Railroaders' Nostalgia > Girlfriends At Work?

Did any of you ever bring your girlfriends (or wives) around work any time? At Amtrak it was easy but, I never did because all the people I worked with were horndogs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/18 08:02 by whistlepig.

A former SP Roseville engineer known as "Crash" took his wife with him on his last trip before he retired. She got a real education because it was a trip to Portola via the Feather River Canyon, not to mention an overnight in the Sierra Motel. Breakfast was in the "Cardboard Cafe."
G

When I was firing the Del Monte my wife rode the train a couple of times and we had a nice dinner and evening in Monterey.

This is back in Penn Central days. A crew home based in Dewitt (Syracuse) with the layover in Corning, NY tied up at the Town Motel. There was a brakeman that seeing a waitress at the motel. So one day the crew took her for a ride back to their home terminal. Just happens that south of Geneva, NY the Corning Secondary runs along the shores of Seneca Lake and next to NYS Route 14. As the train is traveling northbound and the girlfriend sitting in the left side seat with her blond hair flowing out the cab window the Rules Examiner from Altoona was driving along side.
The train had work to do in Geneva so the Rule Examiner called the crew on the radio and asked if there were any unauthorized persons aboard. Crew replied NO and soon the Rules Examiner arrived climbed on board to talk to the crew. He knew they had stashed her down in the nose but he didn't check and let the crew continue with their work.

Couple months later the Rules Examiner was in Corning to hold Rule Classes and staying at the Town Motel. One morning having breakfast this waitress started up a conversation with him and found out that he worked for the railroad. She then told him that she once had a train ride and he just smiled and didn't say anything as it just confirmed that he already knew.

I took mine on a few helpers out of SLO. My two girls got to ride when they were older. My sister-in-law went with me on the beets SLO to GD and back. She couldn't stay awake. When ever I caught 12 $ 13 to SBA, I would take the family on the cushions.

Oh, there were a few that did it all the time. Ed Rosa took his dog along on the helpers. He loved it. Not afraid of the whistle or air and loved walking around on the gangway. I can think of a few that had their girl friends along when working chain gang. She brought new meaning of, "Show Me Your T#%ts to the folks at the beaches next to the tracks.

There were two regular gals that rode with the engineers on lite helpers if it was dark out, Black Butte down to Edgwood. The fireman would drive her car down and meet them at the grade crossing. Sometimes it took them a long time to make that trip :):)



Nudge

When I got called as baggage man out of LA on #99, my wife, if she wasn't teaching that day, would drive down to the depot with me, and when I was doing my pre-trip thing, she would buy a round-trip ticket to San Luis Obispo. At the time, you could ride #99 to SLO and had time for lunch before 98 showed up
Since the job didn't work west of Santa Barbara, we could ride the cushions and enjoy the scenery between SLO and Santa Barbara.
Most of the conductors knew her and would never lift her ticket. One of the few exceptions was Stanley Cardwell. Even John (Broadway) Brown would carry her as long as I had a word with him in advance. While tying up in LA, she would cash the ticket in.
Never carried any member of my family on freight. Never was comfortable putting the rest of the crew on the spot if the wrong guy boarded us.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

For many years the U.P. furnished most of the clerks at the L.A. Junction Railroad. The interchange clerks were in a separate room in the L.A. Junction building. Not being an L.A. Junction employee they were on their own as far as the Los Angeles Junction was concerned, while also being out of the sight and mind of the U.P.

The midnight interchange clerk worked by himself. The midnight clerk back in the 1960's was living with two women. He sometimes had both of them with him in the office. All three of them were large people. When the catering truck saw them heading his way, he knew he was going to make a profit that morning.

Several years later he died of cancer. I visited him in the hospital. He was in bad shape. One of his relatives was there from the East Coast. She said they knew something was wrong when he quit eating. How true that was!

I went to his funeral and would have liked to have known who all the people were, but I did not dare ask.

Eugene Crowner

Broadway Brown. If he liked you, he would let most things slide. If he didn't. Hang on. Ya, he was a real AH to some guys but to others, just fine. He would look at my wife and girls, smile and keep on picking up tickets.


Nudge

ExSPCondr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A former SP Roseville engineer known as "Crash"
> took his wife with him on his last trip before he
> retired. She got a real education because it was
> a trip to Portola via the Feather River Canyon,
> not to mention an overnight in the Sierra Motel.
> Breakfast was in the "Cardboard Cafe."
> G


Taking a civilian to Portoilet was asking for trouble. Did not know about the fine lodging and dining. We had a Crash on the AT&SF but he was a brakeman; always brought "Club" porn magazines to read on the headend.

Mom and my wife Susan, ready for a trip on one of the Topeka Railroad days trains. This train was running between Osage City, KS and Topeka. Not to worry, it was the Road Foremans's idea, that's him at the door. Mom & Susan got some stick time over in my seat too. The good old days.

---

How about girlfriend employed as such for the night?

I watched incredulously as the BN night New Westminster local crew loaded a woman they employed for the journey and several 5ths of refreshment into the caboose just before leaving Bellingham (WA). That wasn't the brazen part.

The night's work was run light to Arco on the Intalco branch, north of Ferndale, get a coke train, run to the dumper at Roberts Bank, which involved crossing the border into Canada, dumping the train, returning the empties to Arco, which involved crossing the border back into the US, and returning light to Bellingham.

They were depending upon Canada customs not usually stopping coke trains and US Customs not usually stopping the coke empties.

TAW

Stanley Cardwell Could be hard to Work With I Caught A Poppy Pickers Special Off The Bkmns Extra
Board As His Head Bkmn I was Riding The Vestb Between Glendale And Burbank Jct When Came Out to
Remind Me To Check All Eng Numbers On Double Track

My wife rode with me on my last trip, but that's about it.

Atsf waiter had a wife in Chicago and a girl friend in Los Angeles. He died in L.A. on one trip. Girlfriend buried him. Then started a big legal fight. The wife won 🤪

Posted from iPhone

TAW, I believe about half the waitress's in Blaine were qualified as brakeman on the north end. I believe when the two trains both tried to occupy the same piece of train at MP 28 there were a couple of extra brakeman on one of the trains. That's when they found out the speed tape would float in the water as it did float back to the beach

DHF

DeadheadFRED Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW, I believe about half the waitress's in Blaine
> were qualified as brakeman on the north end.

GI should have had one on his crew when they wiped out the Ferndale telephone exchange.


> I
> believe when the two trains both tried to occupy
> the same piece of train at MP 28 there were a
> couple of extra brakeman on one of the trains.
> That's when they found out the speed tape would
> float in the water as it did float back to the
> beach
>

I remember that night clearly. EDB and I handled them off the hill down to about Gold Bar and went home. On the way home to Ferndale, I stopped at Denny's on Pacific Ave and saw them rocketing over the crossing.

If I remember correctly, the baggie floated too.

TAW

I had not really paid much attention to this thread until TAW just chimed in and for some reason that jolted a few brain cells.

Back about 15 years ago there was a reunion of the few remaining employees of the New York, Ontario & Western in upstate New York that was abandoned in 1957. These guys were by 2004 all retired old timers in their 80's as they got together so that railfans and historians could ask questions and partake of days gone by as these guys reminisced. All was going well and the memories were flowing freely and the guys were answering questions as best they could to give insight into the long ago rail operations. This event had gotten some advance publicity through the local county museum and a few other sources in order to get as many old timers out as possible and interested parties that would care to learn and carry forward this knowledge.

And then "she" walked in. I was in conversation with a few of these guys when a lady of their age entered the room and hollered "Hello". The guys looked up and a few literally turned white. I never caught her name but it was apparent they all knew each other well..... maybe even intimately well. She made a few inquires and then made a few well placed comments with not a little innuendo attached. What rather amazed me was the detail of actual operations of the railroad she had recalled from those long ago days, one of which was the location of the caboose tracks and placement of the cabooses of which she seemed to have very specific knowledge and memories. Then a bit of bantering about "old times" prefaced by "Remember that"? with the detail well known to those involved but a bit encrypted to those not there at the time of the hijinks. She made more than a few winks of the eye and sly smiles and some of the guys squirmed a bit uneasy of these things of more than 50 years ago in the past. It was all and all fun and non-threatening after all those years but this lady whoever she was certainly had fond memories of the railroad days in the 1940's and 50's and gave the impression she may have been a bit of a wild child back then.

That made me think about all these stories and "girlfriends" of which in my career and knowledge there were many, how many of them caught a bit of general railfan interest or retained operational knowledge and may have turned up at some event or open house to do a little reminiscing of their own.

Whilst I was General Superintendent of the TRRA, I had a couple of female employees in clerical positions. One was "Boots" a talented and quick-thinking lady who told me that, when she worked on the RIP track at Madison Yard, she was called "The whore in Cab 603". I did not pursue that discussion. I had another clerk, a relatively new hire, who, when tasked with typing an investigation from the tape, had some trouble with the profanity. Her solution was to pause while typing, say "Praise the Lord" and type away. I later learned that she also was a bartender at the BLE General Chairman's watering hole. Mercy!

One evening many years ago a bn westbound stopped at Torrington, WY and picked up a pretty young lady who has flashed the trains as they went through town. When train got to guernsey she got off with the crew.

Now how does she get home? You would have thought one of the guys would give her a car ride the relatively short distance. Instead, they put her on the second unit on a called eastbound. She was instructed to talk to the engineer after they left town.

The engineer was a great guy to work with although a straight arrow when it came to rules. So she got taken off the train by the train master. When the dust settled the entire westbound crew was fired for quite a while. Oops

Posted from iPhone