Nostalgia & History > PRR crew at Logansport In.

PRRFan

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Indiana actually had a law into the late 1990's that required a five person crew, although it was no longer enforced.

You have to figure that diesels eliminated one of those guys from that crew. The railroad radio eliminated at least another two or three of those guys. Then of course computerization of waybills and switch lists may have eliminated another. It gives an idea of how there were so many railroad towns at one time where the whole population worked for a given railroad, Logansport would be one of them. Now I can only think of one woman at work who has a husband who works for CSX. I am a former railway employee and had I had stayed on I would have been laid off or forced to move.

Oh yeah, I liked the picture.

Jim

Nice variety of hats!

How many violations of today's operating/safety can one see in this picture?

tq-07fan Wrote:
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> Indiana actually had a law into the late 1990's
> that required a five person crew, although it was
> no longer enforced.

In 1971ish, B&O tried Locotrol on a Pittsurgher out of Barr Yard. B&O was starting to look a lot like C&O and train starts were the Holy Measurement. Business was way up and management wanted a way to actually run the big trains that they wanted.

(...a while after some smart a__ night Chief Dispatcher ran a 300+ car Pittsburgher with two units, something like an SD40 and an F7, acting upon the instruction that there could not possibly be enough business for a second train, just put it all on one train, or as much of it as you can get on a train. The next night's fleet ran around that train before it made Garrett, the first crew all done after tripling Suman hill. For those of you familiar with Barr Yard, the eastbound yardmaster was awaiting my call about what to do with the Willard stuff. When I called him back, all I said was South Open clear? The reply was Gotcha. He hung up and commenced building the train.)

Anyway, after the Locotrol train left Barr, the state DOT 'somehow' found out. The DeKalb County Sheriff folks were waiting when the train got to Garrett and arrested the Road Foreman supervising the operation. The charge was violation of the full crew law and operating a locomotive without a qualified engineer. That first Locotrol run was the last one.


TAW

tq-07fan Wrote:

> You have to figure that diesels eliminated one of
> those guys from that crew. The railroad radio
> eliminated at least another two or three of those
> guys. Then of course computerization of waybills
> and switch lists may have eliminated another.

The crew looks like engineer (eliminated by belt pack), fireman (eliminated by diesels), pin puller (generally still around), field man (eliminated by "productivity improvements"), and foreman (who is now the engineer and field man). The suits are probably the agent or yardmaster (now consolidated into one overworked individual that computerization has allowed to handle 100 stations - not well, but that's irrelevant), and the trainmaster (of which there are now three to put into the picture).

TAW

The engineer has polished shoes. I find that very interesting given where he has to walk.

Years ago there was an Amtrak engineer I'd see occasionally at Metropark in NJ. Tweed blazer, slacks, shirt, tie, good work shoes. He looked like he was on the way to teach a college course, or work in a brokerage house. He would step outside the cab to take a look at the pans, then walk back.