Railroaders' Nostalgia > Your thoughts on telling stories?

When I hired out on the UP, I was very eager to learn as much history as I could but I found most of the old heads not interested in talking about it and any railfan employees to be soundly in the closet with their interests. Even after nearly three decades on the UP, I'm still finding out that certain coworkers are railfans, guys I've been working with all this time who've never let on one bit. In contrast, I've found many more people on the SP side who are not only willing to talk about railroad history but who are enthusiastic about it. Even those who are not railfans seem to be proud of the company's history to some degree. The only reason I can figure for the difference between the two roads is the way the company treated it's people and thus the employees attitude about the whole thing.

  That all being said, I've heard a lot of great stories over the years. Some in full detail, some just the jist of them. In some cases, I know who the players were others I have no idea. These are stories that deserve to be heard but they're not my stories. I wasn't there and in most cases I can't tell you when or to whom they happened so I'm reluctant to repeat them. Likely, there are others on this forum that know the stories better than I do, and some of them may be the persons who were involved. The statute of limitations has run out on them so they wouldn't get anybody in trouble but I don't want to embarrass anyone, especially me, by going and telling a half baked story that someone else my have more details about. What do you guys think?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/16 16:49 by crackerjackhoghead.

crackerjackhoghead Wrote:
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> ... In contrast, I've found many more people on the SP side who are not only willing to
> talk about railroad history but who are enthusiastic about it. Even those who are not
> railfans seem to be proud of the company's history to some degree. The only reason 
> I can figure for the difference between the two roads is the way the company treated it's
> people and thus the employees attitude about the whole thing. ...


In all the years I worked for the railroad (just under 43) I only admitted I was a railfan to a small handful of fellow employees and those were ones who were also railfans. Sometimes I'd find out they were railfans through other people, kind of a secret society, and then we'd "railfan". On the other side of the coin if I had a conductor who would routinely bash railfans I would try to keep my cool but at some point if it went on long enough I'd lose it I'd ask them what THEY did as a hobby and then bash their hobby as being stupid to somebody not interested in it - that would usually have the result they'd stop bitching around me.

But I think your comment about how SP treated its employees compared to how UP treated their employees is right on. There was no question in my mind SP was much better to work for with respect to how the lowly employees got treated. Any time we'd get around UP guys we could see the beat down, hopeless attitude they all had. Of course after the merger, and as more UP style managers came around and their way of doing things set it even most of the old SP guys started to develop that same attitude around here.

Working out of Eugene I would occasionally get augmented up to Brooklyn (Portland) for a week at a time. I always enjoyed working out of Brooklyn, although I wouldn't want to do it full time, plus we stayed in a nice hotel in Oregon City while augmented up there. But as SP guys we would have to go over to Albina Yard to get a train, usually the ALEUM, and bring it to Eugene. It always amazed me that when we walked into the crew room in Albina all the UP guys would be sitting in silence looking like their best friend just died or something; they were almost lifeless. There was very little talk between them and they really didn't even sit next to each other nor would they do anything without being told. We'd walk in and right away we'd be getting paperwork, finding where our power and train was, and then heading right back out to the roundhouse to get the power. The difference was like night and day and I was certainly not the only one to notice it around Albina because virtually all the SP guys would talk about how "beat down those UP guys are".

To the subject of your original post, I enjoy reading the stories on here even though I don't know the people. It's always amazing that as you read these stories so often you realize you've had the same experiences - railroading is railroading!

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/16 16:17 by Railbaron.

Tell your stories Jeff . You are a very good writer and put a lot of feeling into it rather than just dry statistics. Most are funny and I enjoy them .  I too don't like to start a story as some may either not believe it actually happened or think you screwed the company over in one way or another and should have been punished for something you were never caught for.  SP was a more lenient and easy going outfit to work for and most employees were happy at work.  I know first hand that is over and things can't be covered up too much. With SP   we ran through a switch or two and luckily we had enough trust on the crew to fix it so nobody got in trouble , even rerailed cars a few times with blocks of wood .It was almost inferred that was expected of you not to get the boss involved.   By the time I left the newer guys were so scared they turned themselves in all the time and it became a revolving door  .  So please tell your stories and if I was invoved all the better and  I will add to it if I can .   I think you can see by the views when you post that your stuff  is very popular . I never admitted to being a railfan all the way to the end of my career and I don't recommend anyone do . Foaming at work is a mistake and you need to focus on the task at hand.  I did have fun at work though but kept it to myself.
  I will start a story  by saying one day we got fouled trying to roll a dead GE dash something by and frogged ourselves at a certain cement plant.  We got a firehose off a building ( it was Sunday and nobody around )  and attached it to the couplers and pulled it by .  No harm was done and about 20 rules infractions blew out into the countryside.  Awwww , confession feels good !  Another time we fouled with a coal hopper at the same location and lucky there was a backhoe parked close by so I started it and nudged the car by.
Tom



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/16 16:44 by switchlamp.

I loved the firehose and backhoe moves.

One thing about "drops" there was no middle ground - they either went really well or really bad! (I've had both. <G>)

I have no idea why TO won't let me edit my previous post so I'll make a new one.


switchlamp Wrote:
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> ... I too don't like to start a story as some may either not believe it actually
> happened or think you screwed the company over in one way or another
​> and should have been punished for something you were never caught for.  ...


​I've been kind of afraid to post stories also, not that I have that many to tell, as I have also been concerned about people thinking they were made up or embellished. But I figure anybody who has been doing this for any length of time will realize even some of the most unusual and ridiculous things were well within reality, especially when people start talking about stuff before all the railroads went discipline crazy. I figure I'll tell it like it is/was and if somebody wants to say I'm full of crap, oh well, its their problem as I'm telling it like it was and hope others will also as I personally enjoy them even without knowing the players involved.
 

Railbaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> ​I've been kind of afraid to post stories also,
> not that I have that many to tell, as I have also
> been concerned about people thinking they were
> made up or embellished. But I figure anybody who
> has been doing this for any length of time will
> realize even some of the most unusual and
> ridiculous things were well within reality,
> especially when people start talking about stuff
> before all the railroads went discipline crazy. I
> figure I'll tell it like it is/was and if somebody
> wants to say I'm full of crap, oh well, its their
> problem as I'm telling it like it was and hope
> others will also as I personally enjoy them even
> without knowing the players involved.


  Uttered over the radio at work, daily, "You can't make this s#&t up!

Railbaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I
> figure I'll tell it like it is/was and if somebody
> wants to say I'm full of crap, oh well, its their
> problem as I'm telling it like it was and hope
> others will also as I personally enjoy them even
> without knowing the players involved.
>  

You keep on tellin' 'em, Railbaron!  I always enjoy your tales.  And btw, a certain former SP OR Division hoghead (much better known as a steam locomotive engineer) used to make almost the exact same comments about the UP guys in Albina.

switchlamp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>   I will start a story  by saying one day we got
> fouled trying to roll a dead GE dash something by
> and frogged ourselves at a certain cement plant. 
> We got a firehose off a building ( it was Sunday
> and nobody around )  and attached it to the
> couplers and pulled it by .  No harm was done and
> about 20 rules infractions blew out into the
> countryside.  Awwww , confession feels good ! 
> Another time we fouled with a coal hopper at the
> same location and lucky there was a backhoe parked
> close by so I started it and nudged the car by.
> Tom

Funny stuff Tom!  I absolutely know which cement plant you are referring to...


Allen

Railbaron" said:  "In all the years I worked for the railroad (just under 43) I only admitted I was a railfan to a small handful of fellow employees and those were ones who were also railfans. Sometimes I'd find out they were railfans through other people, kind of a secret society, and then we'd "railfan".

Dave - How long did it take you to find out Tom Dill was a railfan employee or did you already know? 


Allen

Yes you do know which plant Allen ,

Tom

Railbaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> But I think your comment about how SP treated its
> employees compared to how UP treated their
> employees is right on. There was no question in my
> mind SP was much better to work for with respect
> to how the lowly employees got treated. Any time
> we'd get around UP guys we could see the beat
> down, hopeless attitude they all had. Of course
> after the merger, and as more UP style managers
> came around and their way of doing things set it
> even most of the old SP guys started to develop
> that same attitude around here.
>
> Working out of Eugene I would occasionally get
> augmented up to Brooklyn (Portland) for a week at
> a time. I always enjoyed working out of Brooklyn,
> although I wouldn't want to do it full time, plus
> we stayed in a nice hotel in Oregon City while
> augmented up there. But as SP guys we would have
> to go over to Albina Yard to get a train, usually
> the ALEUM, and bring it to Eugene. It always
> amazed me that when we walked into the crew room
> in Albina all the UP guys would be sitting in
> silence looking like their best friend just died
> or something; they were almost lifeless. There was
> very little talk between them and they really
> didn't even sit next to each other nor would they
> do anything without being told. We'd walk in and
> right away we'd be getting paperwork, finding
> where our power and train was, and then heading
> right back out to the roundhouse to get the power.
> The difference was like night and day and I was
> certainly not the only one to notice it around
> Albina because virtually all the SP guys would
> talk about how "beat down those UP guys are".
>

It wasn't like this when I hired out on the UP in L.A. in 1978. Most of us enjoyed coming to work. If you didn't run through an occasional switch, put a car on the ground, or corner a car or two, you weren't doing your job. That was just part of railroading and since the managers at the time had come up through the ranks, they knew that.  It wasn't until after the merger with the MoPac that the management style changed. The UP managers bailed like rats deserting a sinking ship (they must have seen the writing on the wall).
Their heavy handed management took over and has continued since. I feel bad for the new hires who have to put up with this kind of management for their whole careers. I don't see employees lasting 30 to 40 years like in the past, with the heavy handed discipline that they hand out for even slight infractions.-BMT   
 

bradleymckay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dave - How long did it take you to find out Tom
> Dill was a railfan employee or did you already
> know? 
>
>
> Allen

​Very shortly after I came up here and met him. Probably talking with him and having him get into SP history.

​Of course there are a lot of people who wouldn't really be called "railfans" but they have a lot of interest in the history of a railroad or a section of railroad. I had a lot of "old heads" tell me lots of interesting things about routes on the SP in Oregon, especially on the hill, even though they weren't railfans.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/16 05:02 by Railbaron.

UPNW2-1083 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... If you didn't run through an occasional switch, put a car on the ground, or corner a car or two,
> you weren't doing your job. That was just part of railroading and since the managers at the time
​> had come up through the ranks, they knew that.  It wasn't until after the merger with the MoPac
​> that the management style changed. ....

​Absolutely dead on in my opinion. Managers who actually worked the job long enough to know the job understood when things went wrong and it was all about fixing it, not blaming people for it.

I didn't start going over to Albina until the late 80's so I didn't see the pre-MoPac days, only the result. I was forced up to Brooklyn right after the merger because they closed the hump in Eugene and got rid of most of the yard jobs. Fortunately I was only stuck up there about 6 weeks and I simply commuted from Eugene to work the Brooklyn Pool (we still went to work at Brooklyn for a while after the merger).

One night while trying to take power to the house in Albina we got delayed by a switching move. Another set of power came up to my head-end and the conductor asked of they could couple up so we could all go to the house together. I said "go for it". Once coupled the conductor came up on my unit and as soon as he saw me he said, "Oh, you're SP". His next question was how I was enjoying UP and I simply said, "So far, so good". (This was right after the "merger".) His response was, "That'll change." This guy was an old-head, definitely pre-MoPac, and we had quite a talk about the "good old days" before the MoPac mentality set in. He said the same thing that most of the good UP managers bailed and went back to seniority because they didn't want to deal with the MoPac way of doing things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/16 05:03 by Railbaron.

The post-MoP-UP managerial attitude was very much unlike the traditional UP managerial attitude. Before MoP-UP, the sense of UP family was strong.

It would be nice to hear from some old heads who know MoP history to find out if the MoP-UP-type management approach existed on the MoP before MoP-UP, or if the brutal attittude towards employees didn't develop until right after MoP-UP. If already existing on the MoP, it would be nice to know when that managerial attitude developed on the MoP and any insights as to why it came about.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Maybe former MoPac engineer J.D. Santucci's site "Hot Times on the High Iron" could shed some light on this.  He doesn't have much good to say about their management but he wasn't beaten down, either.

The interesting thing is this horrible relationship with employees wasn't only directed at the TEY people. We had a manager hire out in Eugene from the Army but Eugene managed to maintain its "SP attitude" for quite a while after the merger even with UP managers coming in. As such this new manager learned how to work WITH the people and everything went smoothly for him. He also knew he didn't know much about railroading so he'd ask questions. Shortly before they shut the hump in Eugene down and I got forced to Portland he got transferred up there.

One day I was headed "east" and we got held at Brooklyn for a track to open up at Albina. I happened to have an SP conductor with me also. In any case shortly after we got stopped a vehicle shows up with a couple of UP managers, one of them being "Captain Bob", the ex-Army guy. As soon as he saw we were an SP crew he told his partner to wait (he went back to the car at any rate) and Bob came up on the unit. The first words out of his mouth was that he was sure happy to see friendly faces. For the next 30 minutes or so he went on telling us how bad the managers were in Portland stabbing each other in the back, even worse than how the operating crews got treated, and that he was miserable there. I believe I heard he quit not long after this.

rob_l Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The post-MoP-UP managerial attitude was very much
> unlike the traditional UP managerial attitude.
> Before MoP-UP, the sense of UP family was strong.
>
> It would be nice to hear from some old heads who
> know MoP history to find out if the MoP-UP-type
> management approach existed on the MoP before
> MoP-UP, or if the brutal attittude towards
> employees didn't develop until right after
> MoP-UP. If already existing on the MoP, it would
> be nice to know when that managerial attitude
> developed on the MoP and any insights as to why it
> came about.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rob L.

Rob,
I've had several conversations with ex-Mopac guys that described their management training program as being "trained to be killers", and that the hardline "fire the bastards" attitude was a core tennant of what they were taught.  I believe the management training program was initiated by Downing Jenks.

Waybiller Wrote:
> I've had several conversations with ex-Mopac guys
> that described their management training program
> as being "trained to be killers", and that the
> hardline "fire the bastards" attitude was a core
> tennant of what they were taught.  I believe the
> management training program was initiated by
> Downing Jenks.

I think I've told this story before but I'll tell it again.

In June of 1980 I went back to North Platte for a few weeks to visit relatives.  My cousin Joan, the diesel dispatcher, was dating a UP hoghead at the time.  One day I was at her house on Short St. and he came over to see her.  I had never met him before and when he found out I liked trains his first question to me was "what do you know about the MP??"  I said I didn't know much, only info I received 2nd and 3rd hand.  Before I could provide him with the info he went off on a tanget saying the word going around North Platte was MP management is anti-union and are hostile to employees, especially to the operating crafts.  It was exactly what I had heard before and I told him so.  The next words out of his mouth were something to the effect of "well their style of railroading won't work here!!" 


Allen

My 2 cents Jeff.

I'm not much of a railfan, nor am I a model railroader. The stories here are one of the main reasons I renew my membership every year.

Your stories are great, especially since the early ones happened when I was at the UP with you, Fredo, BMT, Brian S., Brett, and others. I love reading the stories I already know, as well as the ones I've never heard before. And I really enjoy it when they take on a life of their own, like some of the recent Yermo tales, and the more recent posts about Lopez.

Just when I think I've run out of stories to tell from my relatively short time on the L.A. Sub, someone posts something that jogs my memory. Or I send a PM to somebody in response to a story they posted and find out things I had forgotten or never knew before.

Railroading is a colorful profession and it's amazing how many stories a guy can amass in a short period of time. It's a shame that most choose not to share them, especially the ones the statute of limitations has run out on. As I'm logging my time on the rails in Alaska, waiting for the day when I can start posting some of those stories, I thoroughly enjoy the stories other railroaders have taken the time to post here. As we get older, and our ability to recall memories fade, it's nice to have all this stuff recorded somewhere before it disappears forever.

Albina was a real cluster, especially after dark. Coming down from Brooklyn wasn't bad. The blind curves along the river and the Pvt engines switching right next to you. They would never use the main to do any switching, my ass. You really had to look to see the last controlled signal among other red, yellow & green colors. That  whole area was controlled by the Steel Bridge operator at the time. And you had another tower at the east end of the bridge, VC Tower. It was run by, I think BN ? or the railroad out of Lake Yard.

LA was a walk in the park compared to that area. I was in Albina one night and pulled down west to be the next to go back up to Brooklyn. I was on a yard track with cars on both sides.  As we sat there you could see a headlight getting brighter on the yard lead and it was moving pretty good. It got bright enough that I could see the switch and he was lined into my track. I called the yardmaster and told him if he didn't get that UP train stopped, we would be filling out #2611s  for hours. I then said," Okay, your turn". He used the UP radio and got the guy stopped about 5 cars from us.

 Another time, I was downtown and didn't stand to be called. I always had a grip in the truck so I took the pager call.  It was a taxi ride to VC Tower to pilot a UP engineer up to Brooklyn yard.  Well the train showed up, got a signal and off we went. Not before a UP Trainmaster swung up on the engine and came into the cab. It was 20 questions and I finally had the hoghead stop on the Steel Bridge. The TM looked around and asked why we were not moving. Then he took a second look at me and asked who I was. I told him and added I was the pilot and it was either a rules class or showing the new guy where he was going. He started out the door and turned and said he was going to turn me in for not wearing boots. I saw Superintendent Bob Melbo a few days later
and he said it went in the round file.

There were  a few officers that stood out in my years on the right hand side and one was Bob Melbo. No muss no fuss, Just get the work done in a safe manner and don't make waves.  A very nice guy. 

Nudge