Grzegorz Pyrzyk and Daniel Baba have been travelling all over Poland as machine operators for many years. Grzegorz Pyrzyk has spent practically his entire working life with tamping machines: “As soon as I joined the company, I was put to work on a tamping machine. The first one was the MD 13 09, which was in 1984. And here I am, more than 40 years later, still working with tamping machines.”
Now Grzegorz Pyrzyk has been operating the MD 07-32 (no. 1942) for many years. Above all, he is impressed with its solid design: “It works under really tough conditions and is very robust. This machine has been running for 40 years and can run for another 40. Its design and electronics are high-quality, and most of the original circuit boards still work.”
Daniel Baba also knows that the extreme weather conditions in Poland are one of the biggest challenges for the machines and their operators: “Sometimes there’s heavy frost and the machine won't start, or the hydraulic hoses burst.” Fortunately, he and his colleague have only been in a really dangerous situation once: “In 2002, the machine burnt. The hydraulic system caught fire briefly, but fortunately we managed to extinguish it straight away. Otherwise, there haven’t been any accidents in all these years, thank God.” Grzegorz Pyrzyk is convinced that one thing counts above all in his job – experience: “It's basically a job with a lot of responsibility, no doubt, and the technology isn’t easy to master. If you want to be a good operator, you have to work with it for several years.”
Another decisive factor is intergenerational dialogue. For Daniel Baba, it is highly enriching to benefit from his older colleague's decades of experience: “As a team we’re pretty well-established, and the experienced blokes are constantly teaching me the finer points of how to operate the machine properly; I learn something new every day.”
“Good dialogue is a very important thing. And that we're open with each other, because we practically spend most of our lives together. On business trips, we’re often away from home for a week and live in railway carriages together. It’s essential that we trust and understand each other.”
Grzegorz Pyrzyk also finds it difficult to be away from his family for long periods of time. Nevertheless, the passionate machine operator has mixed feelings about his impending retirement. He can hardly imagine life without his MD 07-32: “I just really enjoy working with tamping machines. There’s a lot of affection there because the job can also be very fulfilling. After so many years, you just get attached to a machine like that, I guess that's the magic of inanimate things. And this relationship has grown again with age. It’ll be difficult to retire.”
