Railroaders' Nostalgia > Alameda Belt Line/The Oakland Terminal

I lasted a year at SP. The year of service was a decade of experience, but the culture was changing and I just couldn't deal with it.

For the first 6 months I was there, it was great. There was a lot of difficult railroading to be done. The major requirement was do it right, perfection preferred.

By early 1973, conditions were going downhill quickly.

One day, FMB (the chief) told me to get on with Fresno and fix the Coalinga Local. It was CTC Fresno to Goshen Jct. and dark train orders between Goshen Jct. and Coalinga. I told him, which he knew, of course, that it wasn't my territory, I couldn't fix the local. The Coalinga branch belonged to Valley-Mountain, handling between Mojave and Fresno. I was working the Saugus district between LA and Mojave and between Famoso and Fresno. He told me tthat the VM guy was buried and didn't have time to fix the branch. The trainmaster demanded that I do it. FMB used to stand up to that kind of BS, but times were a-changing. We had an uh...mmm...animated discussion. Finally he agreed that if I was going to do this, I had to do it right. He went to the next room and came back with the VM trainsheet and train order book. I rang Fresno and fixed the Coalinga Local.

A while later, I was working the Lathrop job: Fresno-Polk, Tracy-Lathrop, and Fresno-Tracy. I had one-on-one (one each way) on the West Side (Fresno-Tracy - ABS train orders) with a flat meet (train order: extra xxxx east meet extra xxxx west at station) at Mendota. Mendota OSed the west man

Mendota extra xxxx west 1230.

Arrived?

No, he blew on by.

I grabbed the train order book and did some speed reading. I was right, and sweating blood.

He's there for the east man!

It's ok. The trainmaster gave the east man some work at Los Banos and Dos Palos and told the west man to just go on over to Dos Palos to see him.

I was incredulous and furious. I stormed out to the Chief's office, up to FMB and let go a salvo. Nobody talks a train out of a flat meet on my railroad. Period! In his day, FMB would have been the same way. He would have been the same way 6 months ago. Now, it's he's the trainmaster. He was surely protecting it.

A bit later, a protege of mine was working the Saugus job. He had a work extra between Newhall and Sylmar, the order hanging to eastward trains at Saugus. There was a big PNL (lumber and paper) coming at Saugus. The work train was at Newhall, about ready to head to Saugus. FMB told my protege to take down the work order so that the PNL wouldn't be delayed being prepared to stop for the work extra's flagman. Spatch told him that he couldn't do that with the work train still out there. No, the trainmaster was worried about the PNL being delayed and maybe stalling on Newhall Hill, take the order down. There's interlocking between the east end of Saugus and the West end of Newhall. The PNL can go there on signal and they'll be able to see the work train when they go by Newhall. No, this was not the SP I hired out on nor the FMB I worked for.

On the assistant chief jobs, it was just as bad. I'd line up a train based on what the division needed. The train would leave with different traffic for other places and way more tonnage than I set up. When I complained, the answer was the trainmaster is in charge.

It's my crews and power and I'm responsible for them and how my entire district runs, not just his place. His place will get fixed but this has to happen first or it won't work.

But he's the trainmaster, he'll do what he wants.

Along about this time, I was watching tonnage "adjustments" at Bakersfield to qualify trains for Tehachapi. They would come out with the same car count they had when they arrived, but a lot less tonnage. I got to ride a runaway as part of it.

I had enough. I quit and moved to the Bay Area to do anything but railroad.

After a few months of work as a musician, freelance photographer, and odd jobs, I decided that maybe it wasn't the whole industry that was crazy. I went to Richmond to see if Santa Fe needed anybody. The trainmaster said that he did, but the policy was that hiring experience was unfair to others. I had to go to the unemployment office and sign up for work. Santa Fe had to hire off the list from the top. Nobody could be taken out of order. The list was purged monthly and you had to go sign up again.

Shortly after talking to the Santa Fe trainmaster, I got a call from Alameda Belt Line / The Oakland Terminal Railroad. Apparently they found out about me from the Santa Fe trainmaster. ICC had a big problem with ABL/TOTR. They were something like a year behind in Switching Settlements (Railroad A has the line haul and gets the revenue. Railroad B receives the car in the destination city and spots it on the consignee track on their line for a fee.). They were also that far behind in interchange records and demurrage (fee that a consignee or shipper pays for keeping a car for loading or unloading beyond the allowed time). Since ABL/TOTR had no line haul, the only way they got paid was switching and demurrage. They were running the railroad for free and had done so for a long time. They needed somebody to fix that. They didn't have a permanent position. There is a 60 day probationary period. They could let you go with no reason required before your 61st Day.

I worked at ABL/TOTR for two months as a mudhop (yard clerk), fixing the records and sending out bills, and developing a system to prevent the non-profit status of the railroad in the future.

When it was over, I went back to what I was doing for a while then decided I wanted to get back to railroading. If California had bizarre hiring requirements, I'd look elsewhere. I wrote some This is what I've done when do I start letters.

A couple of days later, the phone rang. It was the MILW chief in Tacoma.

You start tomorrow third trick at Kent.

Uh...chief...I'm in Hayward California, 1000 miles from you.

OK; make it day after tomorrow.

I left everything I had with some friends, jumped into the ride, and hit the road. There was only one place to go:

To Tacoma. (where you can get what you want if you know how to find it) (makes sense only to Tower of Power fans)

It's got to be better than the SP had become.

TAW



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/14 16:09 by TAW.

TAW Wrote:
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>
> It's got to be better than the SP had become.
>

Wishful thinking. Actually it was out of the fire, into the frying pan. A very hot frying pan.

Another excellent post.

Best regards,

Rob L.

TAW Wrote:
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> I had one-on-one (one each way) on the West Side
> (Fresno-Tracy - dark train orders)

West Side Line during this time was ABS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/14 18:15 by BCHellman.

Your chief needed to grow (or buy) a pair.

BCHellman Wrote:
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> TAW Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I had one-on-one (one each way) on the West
> Side
> > (Fresno-Tracy - dark train orders)
>
> West Side Line during this time was ABS.

right.

Dim memory...and if I thought about it for a minute, I would have remembered seeing the signals on the line. I usually use my library to reinforce dim memory, but it is all still in storage.

TAW

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Your chief needed to grow (or buy) a pair.

He was one of the two baddest chiefs I have worked for. In another story, I'll tell about a conversation he had (at my instigation) with the VP Operation. No, the whole culture of SP, at least that I could see, was changing quickly for the worse.

TAW



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/14 21:23 by TAW.

Two questions:
1. Can you define "fix" a train and why exactly it wasn't right to do it the way you were asked?
2. What motivated you to leave BOCT and how did you end up with SP?

Thanks. Great stuff as always.

TAW Wrote:
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> In another story, I'll tell about a
> conversation he had (at my instigation) with the
> VP Operation.

Excellent. Can't wait!

RRTom Wrote:
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> Two questions:
> 1. Can you define "fix" a train and why exactly it
> wasn't right to do it the way you were asked?

Sticking out the orders a train needs to run is fixing the train.

Each dispatcher position is assigned a specific section of line or more than one line. The trainsheet records all movements on the assigned territory. It is a real time model of traffic, maintained by the dispatcher recording OSes (mistakenly considered by management to be needless paperwork) and writing projected times in pencil. <http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2739881,2739881#2739881&gt; Trains are entered into columns of the trainsheet before they are fixed. The dispatcher examines the trainsheet for conflicting movements before fixing a train, ensuring that the new train has "something on" (timetable schedule or orders instructing the action of each to avoid a collision - meet,right of track, after, etc.). That's why trainsheets were configured with stations in the center and movements on the left side reading down and on the right side reading up. It was easy to look at a train's column and at the train columns on the other side, looking for potential conflicts. Note in the example that each column has an am or pm above the top station of its trip and below the bottom station. Those were written as the train information was entered on the sheet. It's called "cutting out" the train, defining the limits of the trip.


Without the trainsheet and train order book assigned to the territory, any order affecting train movement could result in a collision.



> 2. What motivated you to leave BOCT

There were some non-railroad factors too, but there was a big railroad factor. The chief was going to retire soon and I was his choice to succeed him. I didn't think I knew how to run a railroad, just that railroad. I wanted to work where there was heavy single track train order territory, mountain railroading, and long distances.

>and how did
> you end up with SP?

I thought it best fit what I wanted to learn about. I took a road trip to CA. I looked at Roseville and LA, but Bakersfield was a perfect fit. The chief had a reputation for being difficult to work for, the railroading was difficult, and it was hard to find dispatchers who wanted to work there.

TAW

>
> Thanks. Great stuff as always.

TAW Wrote:

> I worked at ABL/TOTR for two months as a mudhop
> (yard clerk), fixing the records and sending out
> bills, and developing a system to prevent the
> non-profit status of the railroad in the future.

How much command and control did ATSF and WP exert over the goings-on at ABL/TOTR? I understand Perlman was technically president of the shortlines when he was president of the WP, but the workforce on the ground was hired and paid by the ABL rather than the Class-1 owners. Did the big guys subsidize the shortlines (enabling the "non-profit" situation?), or did the Alameda Belt and Oakland Terminal have to sink or swim on their own? Likewise, were "profits" passed up the chain or banked at the local level? Were you answerable to someone at the Class-1's, or only to managers at the shortlines?

Great post. MDO, JLY and other former SP guys need to comment on it.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW Wrote:
>
> > I worked at ABL/TOTR for two months as a mudhop
> > (yard clerk), fixing the records and sending
> out
> > bills, and developing a system to prevent the
> > non-profit status of the railroad in the
> future.
>
> How much command and control did ATSF and WP exert
> over the goings-on at ABL/TOTR? I understand
> Perlman was technically president of the
> shortlines when he was president of the WP, but
> the workforce on the ground was hired and paid by
> the ABL rather than the Class-1 owners. Did the
> big guys subsidize the shortlines (enabling the
> "non-profit" situation?), or did the Alameda Belt
> and Oakland Terminal have to sink or swim on their
> own? Likewise, were "profits" passed up the chain
> or banked at the local level? Were you answerable
> to someone at the Class-1's, or only to managers
> at the shortlines?

The joint facility short lines like the ABL and OTR have (or 'had' with the ABL and OTR) a board made up of representatives from their owning roads. Most of them operate as cost centers only (they don't get a switch charge in other words) with costs apportioned out to the owning roads. The GM or Super at the road reports to the board. The UP and BNSF have dedicated joint facilities departments.

Waybiller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Evan_Werkema Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > TAW Wrote:
> >
> > > I worked at ABL/TOTR for two months as a
> mudhop
> > > (yard clerk), fixing the records and sending
> > out
> > > bills, and developing a system to prevent the
> > > non-profit status of the railroad in the
> > future.
> >
> > How much command and control did ATSF and WP
> exert
> > over the goings-on at ABL/TOTR? I understand
> > Perlman was technically president of the
> > shortlines when he was president of the WP, but
> > the workforce on the ground was hired and paid
> by
> > the ABL rather than the Class-1 owners. Did
> the
> > big guys subsidize the shortlines (enabling the
> > "non-profit" situation?), or did the Alameda
> Belt
> > and Oakland Terminal have to sink or swim on
> their
> > own? Likewise, were "profits" passed up the
> chain
> > or banked at the local level? Were you
> answerable
> > to someone at the Class-1's, or only to
> managers
> > at the shortlines?
>
> The joint facility short lines like the ABL and
> OTR have (or 'had' with the ABL and OTR) a board
> made up of representatives from their owning
> roads. Most of them operate as cost centers only
> (they don't get a switch charge in other words)
> with costs apportioned out to the owning roads.
> The GM or Super at the road reports to the board.
> The UP and BNSF have dedicated joint facilities
> departments.

right...
but before they hired me, they weren't charging SP either

TAW