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A Day in the Life: The Railroad

Flophouse

A flophouse is an inexpensive boarding house with showers, meals, and bunks.

This page is referenced by:

Option Two: Slippage/Knuckle Break
5:00 p.m.
Train 83
Entering Davenport, Iowa
Paperwork is put into a torpedo shaped cone and will be thrown out to the agent at Davenport, Iowa
Between the Missouri Division Junction and Walcott is a six mile incline, 2% grade.
The train wheels begin slipping.

There are times, when a train approaches a steep grade, that the wheels start to slip. This slippage, or lack of traction between the wheel and the rail, creates a piercing, screeching sound reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard exponentially multiplied. The wheels of this massive, multi-ton train keep turning, struggling to gain traction, steel scraping against steel, the friction sometimes sending sparks flying.

When train wheels are slipping, sand has to be applied in front of the wheel as far as it needs to go. This could go on for miles. The brakemen will walk on each side of the train. Buckets (coffee cans) are used to scoop up sand and rocks to put on the track for traction. In extreme circumstances, the train would have to be divided into two parts, with the head [front of the train] parked in the first available siding, which could be many miles away, and then the rear is brought up the hill and recoupled to the head.

You'd get on a hill. Every inch of it had sand and gravel on it. You'd get out and use coffee cans to get the sand and gravel, and you'd lay it on the rails and you'd walk the hills so you wouldn't have to double the hill. Double on the hill means I cut off the first half of the train, take it wherever I could that had a siding, put that in the siding, come back get the rear half of the train, pull up on the main line, put the train back together and away you go again. [The first available siding could be miles away.]

You pull it [the rear] and shove the head into a siding. In other words, you pull them into a passing track, which we call a siding, and then you cut them off and tie them down. Then you'd go get the rear, and by that time the rear brakes are locked up. The conductor got permission to have somebody flag behind him [because] they didn't have the rear brakeman behind you to protect you. He'd have the dispatcher do it. You would pull up, stop. We'd try to make cut. The brakeman would put it together. Ease the train down. He'd get on the caboose and away you'd go again. Two and half to three-hour job.  [listen to audio clip here 8:58]

After two hours of grueling work applying sand and rocks to the track for traction, possibly uncoupling and recoupling the head and rear cars, the train finally moves on toward West Liberty

Pass Durant, Wilson, Atalissa, West Liberty
7:00 p.m.
As the train passes through West Liberty - the conductor drops a ticket and picks up orders. He teletypes information to Des Moines to let them know what is coming. Orders are picked up, from a string attached to a y-shaped piece of wood, with the train never slowing down from 50 mph.
As the train passes, the conductor reaches out and grabs the orders.

Train 83 must wait on Train 94 out of Cedar Rapids to pass.

Wait for Signal – red, yellow or green light - The engineer has to watch for signals.

Separate orders – brakeman and fireman separate and organize the orders for train cars according to upcoming stations.
8:00 p.m.
Arrive Iowa City

Train 83 meets 1st and 2nd Train 60 and waits two hours. Trains have priorities on the track.

Train 83 has to go into a siding and allow Train 60 to proceed.

Train 83 travels down the main line and stops at the west end of the siding, to meet one or two trains.

Red order board - pick up orders

Dispatcher will give a clear signal (follow the ABS – Automatic Blocking Signals)

10:00 p.m.   Leave Iowa City
Train 83 goes into the siding and let's passenger train #7 go by.

Wait for a signal    (ABS territory)

Head brakeman – lining the switch

(Rule 104A) Employees handling switches must know that the switches are properly lined for the movement to be made and that the switch points fit. Switches must be left in proper position after having been used.

Rear Brakeman – lines the switch back to the main line
Train 83 pulls out – takes 45 minutes to get up to speed

Meet Train 84 at Brooklyn – 84 goes into the siding – once it passes, Train 83 goes to Grinnell (45 minutes)

As Train 83 approaches Vernon, it goes into emergency! The brake is automatically activated.

The head brakeman gets off the train and walks the train to determine the problem. “Walk the train” means walking along each side of the train looking for problems. About forty-two cars down he sees that the rear of the train is separated from the front by approximately three quarters of a mile. He spots the broken knuckle. He looks to see what type of knuckle it is, Type E or Type F which is imprinted on the top of the knuckle, then continues on to the separated section. Because there were no radios in the 60s, once the brakeman determines what type of knuckle he needs, he would have to walk all the way back to the front of the train to get new knuckles and a fuzee (11). About an hour has passed, as the brakeman has walked a mile or more back and forth.

Why you’re in emergency is the reason you’re walking the tracks. What’s got you in emergency, the air hose, the penny line, knuckles out; something put you in emergency. Once that train comes to a halt, you had to walk.

Back in the day before we started doing all this new stuff, the track was like this – you’re walking way down ballast, you could walk along the wheel about that low [indicates the wheel is very low to the ground]. Now it’s at an angle, and you’re walking way out here trying to hang on to something and looking underneath the train. It's a whole lot harder to walk a train today than it used to be. Everybody has to walk the train, brakeman gotta walk the train, because if the engineer and the fireman came back, and you have to take one down [knuckle], they can help you get it out.[listen to audio clip here 1:06:40]

One time I got a real bad ankle twist. When they got rid of the locks or the batteries for all the signals, and they ran the signals through the tracks, they left these battery boxes with pieces of wood or dirt over ‘em [alongside the tracks]. You’d be walking the train, and the wood would be rotten, and you’d step down there, and I twisted my right ankle big time a couple times. I don’t know how many times I worked on a division, and about the third or fourth guy in the division got hurt. The superintendent had a gang go through, and they got rid of all those boxes. [listen to audio clip here 1:08:55]

We had two knuckles and it depended, you'd get back there and if a knuckle broke, you'd have to look at the top of the knuckle and you'd know what size to get. And so you'd get that size knuckle and put it in. The knuckles were hung on racks underneath the caboose, or on the back of the engine. There were two knuckles on each end of the engine, so there were four knuckles, because we had two types of knuckles [Type E and Type F]. [listen to audio clip here 29:48]

The brakeman would close the angle cock on each side and release the brake. The first knuckle repaired would be the car attached to the engine.

Well now, you pick 'em up with two hands, [a knuckle could weigh between 60 and 80 pounds] but you had to hold 'em in one hand 'cause you had to lift it up and put the knuckle in. The way the pin lifted, you had to pull the pin up and hold the pin up so you could slide the knuckle and drop it back down. Some of the railroad crew carried a type of tactical web military type belt for the purpose of holding the pin while they changed the knuckle.   [listen to audio clip here 5:58]

Once the knuckle pin is removed, the uncoupling lever is lifted. The old knuckle was then removed and the new knuckle put in while holding the uncoupling lever up. The brakeman has to be very careful where he places his feet in case the knuckle is dropped. The knuckle pin is then replaced. The knuckle is checked for proper movement. Once the repair is made on the car attached to the engine, the brakeman grabs hold and hangs on to the side of the car. The engineer begins backing the train up to the other car with the second broken knuckle. The brakeman goes through the same process again and changes that knuckle. Once the repair is finished, the conductor fills out paperwork for the clerk. Every incident has to be documented.

The old box cars in covered hoppers, instead of having an underside pin, you'd have to lift up on it to get it to pull. You push it up, and that would lift the pin up and the knuckle would come open. Well, those things would bounce open so we all carried plugs. And a plug is something they put in the [railroad] tie when they're getting ready to drill it together, put another spike in. They take these wooden plugs and drive 'em in the hole where the old spike was. And everybody had a bunch of 'em on an engine. Car kept hopping up, you would just take that plug and drive it in there, force that pin down, it couldn't lift up anymore. But again, you had to tell the car department so they could go get it out, 'cause you couldn't pull that pin with that plug in there. These are just tricks you learn. [listen to audio clip here 4:53]

The knuckle itself wasn’t dangerous, what was dangerous was, you’d be switching cars, and like when I worked out of Silvis, the south end of the yard had a slight slant to it. You’d pull out a pin and they [the cars] would roll into the tracks. [You had to use extreme caution when stepping between cars.] The lightest thing on the railroad that we ever have is the caboose and it weighs, let’s see, 34 to 38,000 pounds, and that is the smallest thing we’ve got on the railroad. All the box cars, tank cars, flat cars, they all weigh more than that, so you got killed, you didn’t get hurt. You’ve got to have good common sense or you’re gonna get killed on the railroad.  [listen to audio clip here 1:10:02]

2:00 a.m.

Due to all of the problems, Train 83 will not make it to Des Moines as the crew must stop work at 2:59 a.m. The train will continue on to Marengo, pull into a siding and tie up [train is holding on line for a relief crew]. The crew will have eight hours off.

Every conductor had his own caboose, so when you got into Des Moines [or destination] you'd take the bills and hand 'em to the clerk that was there, and he'd hold on to them and put them on the other [outbound] caboose. They reach your caboose up and set it over [park it for the night] and set the outbound caboose. The brakeman'll be fixing his marker lights. They'd take your caboose and kick it down into the yard where the other switch crew would get it and put it on the caboose track. Then you'd go up and get your radio batteries and recharge 'em. The crews had their own cabooses: the conductor, the head brakeman, and the rear brakeman on an assigned train and the regular crew. [listen to audio clip here 22:17]
The cabooses were set up very simply. If you lucked out, your desk was at the back of the caboose on the left hand side, your bunk was across from it on the right hand side as the conductor. At the end was a door, and in there was a toilet. There was no sink on the caboose. In front of the toilet was a double bunk for the two brakemen. Across from there was the stove. It was an oil stove. To get it to be hotter, it had a round hole, and you had a lifter to lift the lid up. What you'd do is, you'd put the lid back in and we'd have paper cups where you could draw water.  You had water vents, and you had a paper cup. You'd draw that out, but before you did it, you'd take a knife or a pair of scissors, everybody kept a pair of surgical scissors on a caboose, and you'd cut a real tiny hole in that and you'd just pour water through it and it'd go through this hole in there and water would go into oil fire 'cause everybody would get kinda cold. It would heat up, and it would keep that caboose nice and warm. [listen to audio clip here 28:20]
Now if you were an extra person you had to go to a hotel or a flophouse, which was fifty cents a night.  Beforehand though, you went down into the basement of the yard office, and you’d take all the stuff out of your pockets, take your boots and your socks off, and step in the shower with your clothes on and wash all that dirt and dust off your clothes. Your clothes would be as black as coal because of the dust coming back across the train and all that stuff coming back. You’d wash all that off, you’d wring ‘em out. You’d take the canvas bag that we all owned, they were military surplus bags that were lined, and you’d put your wet clothes in ‘em and get a clean set of clothes. So, if you were out for a week you had a set of clothes.  [listen to audio clip here 1:02:38]
Option One: Hotbox
5:00 p.m.       Train 81
Enter Iowa – Pass Davenport, Walcott, Stockton Durant, Wilton, Atalissa

Paperwork is put into a torpedo shaped cone and thrown out to the agent at Davenport, Iowa.
The agent teletypes the data to Des Moines to let them know the contents of incoming cars.
6:00 p.m.   Arrive West Liberty
Wait on Train 94 out of Cedar rapids to pass.
Wait for Signal – red, yellow or green light.
The engineer has to watch for signals.
Pick up orders from depot.
Separate orders - brakeman and fireman will separate and organize the orders according to upcoming stations.
7:00 p.m.   Arrive Iowa City
Train 81 will meet 1st and 2nd Train 60.
Wait two hours – trains have priorities on the track.
Train 81 has to pull into a siding and allow Train 60 to proceed.
Once the track is cleared and the signal is given, Train 81 travels down the main line and stops at the west end of the siding to meet one or two
trains.
Red order board and then your orders
Dispatcher will give the all clear signal (ABS) and Train 81 will proceed.
9:00 p.m.
Leave Iowa City
Pass Vernon, Tiffin, Oxford, Homestead, South Amana, Marengo, Ladora, Victor, Brooklyn, Malcom, Ascalon
Train 81 must go into the siding and let passenger Train #7 go by.
Wait for a signal (ABS territory)
Head brakeman proceeds with lining the switch.

(Rule 104A) Employees handling switches must know that the switches are properly lined for the movement to be made and that the switch points fit. Switches must be left in proper position after having been used.

Rear Brakeman – lines the switch back to the main line
Train 81 pulls out. It takes 45 minutes to get up to speed of 55 mph.
Meet 84 at Brooklyn – 84 goes into the siding – once it passes, 81 proceeds to Grinnell (45 minutes)

11:00 p.m.   Pass Grinnell, Kellogg travel on to Newton

As Train 81 proceeds toward Newton and approaches a curve, the engineer and brakeman see smoke and determine there may be a hotbox. The engineer slows the train (4 to 5 mph) and drops the head brakeman off. He walks toward the car where the smoke is spotted.

(Rule 712) Employees must observe trains closely and if anything unusual or defective is noted, such as hot journal, brakes sticking, dragging brake rigging, sliding wheels, indications of fire, lading shifted over side or end of car, protruding objects, swinging car door, or any other dangerous condition, they must make every effort to call the attention of the crew on the train to such conditions.
Hotbox (hot journal) is detected.
While you're going around a curve, you're looking to see if there's any hot boxes. You had to look out when the train was going around a curve. You'd get up, roll the window down, stick your head out, and watch the train coming around the curve. Well, back in those days they had steel wheels, steel rails, and it would throw threads. Me and my eye doctor got to be on a first name basis. Everybody did because they put you in the chair, and you'd lean your head back, and they'd use magnets and pull it all out and clean the rust up. So, I was up at my grandparents' house, my mom's dad, and he ran a business in Clinton, Iowa. And Uncle Louis had this face mask he pulled out before he welded, and it was a dark glass. I said, It's sure bad they don't make those clear, and Grandpa said, 'Well we make those clear.' And I said, Well, I could sure use one. So he just went over to his cabinet and he got a clear one that fit my head. And so, then when I would work, I would pull that down and about every six months I'd have to throw it away and get another one because it'd be all scarred up from all that steel hitting it.  [listen to audio clip here 15:30]

An undetected hotbox or journal may catch on fire and potentially destroy the car and other cars coupled to it. Some causes of overheating are damaged seals, condensation, overloading, lack of lubrication, dirt or debris, or even rail conditions. The result is metal-to-metal friction. The lack of lubrication, added to the metal-to-metal friction, creates excessive heat, smoke and a red hot journal, thus the term "hotbox." When the axle bearing overheats, the journal box can fall below the rails, which can result in a derailment.

A hotbox is an overheated friction bearing journal for people that don't know the terms. Back in the old days they would smoke. Now with all these new roller bearings like all the cars have today, if you're not lookin' the instant that thing gets hot you'll never know it 'cause it'll flash blue, they've got a little thing inside them that'll flash blue, but that flash lasts less than five seconds. So if you aren’t looking at the journal, you're gonna burn the journal off. And I've burnt off more than one journal in my life. [listen to audio clip here 17:00]

You didn't touch the brakes. You'd just ease the air into it, squat it down, and meanwhile, as soon as you could, get off, because back in those days you got off and on as it was moving. Back when I first went to work on the railroad, I could get off at 15 to 18 miles an hour. I'd swing my right leg out, swing around and take two steps and go the other way. [listen to audio clip here 34:25]

But back then, if you needed to take that car somewhere, you'd take green grass and you'd put in there so you could drag it three, four, five miles before that journal burnt off and put that car away so the car department could come out and lift the car up and take the wheel off and fix it and do whatever they had to do, but that's what you did. You made do with what you had.

We didn't have cell phones. We didn't have walkie talkies, but the conductor's caboose radio would set in the rack, and there were three glass batteries in there. You had a big antenna that you would screw out on the left of the caboose, then the brakeman could talk to the head and tell 'em what was goin' on. But the engineer would have already called the dispatcher to tell him we were at milepost so-and-so. Most of the engineers could tell you the name of the crossings, what road it was, what street it was. You learned your division. You learned where you were gonna work. You learned it inside and out and outside in. You learned if it was right hand curves or left hand curves. You learned how long the sidings were and where you could get a train to clear.  [listen to audio clip here 35:34]

With today's modern technology and instant communication, it is difficult to comprehend the predicament of railroad crews when a problem occurred. Their tools were plain common sense and whatever materials were on hand in order to limp the train to the next available siding. The uppermost priority was to get the train off the tracks so the next scheduled train could pass safely.

The brakeman lifts the lid and looks inside the journal.
If a fire is burning, the lid is closed until the train is pulled into a siding.
If there is no fire, a hook is used to pull out waste and the lid closed.
The engineer will proceed to the first available siding.
Once the train reaches a siding, the train crew uncouples (remove) the car.
A tag is filled out and placed on the car that says, "hotbox do not move."
This may take approximately two hours.

(Rule 714) When car is set out on account of a hotbox, packing must be removed and fire extinguished. In addition, it must be ascertained that there is no fire on car body, and that dust guard is not burning nor smoldering, taking whatever action is necessary before car is left, to eliminate the possibility of fire.
1:00 a.m.       Train 81 pulls out from the siding
Pass Kellogg, Newton, Colfax, Mitchellville
2:30 a.m.       Arrive in East Des Moines
Bills are given to the clerk.
Change crews.
Engineer goes to flophouse.

Now if you were an extra person you had to go to a hotel or a flophouse. They were nice places. They were clean. They weren't dirty old places. They were well-kept and well-maintained, and they all had good food in 'em. Kate [owner] made sure that you got a decent meal. She would make homemade stew. Kate could cook. [listen to audio clip here 25:27]

Kate's daughter married a West End brakeman, and when I left the railroad, they had three kids. Kate was just tickled pink that she'd set them up because she said, 'Railroad people are good people. They're nuttier than heck, but they're good people.'  [listen to audio clip here 26:28]

Brakeman and conductor stay on the caboose.

Back when I first started, you had your own caboose. Every conductor had his own caboose. When you got into Des Moines, you'd take the bills and hand 'em to the clerk, and he'd put them on the other caboose. They'd reach your caboose up and set it over and set the outbound caboose that the [next] conductor will be on. The brakeman'd be fixing his marker lights.  They'd take your caboose and kick it down into the yard where the other switch crew would get it and put it on the caboose rack. You'd go up and get your radio batteries and recharge 'em. We [engineer and some others] stayed in flophouses for about fifty cents or a dollar. [listen to audio clip here 22:17]

And your meals. You bought 'em when we first started. Later on, we got in our union agreement. By the time I got back from the Marine Corps, we had a union agreement in Des Moines when we had to stay in a hotel downtown. We no longer had our own block, because the crews had their own cabooses: the conductor, the head brakeman, and the rear brakeman on an assigned train and the regular crew. [listen to audio clip here 25:27]

The cabooses were set up very simply. If you [conductor] lucked out, your desk was at the back of the caboose on the left hand side. Your bunk was across from it on the right hand side. At the end was a door, and inside there was a toilet. There was no sink on the caboose. In front of the toilet was a double bunk for the two brakemen. Across from there was the stove. It was an oil stove. To get it to be hotter, it had a round thing and you had a lifter to lift the lid up. And what you'd do is, you'd put the lid back in and you'd get paper cups where you could draw water. You had water vents, and you had a paper cup. You'd draw that out, but before you did it, you'd take a knife or a pair of scissors, yeah everybody kept a pair of surgical scissors on a caboose, and you'd cut a real tiny hole in that [cup] and you'd just pour water through it, and it'd go through this hole in there and water would go into the oil fire. Everybody would get kinda cold, and it would heat up, and it would keep that caboose nice and warm.  [listen to audio clip here 28:20]