Darryl Sullivan, a crew member aboard PR-3, climbs down from the cab of the locomotive as the train prepares to depart from the train yard in Cumberland for a run to the port of Providence.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

For trainmaster Steve Buckless and his two-man crew, the day begins at 7 a.m. at the Providence & Worcester Railroad’s Mill Street, Cumberland, depot. Fueled and coupled together, two distinctive orange-and-brown locomotives wait in a barn, their 2,000-horsepower diesel-electric motors idling. They sound ready.

Buckless climbs inside the lead engine and sits at the console, an array of gauges, switches and levers on the right side of the cab. Checks confirm that everything’s working properly. Buckless pulls out of the barn, then backs up toward a row of parked freight cars. Crewmates Darrell Sullivan and Dean Johnson stand on the tracks. Computers regulate rail traffic, but assembling a train still requires a human touch.

With 250 tons, 120 feet of twin locomotives beneath him, Buckless cannot see the couplers where his engines will connect to the lead car. He listens to the radio as Sullivan counts down the distance to contact.

“Ten cars,” says Sullivan.

Buckless throttles back.

“Five cars,” Sullivan says. “Three. Two. One. Half a car. Ten feet. Good!”

The engines hitch to the cars without sound or vibration; with 32 years at the P&W, Buckless, 49, has a soft touch. Most are empty coal hoppers, but two tank cars hold hazardous chemicals. An accident could mean disaster.

Johnson hops aboard the rear engine and Sullivan, 47, joins Buckless in the cab of the lead. The three rotate duty, with each getting a turn at the throttle every third day.

Train PR-3 starts toward the Providence waterfront, home to businesses that rely on bulk transportation at rates only rail can provide on land. A big company cannot move much coal or cement by truck or plane and expect to make money.

Train PR-3 crosses a bridge over the Blackstone River, where freight in a bygone era was shipped by barge. It gains speed passing the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. Speed is a relative term when describing freight-hauling in the urban environment: PR-3 is doing 12 mph. The locomotive sways rhythmically, side to side, as it traverses old wooden-tie tracks.

Soon, it’s running parallel to Amtrak’s passenger line, with its concrete ties and electric power. An Acela headed for New York rockets by. Buckless blows the horn at two old men who wave down from a bridge. Sullivan talks on his cell phone to today’s customers, confirming details of time and cargo, which includes cement and chlorine.With the throttle set, Buckless need do nothing but watch and listen –– and be ready to react in an instant. Every so often, he taps the “whisker switch” –– an evolution of the traditional dead man’s switch. If more than 20 seconds pass without the engineer touching it or a control, the alerter system will begin to flash and buzz. The alarms will intensify, and without confirmation that the guy driving is still in command, the system will stop the train.

“You’ve got to let the locomotive know you’re still alive,” Buckless says.

STRICTLY by the numbers, the P&W is small. With 160 employees and revenues of $29.7 million last year, it operates on 545 miles of track in four states: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. By comparison, Union Pacific, America’s largest freight carrier, employs 48,000 people, recorded $16 billion in revenues last year, and operates on 32,000 miles of track in 23 states.

But the P&W, founded in 1844, two decades before Union Pacific, plays a significant role in the economy. And not just regionally, but nationally and globally, too.

The railroad moves low-sulfur coal imported by ship from Venezuela and Colombia (bound for a New England power plant) and abrasive materials from Poland (headed for a U.S. sandpaper factory). It moves scrap metal being exported to Asia. It moves domestic freight including steel, lumber, plastics, ethanol, automobiles, animal and vegetable oils, and containerized apparel, footware and food.

“Just about anything you use in your daily life,” says marketing vice president Frank K. Rogers. “We basically link Southern New England into the global economy.”

With its 30 locomotives, the P&W transports some 35,000 cars of freight a year. Although the company had net income last year of only $166,000, attributable to the high cost of fuel and the global recession, Wall Street sees continued value. Its stock at the close of trading on Monday was selling $11.50 a share –– 40 cents less than Bank of America’s.

In an echo of the children’s story of the little engine that could, the Providence & Worcester has adopted a motto pointing toward a future: “The railroad that can … and will!”

BELL CLANGING, Buckless brings PR-3 through Providence station and on toward the Cranston depot, a series of tracks visible from Route 95 near the Route 10 overpass. The train is smoking now: 30 mph on a straight stretch of new track that engineer and crew know intimately.

“I’ve been around a while,” Buckless says.

“We do this every day,” says Sullivan.

At Cranston, they drop some cars and pick up others, then travel past the elephants at Roger Williams Park into Harbor Junction, aka the Providence waterfront. PR-3 delivers cement and chlorine and picks up empty hopper cars. The tracks here are creaky, the passage slow and repeatedly punctuated by stops as Sullivan and Johnson set and reset old-fashioned manual switches. Locomotives cannot turn around, of course, so movement becomes a massive game of chess.

Noon nears. It is an uncharacteristically slow shift, dictated by light customer demand on this day.

They leave the hopper cars at Cranston depot for another crew to retrieve and start back north. Sullivan calls a dispatcher on duty at Boston’s South Station to say they’re under way. We will have to cross the passenger line, and Amtrak always comes first.

Passing Harris Avenue, Sullivan calls Worcester.

“We’re on our way back to Cumberland Valley Falls,” he says.

Bell and horns sounding, we approach Mill Street. The crossing gate starts to lower. A woman driving a minvan stops, then starts forward.

“Don’t do it, lady,” Sullivan says.

The woman loses her bravado. Two-hundred-fifty tons of iron has that effect.

The crew of PR-3 parks their train.

“We got lucky today,” says Buckless. “I’ll be able to go home and mow the lawn.”

More on the Providence & Worcester Railroad is at www.pwrr.com

gwmiller@projo.com