10/31/2025
When most people think train conductors, they think about a person on a passenger train collecting tickets and letting passengers know when it’s time to depart.
Toni Colton is a conductor at Ellis & Eastern, and that couldn’t be farther from her job description.
Toni spends her days building trains, directing rail traffic and making sure her Knife River and external customers get their cars in the right place at the right time. It can be stressful – think playing Tetris with 130-ton rail cars – but there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.
Click here to read more about Toni and her career in the railroad!
When most people think train conductors, they think about someone in a suit, collecting tickets and giving the traditional ‘all aboard!’ call to let passengers know the train is about to depart. While that depiction may be true in movies or on passenger trains, conductors on short line railroads...
