Railroaders' Nostalgia > A Salute To A Friend

As with any change of employment, one tries to find the littlte quirks of your new employer.  When I hired out at Amtrak, I looked around for someone I could trust to find out the little things to be on the lookout for on a daily basis to stay out of trouble.  It didn't take long.  A trainmaster sort of took the new guy (yours truly) under his wing.  Over a period of time we became great friends.  His name was Lawson Chadwick.  We stayed friends up until he passed away.  His daughter Kim was my conductor for two years at Metrolink.  He told me the tuna story (too much to go into here). Hilarious!   But, I wonder how many here worked with Lawson.  A really great guy and a truly good friend.  So Chad here's a salute to you wherever you are.  I sure miss you.

Worked with "Chad" pre Amtrak both before and after employment on Santa Fe in '78. Great guy, sorry to hear he has passed.
JB

Chad was fun guy to work with,great conversations. After the Amrak takeover we used to visit in San Diego when he was on the Coaster and me on freight during our double over and air test at 22nd St Yard.Thanks for posting.Bill Webb

Very sorry to hear of his passing. He was extremely helpful to me when I did the early track capacity planning studies for what became Metrolink. He was the ATSF Local Chairman when I knew him and he had worked every ATSF conductor's job. He explained to me all the switching moves every job had to make (including seasonal moves) and all the issues concerning getting the work done in 12 hours. Becuase of this I knew exactly where trackage was needed. As a result, ATSF management was astounded at how much I knew about their operations and how intelligent the plan for Metrolink was.

My amusing story about Chad concerns a round trip I made with him LA - San Diego when he was working as a conductor on Amtrak. I was puzzled by the fact that Amtrak ridership was 10% higher northbound than southbound on the San Diegan run. (I calculated that, at that rate, in 50 years no one would be left in San Diego.) Chad invited me along to see what was going on. The trip southbound was routine, and after tying up and changing out of uniform into his Hawaiian shirt, Chad took me to the interesting watering holes located along the trolley tracks in downtown San Diego. Then we parted company for the night.

Early the next morning I met Chad in the locker room where he was changing into his conductor's uniform. After suiting up he went and unlocked the cars on the first train of the day up to LA. When we got inside, the first coach he unlocked already had a lot of customers on board! It was populated with Hispanic families paying cash. It seems the underground railroad for illegal Mexican immigrants actually ran on the overground railroad! [I would have liked to know about this inside job involving duplicate keys to the Amfleet coaches.]

At Del Mar the INS agents got on the train and spent the whole trip up to Oceanside prying open the restroom doors to get the illegal immigrant families off the train and back to Mexico. Lawson remarked, "The INS does not check every train. These folks will be back to try again, until they actually get through. They pay cash, every trip, they are good customers."

My experience with Lawson Chadwick re-affirmed an important lesson: When the numbers seem strange, get out in the field and find out what is really going on.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Very sorry to hear about Lawson Chadwick passing. I worked for MTS Rail in San Diego and would ride his Coaster train and Amtrak and had some great conversations. He was a great guy and fun to be around.

Larry

I remember Chad from his first day on the Santa Fe back in July 1967.  He caught the midnight yard goat on which I was officiating as Engine Foreman.  This job switched a cut of cars brought from Hobart earlier in the evening and left for us on the bottom end of the Old Main Line (opposite the roundhouse).  After lining up our cars we would spot the Work Lead industries between 6th Street and Redondo Jct., places now long gone and largely forgotten: Vegetable 1 & 2, Telephone Alley (stash cars), Western Salt, Meat Alley (California Gardenware), Bay Street Team,  Freight Distributors, Sierra Talc, Grant Supply, and possibly the Santa Fe Autodock.  There was a lot of work for us because the "dinger", that is,the night yardmaster at Eighth Street (John Carbone) loaded me up with switchlists.  On that memorable night of July 20th Chad showed up and introduced himself as an experienced man off the Burlington.  I was glad to have a helper who was cut-in as the other helper was a young fellow just hired out for the summer and green as the first of May.  I still picture Chad smiling and clapping me on the shoulder saying, "I'll help you little buddy," and then parking himself on the footboard of our goat as the work progressed.  Whenever I urged him, "Chad, I need some help down here," he would smile, hand upon my shoulder, "You're doing just fine little buddy."  Later, when we should have been heading for the barn Carbone sent us out to Hobart for several reefers of strawberries.  Upon our return, the daylight yardmaster cut us loose.  "Tie-up!" he said and we put the sputtering old Alco on a track called "the brake shoe spur."  By now the sun was up and my overalls were dragging.  Heading for the yard office to close out the timeslip, I again felt a hand clasp my shoulder and heard, "Real nice job you run little buddy; think I'll come out and help you again tonight!"
 
Chad was always a good friend and I miss him.  He was a strong union man and, sad to say, that is a quality I see missing in so many of the new generation of rails.   



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/16 23:59 by rabidcats.

Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful stories about a man
who seemed quite wonderful.  People like Chad are who
railroads really need.

SO sorry to hear of his passing. 

whistle[ig ---
Please tellus the "tuna story".  I am sure we all would enjoy it.
 

I wish I had a buck for every time he called me "little buddy".  That along with "the baby needs shoes" when we were going for all 12. He was one of the few Conductors who switched Fullerton by climbing up on top of the cars, in 1977 no less (I wasn't very comfortable doing this but we didn't have radios and everything worked out okay).

I don't believe I ever heard him seriously pissed.  Ever.  Very rare.