Railroaders' Nostalgia > Chief Clerk Gene Blades!

I’m not sure I have his job title correct. Earlier today I was talking with good friend and fellow Santa Fe Middle Division (TO member ‘skinem’), who called it Assistant-to-the-Superintendent. I decided Chief Clerk made for a much less awkward thread title.

Mr Gene Blades was that man who just about every RR employee on the division came into contact with at one time or another. And he was a genial man who you liked immediately upon meeting. I have one little anecdote about Gene. Actually, I’m lifting an entire paragraph from a reply ( https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,6075597,6075933#msg-6075933 ) I made to a fellow TO member 3 weeks ago, who knew Gene very well. Here it is:

“I can remember being over there in the Middle Division DOB taking an annual rules test with a handful of fellow Middle Division brakemen. As we were all standing at the counter, turning in our test results I casually looked over at the answer sheet from the guy next to me. I said ‘oh shit, I got answer #16 wrong!’ Gene told me to change the answer on my own sheet. With my father’s stern life lessons in my mind, I said ‘Gene, I can’t do that! I got it wrong!’ But he argued that I got it right in the end. I changed my answer and decided right then & there that Mr Gene Blades was a saint among railroaders.”

Gene has long since passed on. I regret not being able to attend his funeral. He commanded that kind of respect from me…

1. AT&SF Middle Division “Chief Clerk” Gene Blades posing in his office in Newton, KS.
Photo date: September 2, 1981.

Thanks for listening!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/25 08:25 by santafe199.

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On my LOTH test (Locomotive Operations and Train Handling test) a 400 question behemoth.....I missed a comma....instructor grading it said...."did you mean this to be a comma???"....of course...don't know how I missed that....they don't want you to fail and will do whatever they can to push you over the edge....of course if you are a complete dolt.....

I knew Gene from two perspectives.  He was Chief Clerk to the Trainmasters in the Newton Superintendent's office.  He and Janice the stenographer worked for the two trainmasters there, H. D. Dale Robertson and Tom Shalin.  HDR had the 1st, 3rd and 4 Districts, Wichita, El Dorado, and Augusta Operations and attached branches and Shalin had the 2nd District and attached branches and Sand Creek Yard, Hitchinson-Way Yard, and Dodge City.  I worked one summer for the Santa Fe as an Extra Board Brakeman out of Wellington in 1973,  When I hired out there, a fraternity brother of mine took me to meet the Chief Clerk to the Trainmaster to fill out an application and have an interview on the spot.  C.T. Herzog the Trainmaster did not interview me.  I got a notice to come in for a physical and they took a back xray and forwarded the results to Chicago for evaluation.  They got a wire back for the group who had physicals and I had passed and was to report for a one week class soon there after.

Fast forward to 1977, college degree in hand working a sales job, decided time to go back railroading.  Went up to Newton dressed in a suit and met Gene Blades and asked to put in a application.  He had a short discussion with me, took the app and said they would get back to me.  I got a call to come back to Newton for an interview with Trainmaster Robertson.  Came back with a suit on had a good conversation with him.  He told me he hasn't interviewed any Trainmen applicants with a suit on.  I told him I was serious about a career and why.  Next step was a physical.  This time was different, no more back xray's as women were being hired in the operating, mechanical, and engineering craft positions.  Could not endanger a baby if the woman was pregnant and did not know at the time.  So now it was height and weight tables, if you fit there and the doc passed you, you were hured.  My height was okay, weight was 25 pounds off.  I guess my beer and pizza diet for four years was the issue.  Robertson told me, lose the weight, come back and I will hire you.  So instant diet, running before work and after work, came back 30 pounds lighter in 40 days.  They weighed me in the office, said I was hired and entered the next class and marked up. 

Gene Blades was very supportive, told me what to expect working on my territory and said be ready for at least your first year, you will be cut-off by mid-January and come back in May.  I kept in touch with Gene as you would work on Mainline out of Emporia, switch at Sand Creek, North Wichita, and El Dorado.  Never worked Augusta, any of the branches, or work trains.  Very unusual, while Lance Garrels was working he worked almost every trainman's job on the seniority district.
So next step at Santa Fe I was interviewed for a new position in management as Employment Supervisor to be headquarted at Newton.  I started the job in Summer of 1978 and was given a empty office in the Passenger Depot just in from the front street doors.  I spent a day cleaning it up, Stroehouse brought me a desk, chair, and  typewriter, and stand, Communications put in a phone.  I was in business handling employment for the Middle Division, Colorado Division, 1st District of the Plains Division and helping out at Emporia, Topeka, and Kansas City.

So now I was working directly with Gene on employment matters and we got along great and instituted the new hiring policies that corporate HR was instituting system wide at the time.  Now, Roy Jackson the Assistant to the Superintendent had a different view of employment, he would call and say I have an open position, send me this application.  After a couple of those calls, I worked with Roy to understand the new policies.  It wasn't working well, so I went for the top down approach, one conversation with the Superintendent seemed to have positive effect with Roy on how the policies worked.....

On the Santa Fe the Chief Clerks in all the field and shop territories had a lot of power for personnel decisions.  In the smaller towns, they knew employees who had kids graduating from high school looking for jobs and that kept the railroad supplied with people through the 1980's and then things started to change on easily recruiting new employees.  When I was in Newton going to the grocery store, I met several employees with their kids in the store ready to go to work.  As economies changed in these smaller towns the pool of new emplee candidates started to shrink.

Jim Wilson

I see the ashes, but no cigar. I only met Gene a couple of times, first being the day I transfered to engine service. I had to go out to Newton to take my physical and pick up a stack of rule books I would need to go firing. He sent me back to Emporia and told me to have George Guthrie the RFE, get me going on my student trips. But I do remember Gene being a cigar man.

Don't remember the cigars, but lots of cigarettes.   My first encounter was when I went into the trainmasters office to apply for a job as a brakeman.  He explained what would be expected of me and that I would have to buy a RR approved watch, which he said I could get a cheap Wyler watch that would work.  Had a lot of interactions with Gene over the years, he could really get things done.. Went over to Gene's house after he retired and he shared from his collection of ATSF wallet calendars giving me several I did not have.   He was congenial with a heavy Oklahoma drawl, one of the last of the old school type railroaders and he really knew his job well.  Made the trip to Newton for his funeral, lots of old heads there.








 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/25 16:48 by atsfer.

I think I only met Gene once or twice.  My comments are more about Dale Robertson..  

I was laying over at Newton when I was ordered to work (by Gene).  He inquired If I had my own transportation (yes) and would I stop by the DOB on the way to work (yes).  When I walked into Gene's office he told me that Mr. Robertson was waiting for me and to go on in to his office.  When I walked in Dale looked up and said (O Sh*t).  I asked him what was the matter.  He said he had just got off the phone with Mr. Groundwater (the AGM) and he wanted to interview me the next day in KC for a road foreman's position and last question he asked Dale was if I was clean shaven and Dale told him "YES" and there I was with a full beard.  The only one I ever had.  I told Dale the beard would be gone by the next day.

The next time I saw Dale was in Barstow, CA.  and a work stoppage had just ended.  Dale was now a Superintendate and he and one of his trainmasters took us to breakfast before sending my "conductor" and I home.  A few months later he was killed in a vehicle accident while driving home from work.  Sure hated losing him.

One more comment.  I worked in the Santa Fe Engineer training center in Topeka for 8 years along  side of Cecil Johnson.  He was trilling a pencil with some papers in front of him.  I told him I had noticed he hadn't done any work at all, just playing with that pencil.  He informed me he had learned a long time ago to always have a pencil so he could start writing if someone walked in on him.  That picture of Gene Blades sure shows he had learned what Cecil had learned.

Another key position long gone from the industry.
Imagine a local guy hiring local people that he was pretty certain would make good employees.
He would have to live with mistakes he made.

Like the Chief DS and similar people in Mechanical, Signal, etc., they kept the railroad going.

People that ran the railroad, not needed by smarty pants PSR types.

Nice tributes and good photo. Thanks for the post. Bill Webb

I didn't know Gene Blades, but I did have a couple interesting experiences with rules testing. I spent the month of August 1977 in Amarillo at a rules class for prospective train dispatchers. We studied rules all week and took a test every Friday. In the afternoon we would get our results and review the test. One Friday I had missed a question and during the review the correct answer was the same as my answer. At the end of the day I approached the instructor and asked how I missed the question, but had the correct answer? He proceeded to tell me I was just wrong. A classmate overheard the conversation and volunteered he had the exact same answer I did and he got it correct. The instructor said let me see your book, he took a look, pulled out his red pencil and said you got it wrong too. I thought my fellow student might faint. We learned our lesson that week.

Fast forward to the late 1980's and I was taking a one day rules refresher class on the second floor of the firehouse at the San Bernardino Shops. Tom Shalin was superintendent by then. He came in and sat next to me. I asked him if he would be addressing the class and he said he was there for his test. I was a little nervous, but very impressed that the superintendent was taking a rules test. We reviewed rules all morning and took the test after lunch. When we got the results Shalin scored 100% and I think I missed one question. He said I'm surprised you didn't do better. I don't know where I got my answer, I just said, I like to leave room for improvement.

Classic story! Very telling of the interaction between Mgmnt & the working craft(s) in those days. It’s not like that now, and never will be again. It’s now all so impersonal, so digital, so CG crap there is no chance for respect to develop between Mgmnt and the employees. Pity that………. 🤮

BTW: Tom Shalin hired me onto the Santa Fe, giving me the green light in Newton in May of 1978…

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