By Meribah Knight January 27, 2014
When the mercury plunges, this brew crew's job is to keep trainloads of beer from freezing. - Manuel Martinez
Beer freezes at around 13 degrees Fahrenheit, and it's Bill Diamond's job to make sure that doesn't happen. Not on his watch, at least.
Mr. Diamond, 56, is a train conductor for Union Pacific Railroad Co. at the Proviso Yard in west suburban Northlake. He's been on the railroad for 37 years, after a summer job to save money for college turned permanent. For the past 12 years he's been in charge of the yard's biggest customer, delivering cars of Grupo Modelo S.A.B de C.V. beer—Corona, Modelo Especial, Pacifico and Victoria—that have snaked their way by rail from Piedras Negras, Mexico, to a nearby warehouse, or “the beer house,” as they call it, operated by Grand Worldwide Logistics Corp. of Chicago.
These days, or rather nights, as temperatures plunge, Mr. Diamond's job gets a bit more complicated. “As long as they keep moving they may get slushy, but they won't freeze,” he says of his precious cargo.
It's 4:43 p.m., 10 degrees outside, and he's antsy. Tonight he's got 16 carloads of beer—roughly 64,000 cases with a retail value of about $960,000—that need moving. But 43 minutes into his 12-hour graveyard shift, he and his switchman, Matthew Groesch, still are waiting for the day shift to group the cars by destination. “We're losing time,” he says, taking a sip from a cup of Lipton tea. “Weather plays a very important factor in our job.”
SUITING UP
It's 9 degrees at 5:20 p.m. and the cars finally have arrived and are ready for sorting, or “spotting” in yard talk. Time to suit up. “It's like getting dressed all over again,” says Mr. Groesch, 43. He has been on the beer house for only eight months. So he follows his foreman's lead as they wrap their steel-toed boots in plastic bags before slipping them into massive rubber LaCrosse boots. “It's all about layers,” Mr. Diamond says, adding to the mix a pair of windbreaker pants, a Timberland fleece, a quilted jacket and his “doofus hat,” with its fleece-lined bill and earflaps that fasten under the chin. Every winter he grows a beard for added protection. “It really cuts the wind,” he says. He shaves it off on March 21, like clockwork.
With the mercury dropping to 8 degrees and time slipping away, Mr. Diamond and Mr. Groesch strap on their remote-control operator belts, which command the locomotive, and grab their lunch coolers filled with peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt, pretzels, pistachios and chocolate. “Dry food keeps you going,” Mr. Diamond says. Off they go, their breath hanging in the air.
Bill Diamond's tips for surviving Chiberia and polar vortices: • Layer, layer, layer • When you're inside, unzip and vent to prevent sweating • Get one of those "doofus hats" that have ear flaps • Grow a beard • He prefers windbreaker pants to long johns • He swears by HotHands hand warmers Photo: Manuel Martinez
Tonight is cold, but it's been worse. During the recent polar vortex, it hit minus 18 degrees in the yard, the switches froze and beer was lost—but not a lot. Midwest Corona guzzlers owe this team a bit of gratitude. In the months leading up to Cinco de Mayo, it's not uncommon to have 80 cars of beer in the yard at once. In Mr. Diamond's 12 years dealing with beer, he's learned that cans freeze faster than bottles and, surprisingly, bottles don't always shatter when the contents freeze.
Mr. Diamond, who prefers rum and Coke to beer, doesn't like his cargo to freeze when he's in charge. In the cold weather he regularly pressures the yard master to move beer cars that might not be on the schedule. If he must, he will switch out cars himself manually—a tedious and time-sucking endeavor—to keep the beer moving. “He kind of takes it personal,” Mr. Groesch says. “It's a pride thing.”
The beer house is one of the largest distribution centers for Chicago-based Crown Imports LLC, Modelo's U.S. importer, marketer and brand owner. It serves 107 wholesalers throughout the Midwest and holds more than 1 million cases of beer at any given time. And Crown appreciates Messrs. Diamond and Groesch's efforts. “They will always make an extra effort to move cars through the yard a little quicker when there is that opportunity for freezing beer,” says Jack Francis, Crown's manager of transportation.
At 8:08 p.m. it's down to 3 degrees, and Mr. Diamond is working methodically—fast is too dangerous—to separate one oddball car of newsprint from the 16 cars of beer. It may seem tedious, the manual work involved in coupling and uncoupling cars and switching track. But it's all in the beer's favor. More jostling means more movement, which means more slush and less ice.
When the 16 cars of beer, plus some filled with sugar, rice and canned tomatoes, finally roll into the beer house, it is 1 degree outside. “At least there is no wind,” Mr. Diamond says. Or mosquitoes, he adds. Because the yard is next to a swamp, the summers are just as brutal as the winters. Still, he likes his job. It beats working behind a desk. Plus, the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift offers more freedom.
Trudging through knee-high snow, the last order of business is parking the two rows of cars so the doors line up, letting workers unload two cars at a time. Another upside to this exercise: It gives the beer one last shove.
When Mr. Diamond climbs back into the cab of the locomotive, his beard is caked with ice. It's 9 p.m. and zero degrees outside. “Just another rough night on the railroad,” he says. The next morning the beer was unloaded. Not one had frozen.
FROM Crain's Chicago Business: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... -freezing#
