Railroaders' Nostalgia > Retired SP engineer Gene Lounsbury

I received my Locomotive Engineers Journal in the mail today, and while thumbing through it, I noticed that retired engineer Gene Lounsbury passed away in December.  I was sorry to read that.  Gene was Local Chairman for Div. 283 in Oakland when I was the LC for Div. 161 in San Francisco in the early 80s, so we interacted quite a bit.  A good rail.  And a good union man.  Sorry if this has already been posted and I missed it.  Rest in peace Gene.

I'll 2nd that!  RIP Gene........

I remember him from my two year stint at Amtrak.Good guy and great to talk to.Sorry to hear the bad news. Bill webb

I fired for Gene on the Starlight for a while way back in the 1980's when SP was still providing operating crews for Amtrak trains on their railroad. He was always a pleasure to work with. Later as a San Leandro neighbor I'd run into him occassionally around town. As Mike (CPCoyote) said Gene was a good union man and a good engineer...and a genuine great guy! 

There's a picture of retired Gene in the Trainorders post linked below from 2009. Gene retired in 1995 and it's nice to know that he had 20+ good years of retirement. RIP Engineer Gene Lounsbury.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2026504


 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/16 17:44 by johnw.

R.I.P. Gene! I taken he worked worked on the Coast Starlight between Oakland and San Luis Obispo on the SP! Correct?

Gene, who was Western Division, worked between Oak and SLO for the SP only occasionally -- has to do with his seniority standing and working off miles accrued by Coast men on the Western after the interdivisional runs were set up in the 1970s. When he was at Amtrak, he worked Oak-SBA on a regular basis (his last run ended one evening at OKJ).

EtoinShrdlu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gene, who was Western Division, worked between Oak
> and SLO for the SP only occasionally -- has to do
> with his seniority standing and working off miles
> accrued by Coast men on the Western after the
> interdivisional runs were set up in the 1970s.
> When he was at Amtrak, he worked Oak-SBA on a
> regular basis (his last run ended one evening at
> OKJ).

That's correct! The Western Division engineer and fireman got one of the three OAK-SLO  #12 & #13 (the Coast Starlight numbers in those days) jobs for about 6 months a year as I recall. There was an overlap where a Coast fireman worked with a Western engineer for a short while and that's when myself (a Coast fireman) worked with Gene. I believe he had "claused" (put himself on a temporary hold on the job) the Western engineer spot while the regular higher seniority man was on a 4 or 5 week vacation. 

Those jobs were sweet on the SP! Lots of miles (245 or so each way?) and $$$, mostly daylight running, a great place to layover (even if that 24 hours was a bit long!) and every third day off. They went very high seniority for both engineers and fireman on the Coast. I was fortunate to be in the right fireman seniority groove to work the jobs regular for the better part of a couple of years, mostly with Danny Wolf as my engineer, also worked from the extra board frequently with Forrest Titus and Neil Vodden among others, all like Gene a pleasure to work with. I look back fondly on those days.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/16 15:55 by johnw.

Yes John, those were great jobs. When I was working the Passenger Board in the 80s, I used to try to catch a 4-5 week vacation hold down.
They put us up at a decent place for a while (the Peach Tree Inn). It was very quiet and close to restaurants, or I could take a nice walk downtown. More things to do and places to eat. Then there was the Farmer's Market every Thursday night. Good times.

Posted from iPhone

>I believe he had "claused" (put himself on a temporary hold on the job)

A dead give-away: you were a Coast man, because that's the phrase used on the Coast for making temporary hold-downs. On the Western it was "making application to", as in "Gene made application to 12/13".

EtoinShrdlu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >I believe he had "claused" (put himself on a
> temporary hold on the job)
>
> A dead give-away: you were a Coast man, because
> that's the phrase used on the Coast for making
> temporary hold-downs. On the Western it was
> "making application to", as in "Gene made
> application to 12/13".

Busted! Thanks for that clarification! I learn something new here every day, at my age probably a good thing!