Western Railroad Discussion > Just a question...

 Who was instrumental in helping you in your railroad career? Either at work, or outside of work. For the rail fan side, who helped promote rail fanning for you. A friend, a rail or something else.

In my case it was two people. One, a fireman on the LA Junction RR, by the name of "Rocky", the other a PE Conductor by the name of Bob Coe. Rocky took me to work one night and I rode a yard job switch engine from 2300 until 0700. When the shift was over Rocky took me into the Superintend ant's office and said this guy wants a job on the RR. The Super told me that he wasn't hiring right then but as soon as he did I would be called first (There is a story there, but I have to check and make sure Rocky isn't still working). A few months later I was having dinner with my buddy and his folks. The Dad was telling the mother about an incident that had taken place at Los Nietos that day. I told Bob that I had tried to get on with a small RR a few months before and he asked if I wanted to go to work for a RR still. Heck, yeah, I did. Does a bear S**T in the woods? Darn right I wanted to. Right there at the dinner table he called Earl Craig (an old PE Conductor that was a traimaster at Taylor yard and was doing the hiring). Bob told him about me (that we were lodge brothers- Masonic) and the Bob put me on the phone with Earl. He asked about my service record, my marital status and so on. After answering his questions, he said be in my office tomorrow morning. I can't, I told him. I have a job and cannot just call my boss up this late to take a day off. i think that might have sold Earl on me. Anyway, I told him I started my vacation the next Monday, and he said be in my office Monday morning then. Okay I told him, I'll be there at 0700. Monday AM rolls around and I'm there at 0640. Ah, another point: I'm early. We go into his office and do the interview and 30 minutes later he writes something on the back of his business card. Then he tells me to go to the PE building at 6Th and Main in downtown Los Angeles. I drove over there only to have the clerk at 6Th and Main tell me they are not hiring. Oh well, I go home and two days later, true to his word, the LAJCT Superintendent ant calls and asks if I still want to go to work. I said I have an offer to go to work for another RR and could I have a couple of hours to make sure they are going to hire me. He said yes, but call me later today as he needed to hire some people. I then called Earl craig and told him that the clerk at 6Th and Main said they were not hiring. He BLEW up! He ordered me to his office, so I drove to Taylor yard and went to his office. He was on the phone but waved me to a seat in the office. I sat down and waited until he got off the phone. Then the S**T hit the fan. he had me go over what I had been told, then he reached for the phone. He told the clerk at 6Th and Main, in no uncertain terms, that when he sent someone the employment office an were told to hire them, THEY HAD BETTER DAMNED WELL DO IT, or that clerk would be looking for a job. Needless to say , I was hired, and retired 40 years later.
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V

SLOCONDR

Great stuff!  thanks Virlon!  Hope you will have
inspired more from your fellow brothers!
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

As a railfan, my interest was formed by my father.  My family lived in a house in Oakland that later became part of the Fruitvale BART Station. Being that close to the tracks, my dad would take my older brothers to watch the trains on the WP 1/2 block or the SP 1 1/2 blocks away.  He remembered taking my oldest brother to the tracks and him being scared by a steam engine. Anyway, my parents did not have much money so it was cheap entertainment. That carried on to me later on. Airplanes first, going to the Oakland & Sf Airports to watch the planes. But as the observation decks were closed during the 70's, it got to hard to watch planes. Trains it was. On Fridays my dad would pick me up after school. We would stop by the Doggie Diner or McDonalds for a hamberger and a rootbeer and then park by the tracks near Fruitvale Ave (End of Derby st). On Friday afternoons, all of the switch jobs would be heading west toward the East Oakland Yard. You could sometimes see two or three coming at a time. Then it was sundays drivingby West Oakland Yard. My parents bowled in several leagues at Mels Bowl in Alameda. There, I met several other fans, all older than myself. eventually, we all got together to go to Stockton and made other trips. Have had the interest since then.

Among the fans I met at the bowling alley was the late Bryan Copple, of Oakland Terminal Rwy fame.What a great guy. I felt priviledged to be there when he first started taking photos. We made several local trips together over a few years. I am sorry that I missed the years when he was running the trains on the OT. I did take about an 18 year break from photography. I had bought a new camera and my days off at work changed, giving me a couple week days off to myself, where I could go out and poke around. My first free day, I headed out to Christie on the BNSF, one of Bryan's favorite local places. Turned out that was the day of his funeral. I think I have been going back there since to take up where he left off.

Gary



 

Hard to say specifically. My maternal grandparents lived along side the tracks of the infamous Long Island Railroad in Amityville, NY. I would sit on the porch with my grandfather in the late 1940s and early 1950s watching the trains. In those days I had several rides on the NY Central Twentieth Century Limited from NY City to Syracuse and back. I always found trains to by fascinating. Now my step-son works for the UP as a signal repairman.
Bill Pyper
Salem, OR
 

I grew up in New Jersey, 2 blocks from the then Erie Lackawanna commutes to Hoboken.  My mother would occasionally take me to Hoboken and across to NYC on the ferry, then back, just to get trains out of my system.  There was also a scale steam operation at a local dairy, Becker Farms, in Roseland, NJ and I eagerly awaited the flyer announcing the start of the summer season each year.  We had to go at least once a week, sometimes twice.

My aunt also lived by the Pennsylvania, now the NEC, and when I visited her the almost constant parade of trains caught my attention. 

But what really set the hook was a summer spent in upstate NY at my grandmother's.  The little town had a NYC and Rutland junction/interchange and yard, as well as an RDC that made a stop around 6:30.  I made sure we had dinner in time and my uncle took me to see the RDC come though most every night.  The NYC would then start switching the yard and I got cab rides for much of my summer on that switcher.

In 1960, I was close to completing my high school education.  For a few years I had been hanging out at the SP depot in my hometown, Mesa, Arizona.  The gruff old codger that held the day agents position, M.M. McKinley, would run me out of the depot if he saw me, but the afternoon operator, J. R. "Bob" Knoll,  was a fan, and we became fast friends.  He certainly was a major influence on my railroad career.  In my last year of high school, I took a mechanical drawing class.  Remember mechanical drawing?  Lord knows what techie name they give that class now!  Well, we had to do a project in the community for that class, so I chose to draw a map to as close a scale as possible of the tracks around Mesa.  There were many storage tracks and spurs, but I got them all on the drawing in 24 by 36 inches.  I earned a "B" on the drawing.  I took it to that grouchy old agent, Mr. McKinley.
Suddenly, I was like his long lost grandson or such.  He had the drawing framed and mounted on the wall above the hugh safe - every depot had a huge safe.
The local trainmaster, Q. B. Payne, stopped by Mesa one day with the division superintendent and the division engineer,  When he saw the map, he berated the engineering guy because they couldn't furnish a compact map of the trackage at Mesa, but here some high school kid did it just right.  He told McKinley to have me come over to Phoenix so he could hire me as a brakeman, and I did, on May 13, 1960.  I was 17 years of age, too young, so they fired me a few months later and told me to come back the next year and they would hire me again.  55 years later, I am still seeing rails.......

TIOGA PASS

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/15 13:33 by aronco.

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SLOCONDR Wrote:
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>  For the rail fan side, who helped promote
> rail fanning for you. A friend, a rail or
> something else.

Well, how about this, Virlon... I could say it was you and the others who operated the Rialto local from the late '60s through late '70s.  You and I have never met, but watching that SW1500, a few cars and caboose roll through my hometown of Claremont made an impression on me that's made me an SP fan for 45 years now!  I was a few years behind Steve Phares in age (Never had the nerve to ask for a ride, like he did.) but we both loved to hang out at the same spot... the PE-ATSF crossing.

My thanks to you and any others that worked that job!

Mark

While many railroaders come from railroad backgrounds I can’t say that; neither of my parents worked for a railroad although my grandfather worked for the Canadian Pacific in Nelson, BC (I never met him but I do have his pocket watch). Having said that I can “blame” may parents though.
 
I was born in 1954 in San Francisco not far from the mainline. My earliest recollection was being scared to death by a steam train, obviously at the twilight of steam operations on the SP, running along 7th Street where my parents would take me to watch trains. It must have made quite an impression for something that early in my childhood to remain with me these many years later. That was what evidently planted the seed that would later become my life’s occupation.
 
Throughout my childhood I regularly got “toy” trains for birthdays and Christmas from Lionel, to American Flyer, to HO sets. As children my parents would take us on vacations and my dad spoiled me by always getting motels that overlooked railroad tracks whenever possible. Of course my sister and I would always fight over which bed we’d get as I always wanted the one closest the window so I could pop up and look out the window every time a train went by. My parents also took us on train trips and even allowed me to ride the Coast Daylight from Los Angeles to San Francisco all by myself as a child – I was such a “big boy”.
 
Later in my teens I railfanned with other people who had driver’s licenses, and once I got my own license my parents would allow me to “borrow” the car to go railfanning by myself. Between railfanning and being involved in a group that was building a narrow gauge railroad in Forestville, CA, I was pretty much indoctrinated into a railroader’s life.
 
Around the time I graduated high school in June of 1972 I had an interview in Oakland to hire out with the Southern Pacific. I got the job and in September 1972, only 3-1/2 months after my 18th birthday I had a job as a brakeman with the SP.
 
Since that time I had quite a ride. I worked all over the Coast/Western Division as a conductor/brakeman/switchman and in 1988 transferred to Oregon (Eugene). Once here I was asked if I wanted to enter engine service and decided I’d do that, which is how I finished my time out.
 
Finally this past June 12, 2015, I pulled the pin after 42 years, 9 months, and 8 days (but who’s counting) and retired. UP has managed to ruin the occupation of “Locomotive Engineer” and made it not much more than a babysitter for computers running the train and having managers question, nitpick, and second guess everything you do. It was a Hell of a run though and I’m glad I did it but I am now adjusting to retirement and enjoying the phone no longer ringing and managers questioning everything I did - the wife does it instead.
 

Great stories here.   I can't say that I work for a railroad, but I do sell miniature versions of them. 

It all started at a car wash in Van Nuys in the mid 70's.   The Great American Car Wash at the corner of Balboa and Roscoe to be exact.   My dad would take me and my brother there every Saturday afternoon to get the family wagon cleaned up.   Behind the entrance to the racks was SP's Coast Line.    One Saturday, for whatever reason, a westbound SP drag came to a halt right before the Balboa crossing.   My dad picked me up (I was about 4) and walked right up to the front steps of the idling locomotive.   I swear, it was a U30 or U33C in my memory.    So I was scared ****less, as my dad held me in his arm and my brother's hand.   Hissing, groaning, spewing, then roaring.    Afraid for my life, but in awe over the most interesting and beastly piece of machinery I'd ever seen.    And that was it.   I was hooked.     Now I am going on 26 years of selling HO and N scale products for others to enjoy and carry on with.   

Or the opposite, like most younger fans working for the railroad seemed like a decent career choice (I was
tired of school). About a week before wandering down to the SP to see about openings a couple rails with whom
I had a speaking relationship mentioned that they were laying off the present class up to about 18 months on the
job. Pretty much fixed my wagon, wasn't really in the frame of mind to give up stability.

Out

There are a number of engineers I'd have to credit for encouraging me to hire out with the railroad and then to stay with it during the dark days of little seniority and midnight hostler helper jobs.  Certainly Southern Pacific RFE Gene Bacher in San Francisco gets my thanks, not just for hiring me, but for allowing me to make my date four days before I was to go in the army.  I came back with three years seniority and no experience, so thanks to all those who put up with me as I quickly tried to learn the ropes.  As a young fireman, eager to learn, no one taught me more about running a train than the late Neil Vodden.  Neil is considered one of the best to ever get behind the throttle and, to this day, I consider him my mentor.  
Once when I was firing for him back in the 70s, we were coming into San Mateo hot.  We used the 24RL brake valve back then and he was able to plug the train and recover the air in time to make a normal station stop.  That impressed me.  With tight schedules and no blended braking on the commutes, going to emergency to make a station stop was a fairly common practice.  Usually the air could recovered by the time you got a highball.  Nowadays, with today's brake valves, that would not be possible, even for Neil.  Then the train would have to be walked, an air test made, and probably an incident report filled out.  Things were simpler then, but we did have more flat spots.    

The late Bill Stokoe. After being a part of the American Freedom Train I ran around railfanning and in general taking it easy. In 1978 I went to work as a golf cart/ mower mechanic at a more or less local golf course. Now there's a story about golf carts and the AFT, so this was a natural. Anyway, the CTC job had started between Mojave and West Colton and I knew Bill from stopping by his house and waving to him from the KI Blitz local on Saturdays when I would occasionally ride it from Palmdale to Mojave and a few times to Bakersfield. Bill mentioned to me they were looking for signalmen for the project and I went ahead and applied. In 1979 I was hired and spent a year on that job before getting caught up in my first Thanksgiving Day Massacre. While going through the signal schools at 6th and Main in LA, a couple of us explored the building. It was one of the coolest buildings I had ever been in. We entered a 'non floor' which was actually the floor where the PE entered the building. Rail still in the floors, catenary still in place, a step back in time. Spent a few months off before going to work on the gang in Oxnard. Got caught up in another massacre a year later, hired back in 1982 when the Great Tehachapi Floods took place. From there went to New Mexico on the Tucumcari Line Santa Rosa on a gang. Bid list came out with a Maintainer position in Carrizozo, and got it-low man no less. 63 miles of semaphores to maintain, the perfect job. While I was off in early 1982, I applied at the Ventura County Railway. They called me in 1984 and I left the SP to pursue shortline railroading. While there, I was also doing work for the Fillmore and Western, had my own mobile locomotive repair business and one or two other things going on. In 2004, went to work for Mass Electric on the Metrolink Maint. contract. Now, doing testing on LRT projects with Mass, currently in Mesa AZ. What a ride!
 

Not only "What a ride" but an excellent example of trying to be a rail.

Out