Nostalgia & History > Worst flop house you ever stayed in

While working for the railroad, what was the worst away from home accomodations you ever experienced?

Back in the bad old days away from home crew members were responsible for their own food and accomodations. That resulted in a lot of really cheap beaneries, hotels, dormitories, etc. around the rail yards, some private, some run by the railroad. I know in the east sometimes the YMCA might get involved. I was an SP Coast guy, so the places I remember are Watsonville Junction, San Luis, and Santa Barbara. My guess is there were a lot of worse places.

This was a long time ago for me, but I seem to remember the regular chain gang guys often had their own shacks were they stayed.

Some good recollections have already been posted down below on MDO's thread about beans. But it would be fun to hear some more stories about life on the road in the bad old days.

John West

Norfolk and Western Inn, Moberly, Mo. Middle of the wye, road crossings. This is where the St. Louis, Kansas City, Decatur, Il, and Des Moines Ia, lines ALL CAME TOGETHER! 2 story building, Concrete block, bottom half divided into the left half for a resteraunt, the right front as a rec room for the crews and the right back were lockers. Upstairs were about 20 rooms, each measuring about 5' x 7'! (This is NOT a typo!)Community bathroom (At least it had indoor plumbing!) The air conditioning (as it was) was for the entire building. I spent many a night sleeping on the floor in my room just to get a little air! Couldn't sleep with the door open(Hall lights, people walking by going to and from their rooms etc. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!!! Any one got any pictures of the dump? I sure miss it!

CN use to put us up in a real flea bag joint in Kitchener Ont
when we were tied up on line for various reasons.

A real cinder block dump,I believe it was called the Baron.
Flys,Fleas and Mosquitos in every room even in the winter!

Hollow wooden doors,few lights in the hall way,a real transient place. Shudder when I think about it still.

Although I was driving truck, I couldn't get my regular room in KFS one night (pipes froze or something at the Winema Hotel) os I stayed in the rails boarding house. I think it was called Jerry's Rooms on S. 6th. You signed in on a blackboard inside the front door, and went upstairs to the room you signed in for along a long narrow hall with the community can at the end of the hall. Your room would be one with the door open as that was the only source of heat other than each bed had an electric blanket. One single light bulb with a pull string dangling in the middle of the room and a sink in the corner. I remember being dead tired, getting undressed and falling into bed, literally as my butt hit the floor and the mattress folded around me like a soft taco! Didn't seem to make much difference as I woke up seven hours later, and surprisingly feeling pretty good. Of course that was 25 years ago and I was that much younger! :>)

Butch,,,,,here we go

The Resetar Hotel in Watsonville, The Tracy Inn in Tracy and the Gadsden Hotel in Douglas, AZ.

The Resetar had a front desk clerk that looked like a cross between a mortician and someone the mortician might work on. One of Low Water's favorite feuds was with the short order cook in the hotel's greasy spoon.

The Tracy Inn was simply awful. Horrid for its age and filth, plaster falling down, sharing the rooms with all kinds of insect and vermin.

The Gadsden had not been substantially renovated since the late 1800's or so it seemed. Staff was nice, but it didn't make up for the constant banging on the radiators at all hours of the day and night to get heat (yes, in AZ)and the creaking floors which lent a somewhat eerie feel to staying there, especially when you could hear the floors squeak five rooms away.

I love to hear the new hires gripe about a Holiday Inn or a Radisson nowadays. I have to just smile and wonder what they'd do if they went back in time....

Edgemont, South Dakota on old BN between Gillette, WY and Alliance, NE. Think the place was called the Huff. Because of the underground geothermal activity, there was no cold water. Only boiling hot, right out of the tap! This old hotel had four rooms to one bathroom. No showers, the water was too hot, and the heavy mineral content would clog them anyway. Was called to go to work, so I filled the bathtub with the overly hot water so it would cool enough that I could get in. Somebody else had to use the can, so I went back to my room for 15 minutes to let the water cool and air out the stink. Came back out to take my bath, and somebody else was in the bathtub! I never ran back there again, only once on this familiarization trip. They were going to pay me to do a familiarization run on the high line up to Deadwood, but I disliked Edgemont so much I turned it down and stayed running out of Gillette. Besides, I had just been married, and missed mama at home too much. Since that high line was torn out not too long after that, man do I feel like that was a stupid move, or lack of move. Oh, well, I guess getting paid over 100 bucks each way to do a leisurely ride on an SD-9 in the Black Hills through pine trees, rock formations and tunnels wasn't too much of a loss. AAArrrgh! Well, at least I am still happily married to the mama I missed so much then, 25 years ago now! Then there was the ancient old hotel called the D-Bar-B in Guernsey, WY, before they built the crew complex. What a dump that was, speaking of bare bulbs with pull chains, even in the bathrooms, and dirt, squeaks and falling plaster... JLH

Not me, but I've heard some folks tell how much the Clubhouse at Imlay was a real displeasure...

Burlington Hotel, half way up the side of Daytons's Bluff above the Q's (now BNSF) St. Paul yard of the same name. I never had to stay there myself, as I was a local, and the LaCrosse crews by that time were actually being put in in the St. Paul Hotel downtown (that was, in itself a run-down flop-house at that time, but today is a renovated upscale trendy [i.e., expensive] place).

Rooms in that wooden firetrap were, as someone else posted, about 5 x 7, with a single 25 watt bulb hanging on a cord in the middle of the room. Maybe 20 rooms - one common head.

Minnie ran the place. Alone. I don't think she ever slept. It'd been at least 40 years since any of her hair was really blonde, and I often wondered whatever did happen to the inch long cigarette ash that was always hanging on the end of the smoke on her lip. Maybe it wound up in the food. Nevertheless, she sure was a good cook, and six-bits would get you coffee, OJ, bacon, and all of the best pancakes on either side of the Mississippi (whch was only 400 feet away horizontally - 120 feet down) - any time of day.

One night, about an hour after the bars had closed, I went up to beans with my crew and there were two couples in there with hands all over each other, and clearly in a condition where they shouldn't be driving anywhere else. Don't know how they even found this place. They asked Minnie for a room for a couple hours, and she replied, "I don't run that kind of place." I'm not sure how Minnie made money to keep the doors open, as she sure didn't make it on breakfasts alone, but hard as she was, she did have her scruples.

Where to start:

Well, I never had to stay in the "Dorms" at Wat. Jct. They were BAD. In engine service we got the Reisatar Hotel on the company. Oh, I remember the clerks. Some were a kick in the butt, some were really out of it. "Chester" was the one refered as the undertaker. One clerk was a gal and married Kaiser, a hoghead out of SLO. One was a bartender and married Swain, another hoghead out of SLO. There was another that did more than be a desk clerk OR so I was told. She married a hoghead from Oakland. The cafe was ok but late at night you had to walk up the street to the puke & vomit. UGH, solid grease.

I worked the TBM to Oakland once and didn't know any better. We tied up and the hogger went home. As the fireman I didn't have anywhere to go so I had to sleep in the change room and go up town for beans. It was touch and go but nobody bothered me on my walk. Hey, I just got out of the Army & wasn't scared of someone giving me the once over. Boy, was I stupid but that was then. 1707 Wood St.???

In SLO, the engineman stayed at a hotel downtown. This was only for the city crews, 98-99/ 75-76, etc. The Park Hotel was a dump BUT the "Caboose" bar was on the street level and was in business into the 80s. There was also the Handcar Cafe that was across from the passenger depot but it went belly up in the 70s. It was a home terminal for road crews.

In Tracy, it was.... a Cess Pool? Bad! In Santa Barb, again, the engine crews stayed at the Californian on the SP and the train crews stayed where ever. The Southern & Neil Hotel were real dumps. The Californian had a gin mill everyone called the "Snake Pit". It was! Oh boy, the nights and days? The one trouble was they billed the SP for each time the room was used, FULL PRICE, BUT they had double beds and you had to sleep in the other bed if had not been used before they would make it up. They got paid double.

When we ran through to LA, we had to stay in the Figuroa. Boy what a dump. You would get in the elevator and a gal would be standing next to you and she would just start to to pee. Some guys ate in the cafe but it was just as bad. Roaches in your room, and all over the cafe. If you went up the street to the (still in business and people love it), it wasn't any better. It took a few letters and threats (I was the LC) to get us in a good hotel but it was just next door. Still bad food. We didn't get moved to Glendale until the 80s.

One of the worst was Wendel. You were stuck. Susanville was 45 miles away. It was sage brush & rabbits. It finally got to the point, guys would take their own grub. It was BBBAAAADDDD. Cinder Block City.

Of course Zells in Roseville has been mentioned. Bad. And the joint in K. Falls. It got to the point that the clerks would take you out to Mollies on 97. It was bad. Its now the local Moose.

Eugene was just okay at the end. On Fri & Sat nights all the drunks from all over Eugene would show up and you didn't even bother.

Oh, there are more but I will let others fill in the blank spots.

The one that stands out though is the Resitar in Wat Jct. Now I am not saying it ever happened to me BUT, if you had a little gal staying with you and you got called,.. DO NOT.. lock the door on the way out. (These were old skeleton key locks) She can not unlock it from the inside and it makes hell for people that are trying to stay married or out of trouble.

Nudge

Hotel Charles, Springfield, MA in the seventies.

Or, the 57th St. YMCA in Manhattan.

The Selkirk, NY dormitory, as originally built.

Yuma was my worst experience. $2 put into a envelope, slip the envelope into a lock-box, get into your cot, and hope the A/C worked. In the summer even with a working A/C sleep during the day was nearly impossible with crewmen coming and going. There were about 15-20 cots all located on one floor. Regular passenger crews (SP trains 1,2,3,4.39,40) rented monthly accommodations at a place nicknamed "The Palace of Fine Arts" closer to the depot than the downtown extra board hang-out. The Palace was a 1895 built adobe hotel that was crumbling down, with poor A/C to match, but the assigned crews appreciated the privacy over the dorms. The Gadsden Hotel in Douglas seemed like a Hyatt Regency to me compared to Yuma, with Indio running a close second for poor accommodations. Yuma did have a nice restaurant across from the cots that took good care of crews.

Santa Barbara was considered a dream overnight spot after coming out of the miserable desert heat.

One summer night J. Long went out to Yuma on #2 with the "Los Angeles" and returned with the same crew on #1 the following morning. Soon after being switched off the Sunset about 2 AM the A/C went B/O on the Los Angeles and our Supt. and his secretary were taken up to the mesa where the newer motels were located. I had caught the flagmans job on that trip and had Mr. Long's secretary comment to me while the Yuma switcher was hooking up the business car for the return trip to LA that he couldn't believe how bad the options were for rooms in the old part of Yuma, where most crews stayed because of the convenient walking distance to the depot. He was surprised to learn that almost everyone stayed in old Yuma vs. the mesa, but between taxi fare and room costs, old town was the preferred choice. Mr. Long's secretary at the time appeared to be near retirement, probably almost 70, and couldn't sleep even with decent A/C in a reasonably modern motel and just couldn't understand how anybody could work in those conditions. The Yuma mechanical dept. had the A/C working perfect on the return trip of the "Los Angeles".

Amtrak does a decent job of putting us up these days. But, when I rode with my grandfather, we always stayed at The Park. He always got me and my friend our own room and made sure the call boy woke us up with his crew. The things I remember about the Park were the ever creaking floors, the old rooms with a sink but down the hall for anything else and the old, musty smell. The walls were paper thin and we always got put next to some old guy hacking his insides out all night. And there were always a couple of old rails sitting in the stuffed chairs in the lobby puffing on cigars, day or night. I guess if we had been adults, the place would have been a rat's nest. But, being only kids at the time, it was always a hoot for us. The last time I stayed at the park was in 1963, the year grandpa retired. The best thing I recall about the Park was the Cafe Park downstairs. I remember it was run by two older women. When we'd go out on 90 or 98, we'd have breakfast there and to this day I've never had better ham and scrambled, and those hash browns....piled on. When we'd go back on 76 or get in on 75, we'd go across the street from the depot, they had the greatest open faced hot roast beef sandwiches. There was a time when San Luis Obispo had real character.

My candidates from the SP Western Division have already been covered.

The Tracy Inn in Tracy (Ca) was definitely a dump. Froze in the winter and baked in the summer. If it worked there was a sump pump on the roof but no guarantees it would cool anything. The rooms all had a sink but the real bathroom was down the hall, as in the community type. What really was bad were the stories of guys going "#1" in the sink just because they didn't want to go down the hall. It wasn't a pleasant thought when you wanted to brush your teeth. BTW, you got this vacation spot for $3 a night as I remember.

Then as mentioned before was the Resetar Hotel in Watsonville. Old Chester was a fixture on midnights down there always dressed in black with a narrow tie. You could really tell where he got the nickname "The Mortician" based on how he looked. At least the Resetar had individual bathrooms so it was "modern" but no air conditioning (other than the open window) and steam heat (if you could regulate it). I fortunately missed the "clubhouse" in Watsonville as it burned down right before I hired out. And if you needed a good "cleaning of the pipes" all you had to do was walk one block east of the Resetar and visit The Nook for breakfast at 0300 in the morning and you could experience the thrill of "Three Fingered Jack" cooking up eggs. Every order was cooked in a quart of grease. At least everything slid down real easily (and at times came out just as easily).

San Luis Obispo had the Hotel Wineman. The Coast passenger crews out of San Francisco used to stay there also for $3 a night. It wasn't as bad a dump as the Tracy Inn and also had a private bathroon. But all you got was a bed and small desk as I remember. No AC and radiators for heating. Fortunately one Coast brakeman (Walter Pitt) worked a deal with the Midtowm Motel and we could go there and pay a commercial rate and stay there starting sometime around 1973 or so. Eventually that motel even became the actual away from home motel for passenger crews when the railroad started paying for it.

San Jose was a wonder as well. The old place had bunks off a locker room at the yard office. No privacy, just a bunch of bunks stuffed into a small room with nothing for comfort. Eventually the crews did move "up" to the Saint Claire Hotel in downtown San Jose. Nothing fancy but Original Joes was right around the corner (good eats back then).

I also missed the Barker Hotel in Roseville as well although from the stories that was a good thing to miss. By the time I started going there they had mods up there. Not fancy but at least you had some privacy. And as mentioned before, Zells was always a thrill.

Compared to what we used to have most rails have it pretty good in comparison. There are still exceptions I'm sure but nothing like it used to be in most places I'm familiar with. What I do have to laugh at though are the new guys who complain because they don't have a color TV that works perfectly now even though they have clean company paid for rooms with air conditioning usually and eating establishments nearby. How things have changed.

.....The cafe was ok but late at night you had to walk up the street to the puke & vomit. UGH, solid grease.

As railbaron mentions, the Nook, the Miramar and of course the Harvest room in the hotel. I learned to intensely hate Linda Ronstadts "Blue Bayou" as it was about the only song the juke box knew how to play in the Harvest rooms bar.

......I worked the TBM to Oakland

Went into more than one of those places on 7th street with a couple of the more illustrious characters working pool 2 on the bad old days. Certainly made this middle class boys hair stand up on the back of his neck! I wonder if Ester's Orbit room was still there?


....One of the worst was Wendel. You were stuck. Susanville was 45 miles away. It was sage brush & rabbits. It finally got to the point, guys would take their own grub. It was BBBAAAADDDD. Cinder Block City.

But Nudge, at least that place had atmosphere! That was walking right into "Bad Day at Black Rock"!!! Heard a couple stories about bored crews sneaking off on idle switch engines for a casual run to MacDonalds in Susanville.


Valliers at Klamath and Zells in Roseville, couldn't quite get myself to do those places.

The best layovers were in Ashland! That is if you behaved yourself anyway. Those were the good old days! Nothing like a cold one and some cheese wantons at Gepetto's after a 15 hour run.

sphogger

It's been real interesting reading about all of y'all's experiences. As a former o-t-r trucker, I'd have thought that we had had it pretty tough what with some of the old s--- hole truckstops that we occasionally had to contend with, but at least we carried our own bedrooms along with us. Truckstops were mainly necessary only as a place to clean up, and or eat. Some of those old rattraps were so bad that we were probably cleaner before we showered there rather than after. The worst of the worst that come to mind were in Houston Texas and the Farmington NM area.

Con

Forgot about Ashland. It was one of the best to layover in. The mods were a little dirty and if you had a room on the track side, it was only 20 feet from the main line. You had to be careful about which room too, crabs.

The best was Monterey. If you were called for 126, you gave the crew dispatcher in San Francisco, $5 when you went to work at 7th St. for the room. The regular crews rented two rooms by the month. Same room, one for the Engineer & one for the Fireman. A walk in had to pay $50 and that was back a few years ago. It was the Monterey Hotel, right downtown. Couldn't do too much, only 8 hours off.

Oh and don't forget the Blue Room at 7th St and the Iron Lung at the roundhouse in San Jose. Spent one winter with 4 other guys in the Blue room when we couldn't work in SLO. It wasn't too bad at night, all the commute crews were in San Jose.

Nudge

sphogger Wrote:
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> I wonder if Ester's
> Orbit room was still there?

It is, indeed!

I've really enjoyed reading this thread, as I've had personal experiences with many of the places mentioned where SP crews stayed.

Having hired out on SP's L. A. Division, my introduction to away-from-home lodging was where the enginemen stayed in Indio. I believe it was a converted apartment building, relatively modern, and more than adequate. It was a rather long walk from the yard, however, and seemed even longer on hot summer afternoons.

It was also during my tenure on the L. A. Division that I made the accquaintance of the Del Sol in Yuma, as that's where we stayed when working Number 2. The Del Sol was at the opposite end of the spectrum from the place in Indio.

My most vivid memory of the Del Sol was being startled awake one morning by a gunshot in the next room, followed by the sound of breaking glass, followed shortly by the manager having a heated argument with the room's occupant, followed by the arrival of several of the local policemen.

I would later find out that apparently the room's occupant, after finishing off several bottles of his favorite liquid refreshment, was annoyed by the program on his television. So he shot it. Upon determining that the maid would probably not be amused by this turn of events, he decided to "get rid of the evidence", so to speak, by throwing the carcus out the window. The flaw in his plan was that he failed to open the window prior to launching the projectile, and the sound of the glass breaking - but not the gunshot, apparently! - caused other guests to contact the manager.

But it would not be til after I left the L. A. Division that I learned the true meaning of the term "flop house".

Anyway, my nomination for the worst flop house goes to the LeRoy in Roseville... where every room had a urinal. Actually, it was a sink, but apparently some people weren't clear on the concept.

Ah, the Good Ol' Days...

I was spoiled by U.P. "clubhouses" the summer I worked in Wyoming, and even a nice hotel at Willits when I went to work on NWP the following year, so when covering a local out of Healdsburg that year(summer of '65) found the makeshift accomodations in the company freighthouse rather uncomfortable(no shower...just rinsed off in the nearby Russian River at daybreak). The option of caboose wasn't much better but felt more secure and offerred a tad more RR romance.

No wonder some of you guys drank.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> No wonder some of you guys drank.

What do you mean, "some"?

Often, the only place to get out of the heat was in the bar. To stay in the bar, you had to drink. I worked with some people that could nurse a 40-cent draft beer for 3 hours. You only went up stairs to bed when they closed the bar.

We stayed at a house of ill repute in New Iberia called the Frederick Hotel. It was an away from home terminal subdivision, and we had to deadhead down to work 2 salt dodgers and two local freights. I usually rode my motorcycle down ('57 Sportster hardtail chopper with straight pipes). The hotel let me park my bike in the lobby because it gave the place class. The First Dodger had a 7:00 AM call, and I would crank up my bike right there in the lobby and ride out the side door to work.

If you wanted a girl, the way it worked was you went to the bar and ordered a special drink. Each girl was a named drink. For instance, if you wanted Linda, you ordered a Singapore Sling. You gave the bartender $20, and he gave you a drink and a room key. We rented the rooms for $12 a week (Sunday was free if you paid for the whole week). I always suspected that they rented our rooms out while we were at work. I found that out for sure one day when we were called to work, and then annulled because the Second Dodger had derailed that night on the way to the salt mine and we didn't have an engine to work with. I headed back to my room, and sure enough, it was occupied. I went down to the bar to beat up the bartender, and he offered me a deal: don't beat him up and I could have my pick of the girls or all the beer I could drink. It didn't take much thinking to make the choice between bad beer and bad you know what. I went with the beer.

pb1