Gemalla de Beuzeville - Runs in the Family
Edition 3: Preamble 2
Our second preface story touches on the ideas of personal fulfillment and family through railroading. Coworkers can often become a much bigger part of your life than you’d think, but the railroad world takes that expectation and raises the bet. The time spent together by railroaders can be some of the most grueling work, and it happens through all of our personal highs and lows. Today on Behind the Throttle, we meet someone who grew up in the railroad world, and grew into the larger family as she made the craft a part of her own identity.
“…overtime I began to think, how can I make (railroading) my own thing?”
It’s a hot summer day in New South Wales, Australia. Gemalla de Beuzeville is reasonably uncomfortable with the heat, the smoke and cinders, and the de facto babysitter role she had been assigned. Then she got into the cab of a steam locomotive, and everything changed.
Gemalla’s mother (previously featured on Edition 2 of Behind the Throttle) had been around trains all her life, and exposed her children to railways just the same. The family grew up in Lithgow Valley, not far from the Zig Zag Railway, where Gemalla and her family spent many weekends. Trains were always “mom’s thing”, Gemalla thought for most of her childhood, thinking of her mom when she heard a train whistle off, and knowing that a weekend with mom meant “spending time in some smoky atmosphere”. Her early exposure to railroading also normalized lots of the ideas of railroad culture – where you arrive early, leave late, and spend a whole day with the same group of people. Though it wasn’t until her first cab ride during her later teenage years, taking in all of the action of a coal-fired steam locomotive unencumbered by her siblings, that she felt a thought every rebellious child dreads: “Damnit, Mom was right!”
Prior to her cab ride, where the noise of the outside world was drowned out by the clattering of a shovel and chuffing of exhaust, Gemalla had never seen a future for herself in railroading. As she descended from the cab following her ride, however, she was already thinking of how to get involved herself. In her final years of high school, Gemalla had begun to carriage host on the excursions that her mom was now overseeing with mainline excursion operator “The Picnic Train”, and soon took on working in railroad operations through the freight partner of the excursion trains, Sydney Rail Services. In school, Gemalla has been fascinated with the sciences – namely chemistry and physics – and saw the principles of these sciences unfolding in the real world through the big heavy machines moving around her – manipulating fire and water to make power that moves thousands of tonnes, all while giving hundreds of families an outing they will surely cherish. The itch to railroad reshaped her future, and though she remains on track with becoming an educator, her approaches and outlooks on education have drastically evolved thanks to her railroad experiences.
Gemalla worked tirelessly alongside her university studies to make it as a railroader. She began attending Safework training, which had her learn how to shunt cars, move locomotives, give hand/lamp signals, and talk on the radio in railway speak. She remembers learning the term “red light”, which means that she will be going in-between carriages in close proximity, a precarious place to put oneself if your crew isn’t aware. The term “red light” comes from the multi-colored lamps Australian railway workers once carried while shunting in the dark in a time before radio communications (modern versions of these lamps are still used today in many cases!). Gemalla had seen historic examples of these lamps at the Zig Zag way back, and saw a unique connection to history and practicality with how the term still has a place in the modern world, protecting workers just the same as the lamps have for centuries. After a few months of training, Gemalla received a check-off as a guard to work the ground on her own, calling movements to build trains and get them over the road to their destination. On her first day though, she remembers fighting to put together air hoses for the brakes while her driver kept asking what the hold-up was. After taking a moment to compose herself, the same voice chirped through her radio, saying something along the lines of: “When you’re out there, you need to be able to do this on your own.” With a firm drive, a little bit of anger, and a whole lot of determination, she got her train ready and they took the main bound for the ports of Sydney.
Keeping up with the family, Gemalla continues to help out with the excursions her mom manages, though often finds herself doing homework in the crew van after the days are underway. The Picnic Train’s operations have mirrored something she observed while hanging around the Zig Zag, and sees working in freight: The strange nature of intimacy that comes with railroading. Working on a railroad involves a high degree of trust with your coworkers, and means you’ll spend more hours than not with them, usually in close quarters. Gemalla began to learn things about her coworkers and fellow volunteers that can only be described as familial, just as her coworkers would learn how she operated too. She described it as beautiful in a way, being able to work with a group of people and help each other so the organization can reach it’s common goal. Her railroad family has seen her grow up and learn, on her best days and her worst, but they all still function to get the train to where it needs to be. “It’s a big family, we all have lives outside of it but we come together to railroad.”
The identity of being a railroad worker has resonated well with Gemalla, and she is proud to be a part of such a storied industry that continues to challenge and reward her. In July of this past year, she marked up as a driver (engineer) for Sydney Rail Services, the first woman to ever accomplish this mark. She will graduate from the University of Newcastle in just a few short months and begin a journey to educate the youth on science and math, all while spending her weekends running trains and giving smiles to the young and young-at-heart. Having followed in her mother’s footsteps, Gemalla de Beuzeville now blazes her own path behind the regulator with her railroad family at her side.
Thank you for reading this edition of Behind the Throttle! Edition 3 is shaping up to be rather exciting with many great spotlights in the pipeline. Tune in next week for our formal Edition 3 Introduction, and later in January for our first full spotlight. Until then, I’m Max Harris – joined by Jonah Collins and Nick Martin – and we’ll see you down the line.