Railroaders' Nostalgia > MILW RD Iowa Div Engineer H L Christensen

These two photos are of Milwaukee Road Engineer H L Christensen of Perry Iowa. 1st photo was June 5 1958 and the second taken July 4, 1960, both at Perry. 
Mr. Christensen hired on as a Fireman on Sept 2 of 1912. He was promoted November 23 1945. On my 1960 Iowa Div Engineer Roster he was #14. He retired sometime between then and 1963. 

Don Christensen photos from the Grefe Collection. 

Thanks for looking 

MILW86A 

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Took him THIRTY TWO YEARS to get an engineer promotion! I only worked thirty one years TOTAL! Then he worked another EIGHTEEN YEARS! Yikes. Fifty one years on the railroad, that's amazing.
JB

3rdswitch Wrote:
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>  Yikes.
> Fifty one years on the railroad, that's amazing.
> JB

I had a friend that had 55 years on the L&N.  He liked to tell about running a second section of a troop train during WWII.  He was running a steam locomotive.  The first section had a Diesel.  He said he chased yellows the entire time.

John

My grandfather worked 50 years plus 1 day as hogger on the CRRofNJ. He worked the extra day as grandma had bugged him so much about his promise to quit when he reached 50 years that he worked the 1 extra day just to show her who was really boss. I'm told that he regretted it later !!

   Ross Rowland

Actually, smart move IF like today. By working one more day you get an extra month of FULL insurance coverage. That is why I retired July 1 instead of June 30.
JB

Posted from Android

With the long interval between hiring out and promotion, I wonder how much of that time he was cut off due to the Great Depression and possible service during WW2.

Knowing the troubles that the Milwaukee Road went through, there may have been a lot of furlough periods that kept the guy from getting his years in. Because of this partly it's a fact that years ago, people worked railroad jobs until the mandatory retirement date because they had to, and some because they could. This could make you gain seniority very slowly. Sometimes you got pretty high up on the roster you were on, and so declined promotion because you did not want to be on the bottom of one roster while standing well on your current roster. If I hadn't reached engine service in my fourth year I might have declined altogether....I was already standind pretty well as a trainman when they offered promotion to me, and I knew i had many more years to work...so I took the engine job, but it doesn't work out for everyone. but