Railroaders' Nostalgia > Don Pierce

Don Pierce had large ears and was on the tobacco industries Christmas card list. He would buy generic brand cigarettes that came in plain white boxes with a red stripe on the box for extra strength or a blue stripe for oh so soothing menthol. When I was working as a brakeman I would ride in the second motor. Don would always have the overhead cab light on so he could look at his flip top cigarette boxes that he would line up next to eachother on the control stand or desk on the wide cab / comfort cab units. It looked like a salad bar of what would eventualy kill him. With that cab light on and me looking at the the back of his head from the 2nd unit his ears would glow just like a  wheel with sticking brakes. When I would be in the cab with Don he would spark up a new one as soon as the one burning in his hand was done. Then after a while he would start coughing and hacking and reach for that oh so soothing box with the blue stripe. If Don was running a SD 40-2 or SD 50 or SD60 with a conventional cab he always rested his right hand with the burning cigarette exactly above the cab signal accuation lever. This caused the ashes to make an inverted cone shaped little pile that due to the ashes hitting the cab signal lever made a little void in the tip of the cone shape resembling a volcano. Don was a great engineer, one of the best I ever worked with as there were many more. Refering back to the thread that started this on the Nostalgia & History section Don like many others brought a scanner along to listen to road formen and other managers set up stop tests.That was way before cell phones repalced thaose type of conversations. But Don took his to another level. He would listen to anyone using a radio. Truck drivers,ham radio users,and early cell phones. Late one Sunday night while our usual UP 12 to 14 mph speed up Cajon Pass Don came across a phone call involving some guy who had no luck getting "lucky" all week end so he went to his list of lady friends to solve that problem. This dude was in Lake Elsinore, Calif and his hopes were in Ventura, Calif. This conversation of begging lasted close to two hours before the poor girl finally got him off the phone. While he was telling her how he was going to make it worth her while to  stay up another two and a half hours for him to drive there in great detail and Don was exhausting his supply of smokes. I'm sure as far as Don was concerned this made buying that scanner worth every cent.

Excellent Fred! I remember Don well, your description is spot on. In spite of those giant ears, he was hard of hearing and also had an external speaker for the scanner on many trips. His cigarettes and that giant jug he drank iced tea out of were disgusting. I don't think he ever cleaned that thing. You could always tell when he had been in a locomotive from the ashes and butts. He had a dry sense of humor as I recall. Wasn't he the engineer on that coal train that got rearended by a Santa Fe train around Keenbrook in the late 90s? I think someone told me that but my recollection is foggy on that detail now.

This is where the Don Pierce story started. http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3879794

We had a guy on the rip track that lit one Pycikune (sp) cigarette off another.
Those were somthing from New Orleans.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Great story Fred and Jeff !  I like the first person stories of characters you had to work with. Hope he rests in peace .
Tom

Fredo Wrote:
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> This is where the Don Pierce story started.
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,
> 3879794

Thanks Fredo. I somehow missed that thread completely. Good stuff. Lots of names from my UP past.

Fredo Wrote:
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. With
> that cab light on and me looking at the the back
> of his head from the 2nd unit his ears would glow
> just like a  wheel with sticking brakes.

  I laughed so hard when I read this!

I never worked the road with Don, but worked several yard jobs with him. And it's true, he always had a cigarette going at all times. The things I remember most about him though was his scanners and all the wiring speakers and antennas strung throughout the cab to get the best reception. The old 10 hundreds (NW2s) that we had in L.A. at the time, had pretty cramped cabs but that never stopped Don from stinging his antennas from the control stand to the overhead light and along the front window. Used to piss off some of the switchmen and foremen when Don missed a hand sign while he was dialing in his scanners and radios. As mentioned, Don was a damn good engineer other than his little quirks.-BMT

Great story Fred, your words paint a picture better than Kodachome. The smoking was tough to take for 12 hours, but you knew you would be okay, he was a really good engineer. I almost offered to bleach out that rancid tea bottle, but did not have any bleach. Nice guy too, a character straight out of charactersville. 

THAT was some nifty prose.
...Lorenzo