Railroaders' Nostalgia > Wayne Pierce, SP Engineer & Co. Officer

Form many of you former Southern Pacific people, Wayne Pierce pass away. He was a company officer for many years, RFE in Dunsmuir, California, Rules Instructor. After the UP take over, he went back to his seniority on the LA Division and worked the West Colton/Yuma Pool. He was an all around good guy. Wayne always had some great RR stories to tell, especially from the days when he was an officer.

---

Those pins were wide spread! We had them in Roseville showing our true colors too.

Just found out, Wayne retired to Tennessee. So, there won't be a California funeral or memorial. Yep, all the smart people left California.

HardYellow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just found out, Wayne retired to Tennessee. So,
> there won't be a California funeral or memorial.
> Yep, all the smart people left California.

Sorry to hear of Wayne's passing.

A couple remembrances. Wayne and I had close seniority so our occasions of working together were limited
to those of hostling at SP's Taylor roundhouse in Los Angeles--Wayne as Hostler, I as his Hostler Helper.
One occasion, in particular comes to mind and time allows a re-telling. 

We were working one of two sets of hostlers on the third-trick at the 'Service Track' aka SP's 'Cape Canaveral' where
the inbound power was fueled and sanded on one of 6 tracks prior to being hostled down to the 'Turn-Out' tracks, where
the next set of hostlers took over and actually 'built' the next out-bound consist. 

Late in our shift, (the sky was still dark), the service track foreman came onto the hostlers 'room', a 10x10 foot, cubby-hole
where hostlers whiled (shall I say) slept away the hours between moves. "Take track 5 down to the Turnout, and tie-up".
"OK!, boss", was Wayne's reply. Out the door we went; Wayne headed to the south end of the track where he climbed into
the cab of the southern-most unit, I heading to the northern most where I would begin working my way through the five
units, releasing air-brakes, positioning cut-out valves to allow the brakes to release--this to allow the units to be moved.

When I finished my tasks, I joined Wayne and we began moving slowly, it was a relatively steep hill we were on, down to
the Turnout. Our trip was relatively short; ahead was a prior set of power which had been left by our partner's, the other 
set of hostlers we had shared our 'cubby-hole' with during our night on the Service Track.

Wayne stopped short of the preceding units. There was nothing going on ahead of us. Wayne said: "Let's see if the knuckle
on those units 'lines-up' with ours". I climbed down and saw that they would. Easily, Wayne inched forward and we heard that
comforting 'clink' as the joint was made. "Come on, lets go home". "Won't that Hostler be surprised", chuckled Wayne as we
headed back to our 'cubby-hole', made out our time-slips, and headed to our cars. 

The second recall is Wayne Pierce was appointed Road Foreman at Los Angeles sometime around early 1974. I was working 
the engineer's extra board at L.A. on the evening of March 31 and was called for No 2, The Sunset, to Yuma with fireman Chuck Walsh,
my first trip as engineer on passenger. It was a Sunday evening. The next morning, at Yuma, Wayne walked into wherever I was having
breakfast and grinned as he loudly announced to all within earshot that he had OK'ed my trip with the crew desk at Taylor the evening
prior. Apparently there were no other engineers available for the call and Wayne was confident I could be trusted to keep the wheels
on the rail. Thanks, Wayne.

Charlie  

    

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/26 23:33 by cewherry.

Nice story and benison to your old friend, Charlie.  Definitely the "good ole days."

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Cool story thanks for sharing  and the sad news. Bill Webb

I knew Wayne for years. He was a pretty good guy and never really bothered anyone. I learned a few years later that his step father was another company officer the notorious Bill Blevins that retired as a Terminal Superintendent in the San Jose area in the 1980$.

Posted from Android

I worked with Wayne as an officer on the Los Angeles Division for many years.  We both hated "testing" the crews, but it was part of the job and we spent many nights out on the "West End" between Pomona and City of Industry where we would set up yellow and red signs with no train order to see what the crews would do.  Wayne and I both responded to the unfortunate derailment of a westbound at State Street Junction one very early morning in 1984.  The power switch had been tampered with leaving a gap in the points with the "A" signal still displaying green.  The westbound derailed at the power switch and the locomotives ended up on their sides.  As was always the case with a derailment, one of the first things we would look for was what was in the lead locomotive's cab, and by then, some had speed and other information tapes.  Wayne and I had a heck of a time attempting to gather what information we could from a locomotive on its side.  We laughed about that many times in the years to come.  When I left the SP to go to APL in 1985, Wayne and I reunited in Northern California  a few years later where he had taken a job in the SP Marketing Department in San Francisco reporting to Art Kielty.  I was recently divorced and renting an apartment in Martinez which had room for Wayne as he soldiered on in San Francisco.  Wayne was truly a gentleman with a great sense of humor and a person you could always count on to handle things in an objective manner.