Railroaders' Nostalgia > Things I Learned When I Got Hired On The Railroad (FITTING IN)

I know my first thread on this was taken by some who didn't see the humor as a less than desirable topic, so this topic will be injected with a little more seriousness, so lemme share how it was when i first got hired ...

let's call this little short story ...

LEARNING TO FIT IN ... LET ALONE BEING A RAILFAN
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after reading Lanzo's eloquent tribute to his fellow co-worker comrade i thought about what it was like when i first got hired as a new employee and railfan ...

to start off most of the guys i worked when i first got hired at Penn Coach Yard at 30th St Station in the mid 70s were from around Philly proper, meaning the inner city itself ... it was a rough crowd ... Philly like Camden where i grew up was made up of little neighborhood ... yup these hoods were were tough neighborhoods ... i'd say at least 50-60% of the guys were my age of 20 between 18 and 25 and had anywhere from being newly hired to approx 1-7 years on the railroad ... the rest were seasoned old heads with 20 or more years mixed with a few tweeners, so there was a lot of testosterone and wildness ...

most of the guys had the city to bind them I but others like me were on the outside ... if they didn't know you, you couldn't be trusted ... i was a concrete jungle boy myself so i had that in common with them ... one thing you couldn't do is let yourself be a pincushion and you hadda give it as well as take it ... these guys would breeeeeeaaaak your baaaalls to noooooo end to try to break you ... you either laughed or cried ... almost like an initiation ... this wasn't new to me growing up across the river in Camden but i was in a new world ... in my hood in Camden i knew everybody so i was already accepted ... working with these guys i hadda start all over again to show i could be trusted ... it was almost like high school all over and i transferred to a new school but i was getting paid ...

these guys were anything but tolerant of railfans ... they hated anybody that had anything to do with the railroad that saw it as a hobby ... that included paid employees and railfans alike ... those railfan people were known as "RICKY RAILROADERS" and were treated like outcasts and were ridiculed ... in their eyes if you were a "RICKY" you didn't take your job seriously, you were there for the wrong reasons and you couldn't be counted on ... the atmosphere again was like high school but it was important that you could be trusted to work with ...

they were also crazy sons of bitches who liked to drink and me being who i was and where i was from related to their mentality ... case in point ... in the late 80s we were working rehabbing the at the time Amtrak/NJT AC Line in NJ ... the railroad put us up in a hotel in Atlantic City ... the railroad had hired a consultant for the Beach Movable Bridge dismantling, reconstruction and rehab project ... he was an Australian named John from down unda ... we invited him to hang out with us and he accepted ... after a couple of days of sucking down suds after work he just blurts out and i quote "ya know throughout the years i been around a lot of railroaders all over the world and we drank a lotta beer BUT YOU BLOKES ARE BLOOMIN ALCHOHOLICS and some of the best railroaders i ever worked around" ...

when i first got hired, as a railfan, i either either hadda keep my railfan side in the closet and be accepted by my work peers or using this analogy <sit alone at the lunch table having peanut shells thrown at me> ... i personally don't like being the target of peanut shells ... ask any railroader, when you're new, if you plan on making the railroad your career the last thing you want is a stigma that will follow you around your whole career so you do best to fit in ... i blended in rather quickly ... i never hid my like for train but i wouldn't be so bold say in the first 5 years or so as to bring a camera to work which had me miss YEEEEAAAARS of railroad history and nostalgia especially those 70s years ...

in summary, in time i made some good relationships ... i've intertwined my closest work friends, homey Camden friends and my neighbor friends where we do activities together ... i had real good times and some not so good times working ... some of those times were barely tolerable but most were enjoyable, having fun and getting paid ... i travel with my railroad buddies ... my 25 year season ticket holder football buddies are my railroad friends and we go around the country to away football games altho the past few years i've been sidelined with issues caused by a permanent work related injury and subsequent illness ... hopefully i can get back on that travel horse again ... SOOON !!!

lessoned learned ??? ... as for strictly work and money, friends excluded, i shudda not been a DUMBA$$ and rejected my railroader pop's offer to get me hired when i got out of high school in '73 ... i lost 4 years seniority altho my seniority would've been for another company and working in different craft (T&E) ... i wudda made more money ... i wudda saved a ton of money in gas and bridge tolls alone over 35 years and to a lesser extent i would've worked with people from my hood where it would've been less stressful in the beginning but looking back that was a real small hurdle but at the time FITTING IN was a big deal ...