Railroaders' Nostalgia > A Peddler Freight

Actually, this was (and still is) Portland & Western's American Turn.  It is normally based out of P&W's office in Eugene but for about a year, it and the Albany Hauler (the train moving traffic between Albany and Eugene on the OE line) was based in the Albany OE yard.  I bid and held the American Turn for six or seven months and really enjoyed the routine of a 70 mile turn-around run with the first customer generally 20 miles south of a departure point - and the southern most a bit south of Junction City.  What kind-of messed it up were the conductors I had. There two different guys in that time, one was young and irritating, especially after his minimum two energy drinks that had a profound effect.  The other ground-pounder did his best to not work overtime, in fact, seemed to like to work right up to the point of our getting OT but not over.  Oh well...

This photo was taken during a break in my tenure on the job, March 8, 2010.  Engineer is a good friend and great guy, Chris Malm.  If you know Thomas White's tales, one of them involved some stolen power that was chasing a BN freight south of Seattle.  Chris was the conductor on that train and told me about it; he said (as I remember) that he still had the award BN gave him, a model locomotive.  The cottonwood trees in my photo have since been cut down and the 1803 has gone away, by orders of the EPA due to the mother company's messing around.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/25 22:00 by roustabout.

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Nice photos and narrative. I liked working locals as well. I have to agree with one though, I did not like making overtime, especially twelve. I would take a quit everyday if I could. The beauty of a big railroad in a large city, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, there were many jobs to choose from, some that regularly got quits and some that regularly got over time.
JB

Great ,Lou, thanks.

In the mid 60's a couple of us kids would hop aboard the Milwaukee Road local peddler freight a few miles from home. The crew was great and they let us help by hoggin' and trying to throw switches, cut cars and lace lines etc. Few hours later we'd be less than 1/4 mile from home. We'd thank them much then disembark and talk about our day of railroadin' . Wish i woulda taken a camera and snapped a few of those days.