Illustration by Sakura Siegel / SOC Images.
What would happen if all essential workers disappeared?
I’m not just speaking about doctors and nurses. I mean the janitors, sanitation workers, the mailmen, taxi drivers and train conductors, along with other essential workers.
I can tell you what could happen — society would collapse. The people who do these jobs are the ones who keep society running; without them many necessary tasks would not get done.
Slice of Culture spoke with Violet Blake, a train conductor who runs routes between New Jersey and New York on a daily basis. Blake is an essential worker who has worked at NJ PATH for 14 years.
This past June, the PATH averaged more than 1 million riders per week, covering weekdays and weekends, Scott Ladd, a worker at the PATH’s Director’s Office told Slice of Culture. In 2023, over 50 million people traveled with NJ PATH. And it is estimated that more than 30 million people regularly ride the train in the U.S. alone, whether that is commuting to work, attending appointments, or just for outings.
But that is not even counting those who take the train infrequently.
Imagine if train conductors were to disappear, even with the other essential workers still here.
The streets would be congested with more cars, whether it be their own or ride-share, alongside sidewalks and bike lanes would be full with people trying to get to their destination. The congestion would cause a ripple effect throughout society.
Ever since Blake made the switch from a finance day job to a late PATH train conductor, she hasn’t looked back.
Q: What made you want to be a conductor?
I said, you know what, let’s try something new. I’m a firm believer that everyone has known what they wanted to do since they were in the second grade. You just kind of get talked into different fields by adults … so I ended up going into finance and then just woke up one day and was like let’s see and I never looked back.
This is actually the funnest job I’ve ever had. I just have fun doing it so it doesn’t feel like a job. It just feels natural.
Q: Did you get push back from wanting to change your job?
I sure did! I’m leaving finance and most of my family are either teaching or are in the computer background so a lot of my family members are white collar workers so you tend to gravitate towards that… I wanted to give that up and do something on the other side of the spectrum.
It took a bit of them getting used to it, the schedule is not a 9-5 so it was a lot for my family to adjust to.. My youngest daughter is an engineer. We have our different chores. We don’t function on a traditional schedule… It took a lot for them to get used to.
It is not the easiest job to transition to when you are used to being a 9-5er. It’s not just you transitioning, it’s everyone in your life as well… It’s a big ask of everyone around you so it requires a lot of patience.. Understanding and support.
Our schedules are hectic. It helps when you have family and friends who are not only physically there to support but also mentally.
Everyone just looks at it like we open and close doors all day. And we do so much more than that, that’s just what the public sees. There’s so much that goes on in the background.
Being a train conductor is a job with many facets, yet because they happen behind the scenes, not many people are aware that the job goes far beyond manning the doors.
Q: How hard is it to learn how to be a train conductor?
That blessing of it all is everything is taught to you. There are manuals, there’s class. I started a little older so I was out of school for a while. That was the hardest thing for me: getting back into a classroom setting for months and each training takes months to get to and then you do on-job training with fellow conductors, senior conductors, who are just awesome. My coworkers are just amazing.
We have a class out now actually. And we all rally to make sure that they get the proper training. They go from classroom to us and everybody steps up. And that’s one of the things that I am very thankful for.
Everyone does their part because we were all that person. I was that person and it was difficult because although I thought it was the coolest job on the planet I knew nothing about it.
I, like a passenger, thought all we did was open and close doors all day. When I [was] walking around the yard I was like, ‘why am I in a yard? I wanna be a conductor, not an engineer [but] not realizing that we have to learn those aspects as well. If a train breaks down, we are the eyes now. We become the eyes of a train while the engineer has to operate from a different position which means we have to know the system just like they do so that we can get the train out of the way so that you guys can keep going.
I always tell students it’s like learning a whole different language– you speak Spanish, but you’re trying to learn Russian, but it doesn’t connect at all, that was the concept to me.
Like you guys say the yellow lights, we don’t call it that, we call it amber. We have our own language and different terminologies.
Q: What PATH line do you work?
Right now I work on the World Trade Center-Hoboken line, but I have worked the Newark-World Trade Center lines. For a year, I was what’s called a reserve conductor, so it’s an emergency conductor. If there’s an issue on a train and we need to pull a conductor off so that everything keeps flowing–this is the thing that people don’t understand that there are contingency plans to keep everything running smoothly. I was that person, I jump right on the train. You guys never even feel it, we don’t miss a beat.
After conducting trains for over a decade, Blake told us that it all becomes natural “like you get up in the morning and brush your teeth.” From conducting trains to customer service to executing their many backup protocols, Blake said it’s just part of her daily routine.
Q: What’s your daily routine?
Right now I’m on a PM shift, late PM shift. So I start work at 4:25 p.m. to be exact until 12:25 a.m. I sign in, I pick up my train. I check it out I make sure that it is fully functioning so that when you guys get on, you get to where you need to be as quickly as possible and as safe as possible. I also drop my train off in the yard as well.
Sometimes we don’t leave immediately simply because there might be an action going on on the platform and we try to keep the public as informed as possible. That is our job. There are plenty of factors.
Q: How does PATH make sure passengers get to their destination on time and safely?
There are a lot of steps into making sure that you guys get to where you need to be safely–that’s No. 1–and [No. 2] on time. I know everyone wants to be there on time, but trust me when I tell you you’d rather get there safely first … so that’s our goal as a crew. We have our awesome engineers. We operate as one.
It’s a lot of listening to the radio and if there’s something going on ahead of you, already coming up with a plan with an engineer on how you’re going to convey that to the passengers and what steps need to be taken afterwards.
We’re five steps ahead. By the time we’ve already given you an update, we are five steps ahead to the next part just in case. Everything runs on a contingency plan.
Blake and other conductors also worked during the pandemic, showing up every day to do their jobs.
“We hit 97-98% on time every single day and we don’t do it without people like Violet. The folks who are in the trenches. Violet is on the frontline every day, every night. And in the pandemic these guys were there every single day even if there weren’t a lot of people in the trains, we still ran the trains,” Ladd said.
Q: Why did you all work during the pandemic?
A lot of us came to work because most of the people who traveled on our line, who had to come, were like us, essential workers. So we needed to get them where they needed to be so that they could figure out how to get us out of this pandemic.
Blake has told us that while sometimes it can be a thankless job, thank you’s received from passengers are very much appreciated.
