Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 16

16 Tulsa OK Mar 15-18 Wichita KS Mar 19-23

From Oklahoma City it was a mile or so of Rock Island, 120mi of Frisco, and then the MoPac to the site. No diesel helper this time.
I don't remember much about Tulsa itself, so for filler I'll put this here- right about this time there was a wave of wage cuts at about the level of middle management, as much as the AFT had such a thing. The curator's salary was on the list of cuts. At the time Hope was curator and Wild Bill was her assistant. Hope balked at the cut and threatened to.. well, I can't imagine what. Quit? Suit yourself. Wild stepped into Hope's spot, and then turned around and (based on my having helped out in Odessa) offered me his. I was now Assistant Curator. The irony here is that as a result of wage cuts, Wild and I got raises! (Hello, again, Dumb Luck!)

Oh, and for the curious: My monthly AFT salary was $666.66/Mo. Weird, huh?

Photo 1

But there was a problem: the Asst Curator was not a “live aboard” job, it was like most AFT positions, a hotel/drive yourself job. My Bunk Car spot would go to my replacement, unless...
I made a proposal to Greg (head of operations). There were all sorts of little one-man tasks on move nights & set ups. Now if all those tasks were made the responsibility of one man (you know, like, oh.. me) instead of randomly assigning them each time- it would create a stand alone job. I'd still help unload the flat cars, and still live aboard, saving The Foundation the cost of a hotel room. Greg liked it, and created the new Asst Curator/Operations position, which I held for the duration.

Meanwhile there was something new on the rear of the 4449: an MU box!
Back story: The Freedom Train tour began in Wilmington DE in Apr 75. The 2101 (T-1) handled things as far as Chicago, where the '49 would take over in Aug 75.
The 4449 had arrived in Chicago about a month before the train, and waited at EMD (in nearby La Grange). Jack W was the EMD guy acting as liaison to the visiting 4449, and somewhere along the line Doyle said, “You know what would be cool..... “
In Tulsa, 8mo later, Jack delivered. Doyle now had control of any helpers the RR's might assign us. Life got easier for everyone involved.

Photo 2 The MU box before it was painted to match the red stripe.

From Tulsa we ran to Wichita KS over the Santa Fe (although the sites at both ends were on the MoPac- so they did the switching). The ATSF route between the two is not direct, so there was quite a dog-leg. Another strange thing about this move was that the display section of the train ran in reverse order, so the Bunk Car was trailing the flats- we had no access to the Pie Car!! (Yeah yeah, I can hear Tool Car guys: “Waa-Waa”) We had a diesel helper part of the way, so Doyle got to try out the MU for the first time.

In Wichita we displayed on a riverside track alongside Lawrence Stadium. To get there we first backed over a bridge across the Arkansas River. That track crossed the riverside line at 90, and had a connecting track that allowed a kind of 3 point turn. The train was broken up, bringing in the '49 first before the main consist- that's how I got the odd photo of the PreAmble cars taken from the 4449.

Photos 3&4

Today this is all gone. Not just the riverside track- the bridge too!

Okay, last week I wrote about our travels through Oklahoma & Kansas and how we'd attracted the attention of the Indian Nations. And last week I talked about Laurie's part- The Good. This week....

The Bad.

Photo 5

John was head of AFT Security. He was ex-FBI. We called him “Mad Dog”. One of our moves across OK/KS took us through Reservation lands, I'm not sure exactly which leg it was on, but it was somewhere between Oklahoma City and Kansas City. Doesn't really matter. Mad Dog was convinced the train would be attacked by Indians late at night. Really? So his strategy: Keep the Display Cars lit (to draw fire) and the Bunk Car/PreAmbles dark (Ah!). Meanwhile, he rode the darkened rear platform with a loaded shot gun! (To do what?! Pick off Indians?! Are you Out Of Your Mind!!) I'm not making this up.
(Okay, I'm guilty of having embellished this story in the past by including a bottle of Wild Turkey- but forget about that.... I'm going on record here.)

So if Laurie's efforts stand as a tribute to all that was Noble and Good about the AFT, then Mad Dog, well..... maybe he was a bit of a wack-job, but he was our wack-job.

sigh

SR Bush
Dutch Flat

Post Script: So how crazy was John? Well, a while later we found a small (bullet?) hole in one of the outside display windows. It was alarmingly close to, again- I'm not making this up, Howdy Doody! There's no telling how or when this happened, but maybe we should reconsider? Maybe Mad Dog was on to something....



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/14 18:06 by BoilingMan.

---

---

---

cont

---

---

Priceless!!!

Regards & thanks,
Burlington John

Great job as usual. However, I only count 4 photos. Which one am I missing?

Hi Jack- I wondered if you were following this. Did I get the MU story about right? (This stuff was nearly 40yrs ago, but I'm working hard to put together a credible history)
The 5th photo is the pay stub- you probably didn't count it.
SR

BoilingMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Jack- I wondered if you were following this.
> Did I get the MU story about right? (This stuff
> was nearly 40yrs ago, but I'm working hard to put
> together a credible history)
> The 5th photo is the pay stub- you probably didn't
> count it.
> SR

You sure did get it right!

You were correct, I didn't count that pay-stub. Keep up the great stories. You have been doing a VERY good job.