Railroaders' Nostalgia > Greg Welker: The Great Debacle

By sheer happenstance, I figuratively stumbled over this wonderful example of railroad-brand humor just a couple of days after the thread about Greg appeared in this section.

For something like 21 years, Greg performed the thankless secretary-treasurer job, first for BLE Division 161 (SP, San Francisco), then same for Division 65 (Amtrak/Caltrain). Remarkably, he put up with his peers for all of those years without strangling any of them, as far as I know.. For well more than half his tenure, his meticulous conduct of division affairs was unimpeachable... until the Great BLE Pin Debacle of 1993. For reasons lost to time, the annual shipment of BLE years of membership pins got lost. Nobody cared about why, because the true significance of the screw-up was that it provided us with an ample opportunity to engage in an activity that rails love: the needle. Most likely it was Tommy Grace who pounce first with, "Hey Welker, where's my BLE pin?" every time that they ran across each other. Soon this was our standard greeting to him. The best part was that the gag never grew old. A couple of weeks ago I answered his phone call with, "Where's my 30 year pin, Doomster?"

The imps were particularly active in this one. The engineers' bulletin board blossomed with friendly take downs, and the most creative one is the one seen here. I should note that I recognize the handwriting as that of one of our fellow TO members.
 

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As someone who has been on both sides of the bulletin board bandits I can say with confidence that this is a fine example of TE&Y scorn and ridicule.

Bravo and a slice of raisin pie to all involved.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

Funny stuff! I know from some of the the same sort of personal observations how biting RR humor can be. He was obviously a good sport over it! :^)

Lance

Great post Ed. I’d forgotten all about that incident.

Posted from iPhone

LOL! BRUTAL!

I always relished such traditions as RR sarcasm, humor, whining, etc.   Great post!  Hopefully as long as humans are involved with railroading said traditions will remain.  I never minded being targeted by some of those traditions and enjoyed taking part in same.  Great trips and running well remain as great memories; the memories of fellow rails are still the best!