Railroaders' Nostalgia > ATSF Seniority Roster Western Division 1948

Recently I purchased a Time Book from the Western Division of the ATSF dated 1948 Vol 17. It contains a seniority list for various crafts at that time. Oldest Conductor was a gent named GW Ditlow with a Brakeman date of 9-27-1897 and a conductors date of 11-25-1903. Quite the senior man. Other area's include the following yards Hutchinson Ks, (Yardmen), Dodge City Ks yard (Yardmen), Middle Div Engineers listing Switch Engineers/Switch Fireman/Yardmen, Newton Yardmasters and a fe wothers. What caught my eye in this booklet was the section regarding Middle Division Switchmen and a column listed as "Point Seniority" with location of where that Seniority was obtained. Was this common, listing point seniority" as I don't recall seeing anyhting like this elsewhere? Was it a ATSF thing or did other roads list the same? No entries where made in Time Book, but the holder of the book was an engineer named JH Bridgeman whoose date was for Fireman 6-23-1941 and Eng date of 1-21-1947. Makes me wonder how long these gents performed service with these dates. Thanks for any insight. Resp. Ben

Ben, at one time point seniority was the usual thing for switchmen on SP, and I would suppose that this would apply to most roads. The arrangement worked well at any given point as longs as traffic patterns remained favorable, but obviously created problems when yards were closed or consolidated. Nothing that I can think of stirs up employees more than merging seniority rosters. On SP, anyway, the Depression seems to have led to its replacement with divisional seniority (with prior point rights). A Coast Division time book that I have (online) shows that it went to divisonal switchman seniority in 1935.

When does your AT&SF timebook show the Western Division making the change?

Ed Gibson

JH 'Howard' Bridgemen.  I made my first paid trip with him, he was my next door neighbor as I grew up as a kid.  In 1967.  On an all through night freight from Newton KS to Dodge City.  Front Street still existed in 1967.

The next year he worked passenger service in 1968.  He went to work at 6:00 pm in Newton and was back in Newton before Midnight.  He would be off 30 hours between round trips.  His neighbor thought he didn't have a job because he was home every day!  But he worked 6 days one week and 8 days the next week.  Nice nice job....

My deceased father-in-law, LM "Mike" Hurley is on that roster. Seniority date 6-19-47 as brakeman (becoming condr 10-30-52). A Mid Div roster 7-1-86 lists 63 trainmen on seniority district #2. Of those 63, 13 were qualified in Amtrk service. Mike was #6 on that roster and retired a month later 8-31-86. He quit psgr service in 1971. 
In 1985, Mike self published a book titled "Newton,KS #1 Santa Fe Rail Hub 1871-1971. The Mrs and I are looking at doing a reprint of the book. It is a detailed history of most overall aspects of the SF in Newton w/lots of Fred Harvey coverage.