Railroaders' Nostalgia > Time books, how many of you guys used these?

How many of you guys used these time books to track your trips/pay?

You ordered them from "Bill Franklin" in Roseburg Oregon.  You got 5 of them for two bucks, on your first order you could get a "holder" [plastic wallet] and 2 books for your $2.  Rumor was Bill was an SP trainman, anyone verify that?  He must have had a good side business as just about everyone I knew on the SP's LA Div. used them.

My handwriting is a bit stylized, but my sample page is for a trip I made on 1-834 from San Luis Obispo to LA.  In the line for Conductor I show two names as I was the "big O" and these were my two bunnies.  I didn't keep the dollar amount in my time books but just the penalties to compare against the details on "swindle sheets" that would come with our paychecks.  Notice I had a pretty good run down one of the most scenic runs in the country, just 4hr - 40min.  Also notice I ended up using all 12 hrs with  5hr - 45min Final Terminal Delay [FTD].  It took longer to get to a receiving track and tie up than the 215 mile trip!  Not that unusual for Taylor Yard in those days.

If someone has posted these time books before, forgive I have not been on T.O. for all that long.

JP

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LOL.  I've got a whole box full!!!!!!  After cleaning out my garage a few years back I did manage to keep a banker's box with most, if not all of my timebooks while in engine service (1968 - 1978).  Fun to look back, especially the engine consists!

Yes--The Franklin Daily Time Record is still available for railroaders today. Generally, I could get about 3 months of trips on an interdivisional pool out of one little book. I used to use them very frequently, and for yard jobs and locals they were great.
Once they stopped making us fill out separate delay reports (which I would keep in a separate file rubber banded to this little green timebook for "just in case" purposes), I started using just a smallish blank ledger book that I could personally write down delays along with my "dinger" sheet of train information at the start of the trip.  Sometimes I can make 2 or 3 trips on a single sheet with few delays, other times it takes a whole page to show what the heck happened that day!  That flexibility is good for me.
I've had a few instances where officials have come after the fact to ask about a particular train delay--and there's no greater satisfaction than saying "Well, let's consult my timebook with the delay report..." and then I show them my record of what happened. Usually that ends the discussion, and they've mostly been grateful that I had an answer other than "Uhhh, I don't know." 
I try to stress the importance of good recordkeeping to my coworkers, but it seems most of them now don't even bother with one.  It's also handy for IRS purposes, as that timebook counts for official purposes for figuring up per diem days at the away from home terminal out of town.


 

Count me in for still using them. Added another trip into my current time book this morning. They even have a website now.

http://www.dailytimerecord.com/

I get free timebooks from my local but I'm still waiting for a good app for my iPhone for keeping track of my shifts/trips. I have never liked time books, mostly because my own penmanship is so terrible. An app that I can TYPE my information in would be so much easier to review later, especially one with customizable fields and auto calculations (such as click on "Meal penalty" and it automatically populates the amount to the record, for example). In this day and age, I can't believe that neither the SMART/UTU or BLE-T internationals haven't developed one for their members.

I loved these books also. Used to get them from an engineer that worked on the Santa Fe by the name of Jim Lasby.  Pat you certainly  had to work with a bunch of characters   Ray Craig. Steve Tabor and Jim Serafino !  ah  names from the past !
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/17 04:27 by SanJoaquinEngr.

I always used the free BLE timebooks supplied every year by our local chairman. I kept a diary of the things that happened at work, and at home, on the right hand page. I still have all my timebooks, and refer to them for something all the time. I kept my entire consists in them too, even if I had a dozen units. Glad I kept them, lots of guys never bothered, just kept a print out when they tied up, or their 816's at payday.

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Pat...
Still have all of mine! In the 70's when I was hostling in Roseville, just the shift and who I was working with. But when I  finally
got out on the road, used those books  my whole career. Interesting to see the crrews you worked with, consists, and yes, caboose
numbers. Any weired things that happened on a trip were duly noted (BO engines etc). Started my first "road" book with the number 1
on it and so on, figured easier to find in case of a timekeeping issue if need be. A certain engineer on this thread while he was in school
would regularly go through them looking for "unique consists" or locomotives, and note them in a special binder. I found out about this
sometime later...you know him well!
Craig

This was my last time book as a switchman in 1988. I went into engine service in August of '88 after being on the ground for 10 years (blew my knee out and knew I couldn't last on the ground). These are all yard jobs on the UP at East Yard, in L.A.-BMT

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I see you had the old Sheepherder as the engineer.
I used those type of TB as a daily trip report. Then on the 10th & 25th I would transpose it into my BLE timebook. I still have my first TB from April, 1969, thru the 90s.

I knew a printer in Atascadero and we were talking one evening. He designed a small 3 ring binder type of page that would fit in your bib or shirt pockets and I used those right up to my pensison. The IRS hated them because they couldn't deny any away from home meals.  The law stated, you are allowed $25 per meal, per day without a receipt.  I used the same CPA and he took the IRS to the district in LA. We won. My oldest daughter works for the same firm in SLO.


Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
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> I see you had the old Sheepherder as the
> engineer.
>>
> Nudge

Sellar, are you talking about Ray Craig when you mention "Sheep herder"?

That's the one

I'm a retired printer from SLO and I used to print them for the SP rails.
Bill Pyper
Salem, OR
 

I've been using the Franklin Daily Time Record book for a decade now. Got a box full of them. Been pretty good about keeping a time book. Just wish I was as good keeping one from the day I hired on. Would love to look back through those books!

Hey Brian you only made 40 minutes overtime in the whole half ! Should of hired out on the SP !

SanJoaquinEngr Wrote:
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> Hey Brian you only made 40 minutes overtime in
> the whole half ! Should of hired out on the SP !

I actually didn't work 40 minutes OT. As a CRO (car retarder operator), you couldn't leave for lunch so we were paid 20 minutes OT (it was the highest paid job in the yard next to the yardmaster). Working those yard jobs, we got an hour lunch and an hour quit so we really were only "working" 6 hours per day (at most).-BMT

I used these, the odd number years were blue, the even's were red...sometimes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/18 09:47 by LocoPilot750.

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I never used them. I had an IRS audit once in 1979. I was told by Southern Pacific LA Engineer Marven Foley ( who had been audited every year) the IRS likes your meals and records in your own booklet , not the Union ones. They felt that you could just take a Union timebook and fill in the blanks. As far as my audit went, Foley was correct. The IRS lady like the fact that I had my own little black book.
PM

I still use them. Love em

They come in handy for us researchers too, lacking other materials as they often show types of engines with engine numbers, and types of trains running in a particular time period (plus sometimes special trains and wrecks). But they are just a snapshot with just one man's trips, so narrowing down the last steam run or final annulment of a train, if the guy bumped around, for example, would not be as precise.

My Wabash Conductor friend had most of his from 1939 to 1979, and I summarized them in my Railroading on the Wabash Fourth District book. He only could find one page (January 1930) from his engineer dad's books, but it was a dandy with Pacifics on passenger runs, "Big Mikes" on Redballs and one classic Ten-Wheeler on a passenger run. I also had a few months of the teens from around WWI to summarize from another source. There were some old clunker steam engines still around then!( 4-4-0s and 2-6-2s) And also Pacifics were used on Red Ball freight!

Unfortunately, most time books were thrown out. I also bought a couple from another source on Ebay, and to my dismay, someone had cherry picked the steam to diesel transition period books out of the group. Darn.

My question to you railroaders is: How many of you put personal things in your time books like births, deaths, wedding anniversaries, etc? Clarence told me that over the years they came in handy to dispute payroll inaccuracies form the accounting department.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/17 11:11 by wabash2800.