By Griffin Bass
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Todd Santmyer wakes up at 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, like he does every Monday through Thursday. After a cup of coffee and checking his work email to make sure nothing major happened over night, Santmyer grabs a frozen El Monterey burrito and heads to work at 4:30 a.m. It’s nearly a straight shot from his home in Lineboro, Maryland, down Falls Road to I-83 South where he takes the North Avenue exit, no more than a 45-minute drive, never hitting any traffic.
Santmyer just arrived at the Maryland Transit Administration Systems Maintenance facility, where he is the assistant superintendent. He continued to work at Systems Maintenance throughout the pandemic, being deemed essential, like so many other Marylanders. Many people don’t realize it but those who rely on the light rail to get them to work during the pandemic and travel through Baltimore are relying on Todd Santmyer to minimize delays with the light rail.
Santmyer’s job is to oversee everything that happens at the MTA, mainly the light rail system. When there is a delay while you’re waiting for your light rail train, Santmyer is the guy working to solve the problem.
Santmyer has to get into work before most people are awake. That doesn’t bother him. The excitement of the job and anticipation of what the day may bring motivates him to attack each day and get to work early each morning.
“There’s never any monotony,” Santmyer said. “There is always something going on. We’re a 24-hour facility. I’ll get here tomorrow, and someone will be stealing wire, there will probably be someone driving on the tracks by accident. It’s always something, There’s never a dull moment.”
Santmyer tends to get worried if they ever go multiple days without anything happening.
“That’s the calm before the storm,” Santmyer said. “And there is a storm.”
He was referring to an incident that happened a few weeks ago on Howard Street. A car ran a red light at an intersection with the light rail and the car ended up wedged between two light rail trains. When the incident initially happened, no one knew how serious the situation was. That is where Santmyer came in. He got called upon the scene to investigate and assess the situation. He must determine what help is needed and who to get in there to fix it and get the light rail back and running again.
“When I got there, I was like, ‘We need to send the cavalry, because it’s major,’” Santmyer said.
Major it was, as the crash resulted in one of the three automobile passengers dying.
“We had to put these hydraulic jacks down that pick the train up,” Santmyer said, describing how they cleaned up the crash. “It slides the train to the left of the track to give the firefighters room to pull the people and the car out. After everything was clear, we had to have diesel locomotives hook up to the trains and bring them back to the yard.”
Todd Santmyer has worked for the MTA for 16 years, starting in the catenary department where he walked the tracks every night. Now he is the assistant superintendent of systems maintenance. He gets to work closely with Superintendent Mike Shenk.
“Todd and I work well together,” Shenk said. “We have similar personalities, and it’s easy to work with him.”
Shenk, who worked at Amtrak for 10 years before becoming the superintendent a little under a year ago, enjoys the job without showing excitement in the same fashion Santmyer does on a daily basis. The job requires him to work odd hours, but Santmyer finds that all worth it.
“He’s in a good mood when he gets home,” said Carrie Santmyer, Todd Santmyer’s wife, who has been working from home since the start of the pandemic. “He’s good at not letting the stress of the day get to him.”
“I like going in in the morning, learning what happened overnight and what challenges I have to face during the day,” Santmyer said. “One thing I like about this job, so many things happen over the course of a day. You can’t get bored.”
“I’m attracted to the unknown,” Santmyer said. “And there’s plenty of it.”