The conductors and engineers who work on Virginia Railway Express trains are put up in hotel rooms every day, given free reign to use the pool, exercise room or watch television as part of their jobs. The company that operates the commuter train service rents 40 rooms in the middle of each weekday at the Fairfield Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels off New York Avenue Northeast between the morning and afternoon trips that connect commuters from Northern Virginia to jobs in Washington.

VRE workers’ schedules vary, but the first trains of the day leave at 5:05 a.m. and the last ones return just after 8 p.m., not including the preparation time required for the crews. The workers have a break window of anywhere from four to seven hours.