Railroaders' Nostalgia > How did You Loco Crews Know What To Wear??

When you got the call,,how did you know what to pack for the day/night?

I ask as I`ve had days where it`s nice during the day,but the night dropped down to way cold.
Just Curious
CT97

CT97 Wrote:
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> When you got the call,,how did you know what to
> pack for the day/night?

Just like a Boy Scout.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Dad always carried extra stuff in his grip. Rain suit ALWAYS, plus a hooded sweatshirt on every run. During the winter months he took along his heavy Carhartts and insulated bibs.
He took one grip which held his extra clothes, shirts jeans socks etc. And his road bag that held his extra coats lunch and conductor gear.
JC

Posted from Android

I'll never forget the trip I had to Bakersfield with a extra brakeman fresh off the LA extra board and new to the San Joaquin board.  LA-BKF (San Joaquin Div) had its own extra board and pool crews (1-2 turns were LA seniority).  I had my hooded down jacket, sweat shirt, etc, etc.  He had a T-shirt.  80+ degrees in LA when we started.  Snowing in the Tehachapis when we got up there.  Guess who expected me to let him use my jacket?

As stated, you live and learn on the railroad and bring anything you MIGHT need. I learned one day when called for an "extra Harbor" (turn from LA down to LA Harbor and return, had caught many, twenty eight miles each way) out of Santa Fe Hobart yard in Los Angeles on a warm summer morning. I arrived with nothing but lunch and summer cloths and no money. On arrival at crew office was informed ooops, not an "extra Harbor" but a three day Oceanside, CA work train (a hundred miles away). From that day on ALWAYS had an extra twenty in wallet and change of cloths in plastic bag in car.
​JB

As a youthful fair-weather switchman I always favored bibs over blue jeans and a denim jacket for chilly nights.  None of us "crooked legs" carried grips back then; maybe a wooden crate to stow our lantern and gloves and have a place to perch in the cab.  Sometime around 1967 while I was regular on the 6th Street switchtender job an old wino drifted down out of First Street Yard asking when the next outbound train might depart.  Like so many of those long ago, rootless men on the bum, he told me his hard luck story and concluded it by saying, "A man on the road has to make do."  It was a saying I never forgot.  A year or two later I found myself forced to run a midnight job that worked the "Long South" -- Malabar Yard to Hyde Park.  A night of downpouring rain and incipient strep throat and I was getting soaked and feeling pretty miserable with plenty of work still ahead.  I recall shoving a boxcar to spot at an industry with an open door.  Lightweight plastic sheeting (like trash bag material) was coming off a large roller just inside.  Throat aflame, I croaked, "S'pose I could have 5 or 6 feet of that?"  From the scrap bin he handed me a piece just long enough to improvise a poncho.  Our hogger had a piece of trainorder string in his grip to fasten it around my waist.  "A man on the road has to make do."

    

I always check the temp and rain at both home and away terminals before I leave the house.

Posted from Android

Like 'spladiv' above, I was called off of the SP's LA brakeman's extraboard to be a conductor on the LABRF which left LA at 1201am.  This was in January after pool freight had been reduced to one brakeman and no caboose, and the SP had just hired about fifty new brakemen.

The regular move was to take the power from the roundhouse to the Shops, wait for the yard crew to finish building the train, couple on and change ends.  When I got to the yard office, the AGYM told me that the first brakeman called had car failure and they had called a second new hire for his first pay trip.  They asked if I would take the power to the Shops, and they would bring the brakeman over when he got there.

The train was ready when we got there with the power, and the Shops needed the train out to start building the MSE, so they asked if we would take the train to the top end of A yard and wait for the brakeman there.  We agreed, and when we got to the top end, there was a carryall with the brakeman.

He gets on the lead unit with a lantern, gloves, and a windbreaker, and asks what area do we work?  He thought that 375 was the name of a local!  After the engineer and I recover from our laughing fit, we explained that we were headed for Bakersfied via Tehachapi, and this was a pool freight trip with a stayover  in a motel in Bakersfield!

He had two dollars in his pocket, and a blank check, so I cashed it for him for food when we got there, and fortunately we had no trouble in either direction, so he didn't have to get out in the snow.

Casey is still there as an engineer.
G

An old head tole me, "Better to have it along and not need it than to not have it and wish you did."

LarryDoyle Wrote:
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> An old head tole me, "Better to have it along and
> not need it than to not have it and wish you did."

That truism is one I use with my kids and grandkids even today. Always worked well for me.  Ben

A 30 gallon trash bag in the bottom of your grip has a multitude of uses.