As I sidled my six-foot-five-inch frame behind the metaphorical wheel of a MAX train this week, I had a tinge of sadness: There’s no chugga chugga button.

But after examining the controls of TriMet’s Type 3 train, those 2004-era models that arrived with the Yellow Line, I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of sound-generating options at my fingertips.

I gripped the handle to my right as instructed and pressed the button with my thumb twice.

A satisfying and familiar sound bellowed around me. It was time to move.

There’s something about trains that can put a smile on even the most cynical reporters’ face.

It’s why when TriMet invited other reporters and me to Beaverton’s Elmonica Railyard as part of a concentrated effort to draw attention to national Rail Safety Week, I hopped onboard.

It’s a clear PR gambit, but one with a noteworthy mission. The transit agency’s goal is to highlight the challenges rail operators face on their job and to raise awareness among the general masses that folks need to pay attention to the massive train on the street in close proximity to their very fragile body, and not to their phone, to Twitter or to responding to a text message with a significant other asking what the hell they’re going to do for dinner that night.

Having successfully, for the most part, driven a TriMet bus this June, it was an obvious decision to take a light rail train for a proverbial spin as well.

Brittany Hall, one of the agency’s more than 200 rail operators, was my helpful instructor.

My biggest issue, it turns out, was just figuring out how to put the key in the ignition. That, and fitting my frame behind the controls, which conjured a cramped feeling similar to my experience sitting in the backseat of a standard sedan. The cab is roughly 31 square feet, but it’s filled with the dashboard and operator chair. There’s ittle room to mill about.

But I found that driving the train, at least on a closed course with virtually no possibility for cataclysmic errors, was an enjoyable and rather simple exercise. I pushed the throttle handle forward to accelerate and pulled back to slow down. On my third run up and down the track, an instructor goaded me into hitting 25 miles per hour. That raised the adrenaline and showed me how challenging it is to slow the train down. TriMet noted it takes 100 feet to stop a train traveling 15 miles per hour.

It summoned one of the agency’s old ominous PSAs: Get real, A MAX train weighs 55 tons.

At least I didn’t blast through the cone at the end of the track. Unlike driving a bus, I could only go where the track led me. That was a comforting feeling.

Hall, a Portland native, started as all operators do, driving a bus. After a year or so, she transitioned to the rails.

Driving the MAX is fun, Hall said. She likes the speed of it and still enjoys navigating through the tunnel on the westside.

TriMet has 60 miles of light rail track across Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties, but Hall’s favorite section is the Red Line on the way to the airport.

On the airport route, Hall gets to say hi to passengers leaving for fun trips or give tourists tips on what the hot spots are in town these days.

As transit riders know, every operator has their own style.

“My style is pretty chatty,” she said. “I like to have fun. I like to get to know people.”

But the job isn’t all fun.

Virtually every day, Hall and her fellow rail operators have close calls, where pedestrians or cars or bicyclists pull in front of a MAX train despite the two horn salute signifying the train is on the move.

“When you hear that,” Hall said of the horns, “that means stop.” Plus, there’s the seemingly daily occurrence of riders accidentally, or intentionally, pressing the intercom button to talk to the operator. If the onboard intercom button is pushed and no one responds when the operator answers, they then make a general announcement to all passengers to determine if there’s an emergency. If no one can provide a sufficient response, the operator has to stop the train at the next station to investigate.

TriMet trains on average travel 11,600 miles every day. According to the agency’s data, trains recently logged roughly 1.06 collisions per 100,000 miles operated. Those figures tend to fluctuate with the weather and with visibility, with darker times seeing crashes rise. The agency said at a board meeting last month that the collision rate was the lowest during the most recent quarter since early 2016.

Hall said the close calls were tough to stomach, but operators had to recover quickly.

“It happens so much,” she said, “I don’t want to say you get used to it, but you learn to adapt very quickly. You have to learn to brush it off.”

My test drive was limited to a straight section of about 650-feet of track in the Elmonica rail yard.

There were no pedestrians thumbing their phones and walking in front of my train, no drivers sitting in their car trying to make the next light and blocking the entire intersection, no bicyclists thinking they can just sneak past. This was a piece of cake. The reality is much more stressful.

Hall said TriMet wanted people to be aware out there – to pay attention to their surroundings and to only cross tracks at designated crossings or intersections. “We’re looking out for you,” she said, “but we need your help.”

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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Staff writer/videographer Samantha Swindler contributed to this story