Railroaders' Nostalgia > …how to qualify for passenger service

1978-79 was one of the worst winters in recent memory. Chicago & the upper Midwest were hit particularly hard with blizzard conditions. Consequently Amtrak schedules virtually all over the country were affected. Trains were running up to several hours late all over the place.

It was late January '79 and fellow Santa Fe brakeman Dave Franz (monaddave) & I were furloughed from both train & yard service. So we took the opportunity to get our Amtrak passenger brakeman (flagman) qualification trips out of the way. Starting at Emporia we boarded train #16, the Lone Star for the jog into Kansas City Union Station. There we would have a little bit of a layover before catching a very late train #3, the Southwest Limited. The flagman territory were expected to qualify for only reached as far as Newton, KS. But we were also combining our student baggageman qualification. (Don’t ask how we pulled THAT off!) Of course that meant we just “have” to ride the train all the way out to La Junta, CO. And return. (…damn the bad* luck … ;^)

It was a no-brainer that Dave & I brought our cameras along to help us learn to be good passenger flagmen & passenger baggagemen. But being the ever adventurous night-photo bug I ‘just happened’ to bring along my tripod as well. I spent quite a bit of time roaming around the train yard grounds taking all kinds of miscellaneous shots. I can’t be 100% sure, but I think shot #1 was taken at the very eastern edge of the passenger platform. In which case we’re looking east at the columns of the Main Street overpass, with the Grand Blvd overpass further back. I remember heavy grains of sand all over the place, so this image isn’t flawed. That stuff was really there all over the cover blanket of snow. For shot #2 I had trudged through the snow and set my tripod up almost underneath the Main Street overpass. In those days #3 was normally into Kansas City around midnight. But there is a hint of daylight in the eastern sky. So #3 was a few hours late. It was an eerie feeling to see how empty the scene was, knowing how active this artery of tracks must have been in the prime days of passenger travel.

*Dave & I had a few close friends & relatives who were so deeply concerned about our collective bad luck and misery that they felt like had to come along with us. Adding to our entourage was: my (then) wife Cheryl @ Emporia, Mr Jim Wilson (jtwlunch) @ Newton & Mr John Arbuckle (The Chief Way) @ Hutchinson. These three kind souls were good enough to cough up the fare to ride along and help Dave & me through our travails. Although with John being an Amtrak employee he probably didn’t have to exert himself all that much to come along. Can you possibly imagine this horribly abusive scene? Two railfan/railroaders having to ride a passenger train half way across the Midwest & back! Without buying a ticket even.

The nerve…

1. Lonely dwarf signal at the passenger platform.

2. Looking east from a spot just west of the Main Street overpass.
(2 photos taken January 21, 1979 at Kansas City Union Station in downtown KCMO)

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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All in all I'd say you had everything well planned.

'78-'79 saw the salt water bay of the intercoastal waterway freeze over where one could walk across from the mainland to the barrier islands ... nice shots LG

Posted from Android

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> '78-'79 saw the salt water bay of the intercoastal
> waterway freeze over where one could walk across
> from the mainland to the barrier islands ... nice
> shots LG
>
> Posted from Android


I think that winter also saw the Chesapeake Bay freeze over too.

I seem to recall that Mr. Jim Wilson was on official company ( ATSF ) business at La Junta by coincidence this date.
He was then an employment supervisor out of Newton.

Jeeze, you guys had to take student trips to *qualify* for passenger service? I qualified in 1978 on SP at San Luis Obispo by borrowing a guy's (SP) uniform and then showing up on time to work the Coast Starlight. The hat, a requirement, was too small, so the conductor (V.R. Swain, SLOers) told me to carry it around in my hand. A couple of years later, I qualified as an SP/Amtrak passenger conductor by checking-out a ticket punch, various paper and tickets at the San Francisco stationmaster's office. The only passenger job that I had to qualify for was TBM. I conclude that Amtrak was more concerned about how one handled the baggage more than the passengers (-: OR, maybe we just had better union agreements regarding qualifying than you did.

-E.O.