A Drain, a Train, and the Waltham Way Pain

Few things in civilized life are more exciting than a county road repair, particularly when the road contains a railroad crossing, and the repair involves something called a slot drain. A slot drain sounds harmless enough, like a place where someone might lose a spoon, but in Storey County it has achieved the sort of importance usually reserved for dams, elections, and rumors about a casino coming to town.

On Thursday, August 20, at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning, Storey County and its partners in public improvement descended upon the Union Pacific Railroad crossing on Waltham Way near Wild Horse Canyon Drive. Their mission was noble: repair a failing slot drain before it could fail any farther, which is the sort of preventive wisdom that civilization has been practicing ever since somebody first put a roof on a house and discovered that rain has a habit of coming down.

The county had thoughtfully warned motorists that there would be traffic impacts throughout the day. This is government language for, “You may proceed, but you will not proceed in the manner to which you have become accustomed.”

The road remained open, which was comforting, though “open” in this case came with qualifications. Traffic was reduced to one lane, flaggers directed motorists, and portions of the roadway were closed temporarily. In other words, Waltham Way was accessible in much the same fashion that a revolving door remains accessible to a man carrying a piano.

The operation was conducted in cooperation with Sierra Nevada Construction and Union Pacific Railroad because when you undertake repairs at a railroad crossing, you discover there are several varieties of traffic to consider. The county had its motorists, the railroad had its trains, and somewhere in the middle stood a failing drain, apparently determined to bring all three parties together in a meeting that nobody had requested.

The repair crews had devised a sensible plan. They would work on one half of the roadway at a time. Traffic would occupy the other half, under the watchful authority of flaggers. Then, once the first half was repaired, the traffic would be shifted, and the crews would tackle the other half.

This is the sort of arrangement that looks wonderfully simple on paper. On paper, a road has no impatient driver, no distracted motorist, no person who suddenly remembers that he has absolutely no idea where he is going, and certainly no fellow who sees a flagger holding up traffic and decides that the flagger is merely making a suggestion.

In actual life, however, road construction introduces a new branch of human behavior. A driver approaches a lane closure and immediately becomes an amateur transportation engineer. He studies the cones. He studies the flagger. He studies the signs. Then, after absorbing all available information, he does something completely unexpected.

He slows down. This is considered progress.

Storey County, to its credit, was taking every reasonable measure to prevent the project from becoming a larger inconvenience than necessary. Traffic flaggers would direct motorists, while Union Pacific Railroad would provide flagging for train traffic. Thus there would be two separate authorities waving things at moving objects, each hoping that the other had remembered what was supposed to happen next.

The railroad, naturally, could not be expected to halt the nation's freight system because a drain had become unreliable. Trains have schedules, cargoes, destinations, and that immense iron determination which trains have possessed since the first locomotive discovered that stopping takes more effort than continuing.

A motorist, meanwhile, has a schedule of a different kind. It may consist of getting to work, getting home, picking up groceries, or simply arriving somewhere five minutes sooner than the person in the car behind him.

All temporary lane closures come with philosophical questions: Why must I wait? Why today? Why here? Why is that train allowed to go first?

The answer, of course, is that the train is a train.

Still, the county asked for patience and cooperation, and this was entirely reasonable. Patience is one of those virtues that everybody supports in theory. We admire it in saints, recommend it to children, and become suspicious of it the moment a flagger raises a paddle in front of our automobile.

The motorists were advised to slow down, obey the posted traffic-control signs, and use caution through the work zone. This is sound advice and ought to be followed. There is very little to be gained by entering a construction zone at high speed unless one's objective is to become part of the construction project.

There would be temporary lane closures and delays, but access along Waltham Way would be maintained throughout the project. This distinction is important. A road can be open and inconvenient at the same time, just as a restaurant can be open and still require you to wait for a table. Civilization is full of such arrangements. We have learned to accept them because there are no alternatives that do not involve revolution.

The real culprit in this affair was the slot drain.

Nobody knows precisely when the slot drain first began to fail. Perhaps it had grown tired of its duties. Perhaps it had developed philosophical objections to carrying water beneath a railroad crossing. Perhaps, after years of faithful service, it had simply decided that enough was enough and that the county could find somebody else to deal with the runoff.

Whatever the cause, the drain had reached the point where respectable governments must intervene. A failing drain is not the sort of thing one ignores in Nevada.

Water is a peculiar commodity here. When it is absent, people complain. When it arrives, people complain differently. When water decides to traverse a road and not the drain, engineers get involved.

Thus the county gathered its contractors, the railroad gathered its flaggers, and the motorists gathered their patience. The machinery appeared, the cones were arranged, and Waltham Way entered that temporary state known to every driver as “Why has traffic stopped?”

There would undoubtedly be a motorist who arrived at the work zone, rolled down his window, and asked the flagger how long the delay would be. The flagger, being a professional, would answer politely.

The motorist would then ask whether there was another way around. The flagger would explain the available route.

The motorist would consider this information carefully, as though the question had been submitted to the Supreme Court. Then they waited.

This, in its own modest way, is how civilization survives.

The county's plan to repair one side of the roadway at a time also demonstrated the great American principle of compromise. Nobody gets everything he wants.

The construction crew gets half the road, the motorists get the other half, and the railroad gets its trains. The drain gets repaired, and everybody agrees to be mildly dissatisfied until the work is finished.

By the end of the project, assuming mankind has not abandoned engineering altogether, Waltham Way will once again resemble a normal road. The cones will disappear, the flaggers will go home, the railroad will continue sending trains across Nevada, and motorists will accelerate to their customary speeds and forget that they were ever asked to be patient.

The repaired slot drain will perform its humble duty without receiving so much as a word of praise. This is the fate of most infrastructure.

Nobody thinks about a drain when it works. Nobody thanks a culvert.

Nobody pulls over to admire a properly functioning storm sewer. Infrastructure earns attention only when it stops doing its job, at which point everyone suddenly becomes an expert.

So Storey County deserves a measure of gratitude for repairing the thing before it became a larger problem. The project may have caused delays, inconvenienced a few schedules, and provoked some temporary muttering behind steering wheels. They are small prices to pay for keeping a road and railroad crossing functioning properly.

And if there is a lesson in the whole affair, it is this: when you see a construction zone, slow down. When you see a flagger, pay attention. When you see a train, remember that it weighs somewhat more than your pickup.

And when you see a sign warning of temporary delays on Waltham Way, do not take it personally. The county has not arranged the whole enterprise merely to interfere with your afternoon.

It is only repairing a drain. Which, in Storey County, is apparently how an otherwise ordinary Thursday becomes an event requiring the cooperation of county government, construction companies, a railroad, two sets of flaggers, several hundred motorists, and one long-suffering piece of plumbing.