TRAX facility's abuzz at night

MIDVALE — As valley residents put on their jammies and tuck themselves into bed, these guys are just getting started.

When the first TRAX trains begin to roll in to the UTA TRAX maintenance depot after a long day's work, a crew of some 25 cleaners and engineers roll up their sleeves and get to work at an early 10 p.m.

"We've got to get about 33 cars out of here every night," said UTA light-rail maintenance supervisor Jim Wilson. And with the first Sandy line train leaving at 4:45 a.m., some hustle is involved.

"We've got a tight schedule," said electro-mechanic Mike Meiser. "We've got roughly six hours to get these cars pulled in and get them out again."

With more than 7 million miles logged in the past four years, each TRAX car averages about 200,000 miles of track time. Meiser is the first to conduct a spot check on each train before it is pulled into the depot. Walking up each train, Meiser punches buttons, flips switches and inspects each train inside and out for damage.

"I'm pretty good for a 50-year-old man. I figure I walk about five miles a night. I've lost a lot of weight," Meiser chuckled.

Sometimes in the course of his inspection, Meiser runs into some lingering customers. "We've had drunks come in on trains to the ship yard," he said. "I was walking on a train one night and there was a man in the middle of the floor, face down."

But it doesn't happen too often.

Once inspection is complete, trains are brought in for cleaning. "It's important that we try to keep the cars clean because it affects ridership," Wilson said.

Hazards of cleanup

From gum and graffiti to vomit and even blood, TRAX cleaning crews deal with some of the more unsavory tasks.

"Socks. I find socks more than anything," said Shane Gunderson, who was vacuuming the steps a car while a co-worker mopped, although he could not explain why socks are found so often. Each seat cushion on the train can be pulled out and cleaned with a special machine.

Since the opening of the line to the University of Utah, they're finding a lot of misplaced textbooks.

"The weirdest thing we've found? I'd have to say a lawn mower," Wilson said. "It sat in our station for quite a while, but nobody claimed it."

Crews say they are finding more and more gang graffiti on cars. Special liners are placed on windows to keep vandals from etching messages in the glass. The facility has a TRAX version of a giant car wash, complete with spinning rags for a quick dry.

Cleaning also comes with its own dangers.