Railroaders' Nostalgia > The Engineer That Never Carried A Grip

Woodman's post on the Nostalgia & History board titled "Did You Ever Stop To Get Food" made me think of an old head engineer that worked out of Emporia, KS on the Santa Fe.  E.L. "Hoppy" Hopkins had a 6-6-42 fireman's date and a 10-25-51 engineers date.  Hoppy was a real congenial fellow and was not very big in size and always wore overalls.  I don't know how many trips I had fired for him until I realized he never carried a grip.  That was very unusual account everyone I saw always had some kind of a suitcase with them.  I asked him what he was going to do when asked by a company official to see his rule book.  He reached into his left side pant leg pocket and pulled one out.  At the time the rule book was only about 3.5 x 6 inches and maybe a quarter to a third of an inch thick.  I asked about his timetable and he reached into his rear pocket and pulled one out.  A flashlight?  He reached into his right side leg pocket and pulled one out.  I was already aware of his time slips account when going on duty at Emporia he would have me stamp my name and SSA # on 2 of them, fold them up and put them in his vest pocket.  He would always have a pair of gloves in his other rear pocket.

I have wondered what he did for dental hygiene.  Perhaps he also carried a toothbrush in one of his vest pockets or, at the time we had to pay for our own lodging at the away from home terminal and many of us had rooming houses where we could keep personal items for our use.  However he did it, he was a clean and neat person.

The reason I thought of Hoppy tonight was Woodman's posting.  I had mentioned to Hoppy as we passed AG Tower on an eastbound one evening that I sure was hungry.  He didn't say much about it but pulled up to OD Jct (Eldorado, KS) and stopped at a Clear signal.  I inquired why he stopped.  He said come on with me, there's an A & W Drive Inn about a block north on Main St.  We went and got our food, got back on the train and departed.  I couldn't believe he had done that without checking with the dispatcher first but the dispatcher never inquired as to our delay so he may have not noticed it.  I did appreciate him sticking his neck out for me.  Hoppy was just one of many great railroaders I had the privilege to work with.  Then there was a very small percentage that were not so great. Ha
     Mark Cole
 

Bruce Hoover was like that. All he carried was his aluminum clip board with his time tickets, and a toothbrush. When they moved us all up to KC, each trip became a 30-36+ hour ordeal, so everybody started carrying bigger grips.
By the way Mark, Hopkins was still on the roster for a short time when I started in Jan. of '79, but I never met him, he retired just a short time later He and/or his family had Hopkins Mfg. in Emporia, they made plastic ice scrapers, and trailer connections, under the "Hoppy" brand.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/16 10:26 by ddg.