of vintage passenger cars, all built at different times and from different parts of the country. And passengers just seem to, you know, enjoy that experience of just riding a vintage railroad car, you know, and having fun with that. But what we’re going to do now is walk all the way down to the end of the train, 825 feet, and start some of our air test stuff.
Michael Lee [00:02:32] For a lot of folks, they might do model trains. And you decided to do actual real trains.
Marc Opperman [00:02:38] As they say, a 12 inch to the foot scale. So yeah, I mean there are a lot of folks that definitely go the model railroading route or they spend a lot of time watching trains from the sidelines, as it were, just kind of on the side of the tracks, you know, seeing what goes by. You know, I’ve done a little bit of that, and I even do some model railroading now. But my real love is the real thing, and it’s hard to, for me anyway, to go and run, you know, a small model train around and get that same thrill, that same sense of responsibility and belonging that being part of a crew does.
*Sound of other train operators doing a radio check*
Michael Lee [00:03:26] You mentioned responsibility. This is a hobby that really is like a real job. I think you have had far more training at your hobby than I have had in the field of radio, where I have worked for decades.
Marc Opperman [00:03:38] (laughing) Right? Yeah. I think part of that is the existing crew wants to know that you’re competent and that you know what you’re doing. And as far as the federal government’s concerned, as a conductor, even for a volunteer position on this railroad, I’m, for all intents and purposes, an actual railroad employee with the same consequences that any conductor or engineer, whatever it is on a class one railroad, would face for violating rules or whatever it is. We put everybody that’s on the crew through a lot of testing and a lot of kind of mentorship type training. You shadow somebody who’s promoted already as a brakeman or a conductor, and they oversee what you’re doing and kind of really mentor you.
Marc on the radio while preparing the train: Student conductor. Two 3134 for radio check over loud and clear. Student conductor over to you as well. Student conductor out.
Marc on the train, showing us his equipment: This is my railroad grip. This is where we keep all of our junk that we need on the road. There you go. One conductor’s punch to left. Yeah. Let’s punch the tickets. It makes a kind of a cool sound. So. Yeah. You know, and I like to go through the cars and, you know, tickets, please, and do a lot of that kind of thing. And then there’s a lot of jokes about, what happens if I don’t have a ticket. Well, I get to throw you off, and the rules say I don’t even have to stop the train to do that. So we’ll have fun with that. You know, going through the compartment. And, yes, I tell the same corny jokes to the kids about punching their tickets and everything, but. But those kids love it. And to see that joy and even to see people who, you know, maybe they’re older and they haven’t ridden a train since they were really young. And it’s bringing back memories for them and connecting them to that past. That’s priceless. And it’s just so fun to watch.
Marc on the train, punching passengers’ tickets All right. There you go.
Child passenger: Thank you.
Marc: You’re welcome.
Adult passenger 1: [00:05:49] What if I don’t tell you?
Marc Opperman [00:05:53] Oh. I get to throw you off the train.
Adult passenger 2: [00:05:54] I said that!.
Marc Opperman [00:05:56] And the rules say that I don’t even have to stop the train.
Adult passenger 1: 1[00:06:00] Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Okay.
Michael Lee [00:06:04] You’ve talked about making these connections with kids on the train and about being a kid yourself who was into trains. So some part of this is like childhood wish fulfillment, right?
Marc Opperman [00:06:13] Yeah, it definitely is. It really kind of connects me back to, you know, watching those trains go by and, you know, just getting a sense of what it’d be like to drive that thing and, you know, be in charge of that thing. And, you know, there’s there’s all kinds of, you know, I’m not a gearhead as far as trains go. I can’t tell you statistics about this, that or the other locomotive. But what I do know is that they they just kind of, bring about this sense of. I don’t know. It’s so hard to describe this. The trains and big moving equipment like that. I don’t have the same love for earthmovers or busses or airplanes or whatever it is, but but locomotives and especially vintage equipment like that is it is just really does take me back.
Michael Lee [00:07:19] You’ve told me that you had a very large life moment happen on the train. Tell me a little bit more.
Marc Opperman [00:07:24] Yeah, sure. So, you know, I’d been part of this crew for four years, and they knew me pretty well. And, you know, I’d done a lot of volunteer work for them. And, you know, when, when my now wife and I, got engaged. My stepdaughter, who’s 13 now, you know, came up with the idea. Well, why don’t you get married on the train? It was like, well, duh. How do we make that happen? And so we approached, you know, the head of the organization, and they were like, oh, we would love for you to do that. And not only did you know, they kind of make that happen, they donated the entire use of the train. Just our wedding party, just us on a Sunday. They took us from Cedar Park to burn it. We stopped for ten minutes over the San Gabriel River because my wife wanted to get married by a river. That was her caveat. And so we stopped there for ten minutes. We did our vows there, and then we went on to burn it and had the reception at the Wedding Oak Winery on the square and burn it. And what was so amazing about this experience was just the utter gratitude I felt for having the whole train donated to me for a wedding experience. But the fact that, you know, we had 100 guests, more or less, and they stayed with us for the entire ride because what else are they going to do? They can’t just get off somewhere and leave, you know? But it was astounding. We had four cars on the train. We converted one of them into kind of the dance hall, for lack of a better term. And it was I mean, you know, I know people tell me all the time that I have a unique hobby, but when I tell them I got married on the same train, they’re like, I’ve never heard of anything like that. So I have a lot of gratitude for that crew and the organization, just not just for that too, but just for the experience that I’ve been able to gain and, you know, the friendships that I’ve made there, too.
Michael Lee [00:09:25] So you basically, every couple of weeks you get to revisit your wedding venue.
Marc Opperman [00:09:30] We go right back over that bridge every couple of weeks. And, you know, I kind of internally call it wedding point. You know, it’s the San Gabriel River, but but to me, it’s wedding point.
Michael Lee [00:09:44] You’ve talked about this a little bit, but tell me more about what this is doing for your heart and for your soul that you wouldn’t get elsewhere.
Marc Opperman [00:09:50] I think it’s that chance to live a heritage resource, like live within that space, and to interpret that for other people. I get a lot from giving that back to people and to the organization, and then even sitting on the back of that train, you know, when there’s nobody on the back of that train, that rear vestibule, just kind of the wind going by the sounds of the train. It’s incredibly peaceful to me. This is my happy place.
Michael Lee [00:10:29] Do you feel like this is something you’re going to keep doing into your elder years?
Marc Opperman [00:10:33] Yeah, I probably shouldn’t say this too much on air, but, you know, this is my retirement plan. So this experience could allow me to take a paid position as a retiree, probably in ten years, whatever it is, at some place like the recent Toltec or the Durango and Silverton or someplace else where they do actually have paid positions on these excursion steam trains. And so this experience kind of makes me a shoo in for a position like that, kind of a soft landing retirement job. You know, it’s something I could see doing until I can’t any longer.
Michael Lee [00:11:07] And there’s there’s no particular date on when you can’t do it.
Marc Opperman [00:11:10] I think when your eyesight and your hearing finally fails, you know, that’s probably a sign to give it up and do something else. But, yeah.
Michael Lee [00:11:17] Then even then, you’d probably be a passenger, right?
Marc Opperman [00:11:19] Probably so. Or at least watching can go by out on the road.
*Sounds of the train and then theme music fading up*
Michael Lee [00:11:40] Thanks for listening to This Is My Thing. I’m Michael Lee and I produce the show. Special thanks, of course, to Marc Opperman for sharing his love of railroading with us, and for inviting me and multi-media producer Ry Olszewski for a ride on the train a few weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch the video ry produced about Marc and the train on our show page at KUT.org. And we’ve got more This Is My Thing coming soon. We recently met a guy who plays bike polo and visited the Brick Rodeo with a pretty good LEGO builder. And we’ve talked to a bunch more interesting people that we haven’t officially interviewed yet, but will! Keep listening to hear those stories and more.
If you’d like to tell us about your thing and maybe be a part of a future episode, that’s very easy. Just go to the This Is My Thing show page at KUT.org. You’ll find a form on that page so that you tell us about your thing. And the folks upstairs want me to remind you that that is just one of the forms you can fill out at KUT.org. We’re dangerously close to starting our fall membership drive, and if being a member of KUT is the kind of thing you’d like to do, you can find a form at KUT.org to let you do exactly that. Our members make this and everything we do possible.
Laurie Gallardo [00:12:54] Support for This Is My Thing. comes from locally owned Eckert Insurance. Worry less. Live more.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
