Railroaders' Nostalgia > It was 40 years ago today...

In 1978 my wife Cheryl & I took a scary but determined plunge. By January 1978 a bad situation at work became an intolerable, no-win situation. So I up and quit my job with the United States Postal Service. With encouragement from good buddy Dave Franz (‘monaddave’) I went down to Emporia and put in an application with my beloved Santa Fe. I had prior RR service in the SFe M.O.W. department in the summer of 1974. And I had all the confidence a brash 22 year old could muster, although at first I had to drop fries and flip burgers for a few looong months at Hardees. But I finally did get that phone call, and my life changed forever…

The Santa Fe hired me into train service in May of 1978. I successfully attended their switchman/brakeman class, “wrote” the rule book and completed my student yard & road trips. I marked up and established my Middle Division seniority on June 6, just three days after my 23rd birthday. I couldn’t wait to make my first road pay-trip off the brakeman’s extra board at Emporia. I was especially excited to know I was about to start getting paid to ride trains through Matfield Green & the Chase County Flint Hills. I had only been introduced to the area as a railfan photographer the previous summer by Dave, who was also recently hired into Middle Division train service. He had transferred over from the Eastern Division just a couple of weeks earlier.

But that good old RR-style school of hard knocks manifested itself early! When I made the call to the crew office to mark up I was immediately informed that I was force-assigned to the switchman’s extra board at North Wichita. Shoot! Now my very first pay trip would be as a switchman. And as luck would have it, my very first pay-anything was a short 37 mile deadhead over to work the Mobil Refinery job at Augusta, which was covered by North Wichita.

I was fresh out of switchman-brakeman class and my just completed student trips were under my belt. And my first day of actual work would turn out to be more memorable than I could have imagined! At 7:00 AM on June 7 I miraculously found my on-duty location over in Augusta. I promptly met my first RR boss. With a wink and a beaming smile veteran Santa Fe switch foreman Charley Skudder told me I looked so new, I still had the ‘new car shine’ on me. Charlie brought his document clipboard over and said “Here kid, sign yer name and number here.” My heart was pounding as I scribbled my info down on the trip sheet/delay report. He must have known ahead of time that he would have this greenhorn on his hands that day. I’m pretty sure I only made 10 or 12 mistakes during the day. Oh wait… we made 2½ hours of OT so it was maybe 14 or 15 mistakes. (Hmmm… I wonder if any of my novice boo-boos had anything to do with getting so much overtime… ;^) And there was only one time where engineer C J Leckington had to get off his engine and throw a switch that I should have ridden up to. When I realized what I’d done I’ll bet my face turned 14 shades of red. You can bet I never made ‘Leck’ throw another switch again the whole day. But Charlie never showed impatience or any rancor the whole live long day. Not that didn’t he have any good reasons to do so: Charley was a true champion about it.

17 days after marking up I would finally make that first road trip: When Uncle John had came calling back in May, Cheryl quit her secretarial job at Kansas State University. We got the 75 mile move from Manhattan down to Emporia made with a minimum of trouble, and with her talent she found a job right away at Emporia State University. On the sunny morning of June 23 Cheryl was already at her new place of work, leaving me home alone. I had finally marked up at Emporia some 36 hours prior, but I still had yet to take a call from the RR. About a half hour after Cheryl left for work the phone rang. Alrighty now, this is IT!!! Oops, not quite. One more not-so-hard knock. I wouldn’t be riding through Matfield Green just yet. I was called for Argentine ~ Pueblo train 314, on duty at 9:15 AM. This meant I would be riding the entire First District over to Sand Creek (Newton). But on the other hand I would be following the path of just about every famous passenger train Santa Fe ever ran! The ride itself was memorable. I was the head brakeman for veteran conductor B M ‘Boyd’ Betty. I would be riding up front with another veteran, engineer R B ‘Bob’ Kirk. And my braking partner was named Danny Buck. It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized my first road trip was with 3 men that had first names for last names…

The 314 was to come into town on Yard Track 3 (next to the DT ABS mains), cut away from the train and run up ahead so it could get filled by an Eastern Division switch crew. That’s where we changed head end crews. When the fill was completed my job would be to ride our power back onto our train and make the air joint. While waiting for the carmen to run our air test I jumped out to grab image #1 below. It breaks just about every photo rule in the book. I had to shoot directly into the source sunlight, and I took a damn roster instead of a full train shot. For icing on the railfan photography cake I left the cab door wide open. No wonder this is one my most cherished RR photographs!

The 314 was a heavy train that could have used another unit. So we just grinded our way west. But right as we started up Walton Hill west of Peabody, the second unit conked out. Bob tried to get it restarted with no luck. There we were: stuck! I was in danger of learning the hard way how to double a hill, but luckily there was an overflow tonnage make-up train YDW coming behind us. They caught up to us, coupled into the rear end and gave us a friendly shove up the hill. Not bad: My first-ever road trip took 5’ 40” to cover the 75 miles between Emporia & Sand Creek. That night I got my initiation into the “triple-the-road” club. We were called on our 8 hours rest at 10:25 PM to take a Way Turn south to Arkansas City. A “Way Turn” was about 80 or 90 loads of grain out of Way Yard over in Hutchinson. So I would get to ride through Wichita right off the bat. On the trip back home to Emporia the next day I finally got my ride through the Flint Hills! We were called for 2:45 PM to dead-head out of Arkansas City on a 583 train. It was blistering hot & muggy as the 583 rambled up the main in front of the Ark City yard office. My engineer Bob opted to ride the head end with the other engineer, which I assumed was customary. But I had no idea where I was supposed to ride. Conductor Boyd must have sensed this because he turned and nodded for me to follow him. He made a bee-line for the 3rd unit, a rebuilt SD-26 #4610. I knew why, the second I followed him through the cab door. A blast of blessedly cool air hit me in the face! The cab AC was in FULL working order. Soon my braking partner Danny joined us to make it a ‘very cool’ threesome. He told us there was no working AC on either the first or second units. I learned some very handy RR humor during this dead-head. About every 40 minutes or so Boyd & Danny would take turns. One of them would come over and use the engineer’s radio on my side of the cab to call the working crew on the head end: “Hey, it’s getting’ kinda chilly back here! Could one of you boys send back a couple of sweaters?”

It was at that point I had the most wonderful revelation. I knew 110% that I was going to love my career in train service! And that was 40 years ago… tomorrow…

1. AT&SF 6338 & 6347 at the point of train 314 W-1 on 3 track at Emporia, KS on June 23, 1978.

2. AT&SF 5668 leads train 315 X-1 south (TT west) down the Douglas District main toward Winfield Jct (KS) as we poke along in the siding on June 24, 1978. I’m sitting in the engineer’s seat of AT&SF 4610.

Seems like only yesterday...
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/18 05:44 by santafe199.

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      Those 6300 units worked the Dodge CIty to Boise City line many times. I think I saw almost all of the class over the years as they passed through Hugoton on the local.

Well, happy RR anniversary I guess!   I knew all the guys you mentioned, Charlie Scudder was memorable all right, always seemed happy and chewing on his cigar that he ate and not smoked.

atsfer Wrote: > ... Charlie Scudder was memorable all right ...

I see I must have misspelled Charlie's name. From the tiny 'chicken tracks' in my time book it looked liked 'Skudder'. And I may have worked with him maybe one more time before he retired. I was very sad to see that the entire Mobil Refinery complex just off highway 77 has been erased from the scene. Last time I was through Augusta it was difficult to see any traces of where it had been...

Lance

Did you ever work with a fellow by the name of Charlie George?  I met him more than 30 years ago when I joined the NRHS in Wichita.  He taught me to run a 12" guage Ottoway steamer at Tom Terning's steam engine show in Valley Center, Ks

 

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

I worked with Charlie at El Dorado several times off the switchman's extra board.  Always had a good time working with him and the shanty conversations were always colorful.  Good person and good engineer.

Jim Wilson

jtwlunch Wrote: > ...  I worked with Charlie at El Dorado several times off the switchman's extra board ...

Marty, I can echo the above. Sorta. I spent the bulk of my Santa Fe days working the brakeman's board up at Emporia. My opportunities to work with Charlie were far less. I certainly enjoyed the few times I did work El Dorado . In particular I remember a character named Tom (Shelton??). He had a sense of humor that didn't come from out of left field. No sir, it came outta the bleachers behind left field! A complete hoot to work with... ;^)

Lance

Charlie and Leckington were still alive three years ago. Charlie was still running his scale steam engine.

Lance, You meant "Tom Cat". To long of a story for now. If you were trying to jump start a car, you didn't want him around.

There was all together difference between North Wichita and Sand Creek.

Lance, you missed out not working with Dave Stanley!!!!! What a gemstone, no wait make that a kidney stone!!!!

Gary

ACL3042 Wrote: > ...  you missed out not working with Dave Stanley ...

No sir, I remember him. As I recall he wasn't exactly equipped with a whole lot of social grace. Unless I'm thinking of someone else...
BTW: When is the Middle Division reunion picnic this year??

Lance 

I still hear from Charlie every one and awhile...still running his Ottoway

Posted from Android

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

Still hear from Charlie every once and awhile...he still runs his Ottoway

Posted from Android

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

I remember Danny Buck, retired several years ago out of the Wellington pool.

Posted from iPhone

Great story Lance- well written as usual. Remembering all those names, dates and places, from so long ago is admirable.
Keeping a journal is the way to go; otherwise it'll all fade away (for most of us.) Looking forward to your next reminiscence!