A Day in the Life: The Railroad

The Day Begins

1:30 p.m.  Receive a call to report at 3:00 p.m.

We did 12 and 16-hour days.  On 16-hour days, you fix yourself a thermos of coffee, get something to eat – and in my case, when I first started, I’d get up and fix my own food.  I learned to cook, fixed myself, usually some eggs and bacon.  That was it.

I'd pack myself a lunch, back in those first days – you carried lunch with you, carry a half gallon thermos of black coffee.  Nobody drank cream or sugar in their coffee.  You wanted that coffee as hot as you could get it and black.  You work this job for 16 hours.  So, I’d get out there and get on to work and go down to the train. [listen to audio clip here 36:50]When I first went out, I had an Illinois, which was silver, and I had a Hamilton which was gold, and was given to me by a conductor who was retiring.  I wore a Hamilton on passenger.  I wore a silver pocket watch, and it was 21 Jewel. You had to take it to a jeweler every 30 days and have it inspected.  You couldn’t be more than three seconds off with your time. The time at all the stations was set.  [listen to audio clip here 39:45]The first time I went to work, I worked for a conductor by the name of Johnny Murphy.  Johnny Murphy told me, he said, 'Gary, do you have a camera in your grip?' and I said, No.  and he said, 'When we get to Des Moines, I'll get you a ride and we’ll get you a camera.' So we went up to a camera store, and I got a little box camera, that is back when we carried those little box cameras.  And he said, 'Do not never leave home without this and without plenty of film.' And I said, Why?  And he said, 'Because Gary, you are the first one if you go out and have an accident, you or the brakeman, you’ll be the first one, or maybe be the second one in a derailment – take your pictures.'  And so, he showed me how to take them, so I made a list. I kept a notebook of different things I had to do as a brakeman, because later on it came out real good as an engineer. [listen to audio clip here 56:18]There were various railroad keys, one of which was a switch key.  This barrel-shaped brass key secured railroad track switches and prevented tampering.One of the things I learned is you needed a pair of pliers with you in your pocket.  Bib overalls had those little pockets. If you had air hoses that weren't stayin' together, you'd go over and cut a piece of barbed wire fence off a farmer's fence and you'd  start on one end and wrap it across the other end.  That way when they tried to pull apart, they'd pull the barbs into the hose and they wouldn't come apart. But there was a bad thing about that too, in the fact that it would not let the switchman separate them [the car]. They had to get a carman out there and he'd have to unwire 'em. So when you got in, you'd better tell somebody that you wired up certain section cars. [listen to audio clip here 4:10]We all wore, 90% of us wore, bib overalls. We wore blue jeans. Blue denim or blue denim jackets are something you saw all over the railroad.  Pockets were needed to carry tools, etc.It's a soft hat, but we made it firm. What you would do with your Kromer, is you would soak 'em in starch. We'd get these aluminum rings that had a slit, you cut a slit in there, and you put a nut on there and you would adjust it out so that it was your size. Then you'd set the kromer on it so it would firm.  I carried one in my grip and I had a third one in case I got one dirty because they did not want you wearing nasty hats. On passenger trains, the supervisor or the agent at the terminal, they'd come by and take your hat off and see if your sweatband was sweaty. If they did, you got demerits for it. So you'd take it home, take the band off and we polished it. Just like you did with your shoes. Back in those days  you'd throw it in about six inches of Silex [cleaner] with water and let it soak. Then you'd take a brush and scrub it, and get it all clean. Then you'd put it on the band again and you'd hang it up. We wore the flat ones [hats], the kind the Air Force wore. They were floppy. [listen to audio clip here 10:09]You'd carry heavy coats in the winter time in case you had to get out of the car and go underneath the train which, the first time I didn't. I just had a top coat. And number seven got a hot box.  We had to set it out.  I had to go underneath there with a fusee and move it so I could get steam back through the train because the steam had turned to ice. And so I'd start with the engine and work all the way to the end. Well, by the time we set that out and got back on the train, I froze my fingertips, froze my ears, and froze my toes. So when I got back on the train, the conductor told me, he said 'Gary, just go sit in that rear car and we'll have the rear brakeman do your work. Don't get off unless you see you have to. Just start warmin' up.'  [listen to audio clip here 11:55]

After I had that little ice incident, I went back up to Chicago to Marshall Fields and I got me a coat that was fleece-lined. A big blue Gabardine coat that had a big hood. I had a kromer that was black. It had pull down flaps that I carried in my grip with me. I had gloves, and I had pocket warmers that we used to have to put in our pockets. They fit inside my gloves and I'd keep my hands warm."[listen to audio clip here 12:53]You've seen these truckers with the leather gloves where you pull 'em tight [leather wrist strap for cinching]?  That's the thing, you'd pull 'em tight. You'd have nothing loose. None of the guys wore a wedding ring because you'd get up there in the engine and the main generator would arc over. I got a place on my wrist right here that will never heal, that hair will never grow because I had  a main generator arc over and made my watch mold to my wrist, and I had to go get a new watch. [listen to audio clip here 13:34]When I first started in '63, you had to wear a boot. A lot of guys, including myself, wore cowboy boots with a low heel. You could not wear the high heel which could get caught. Dirt and certain things got up in the heel.  You had to wear the flat heel.  In 1969, when I came back, everybody had to wear tall boots with steel toes. They changed the rules between '63 and '69 because somebody got their foot smashed, including my dad.  [listen to audio clip here 14:16]Everybody had a time book. That’s how you kept your time.  The conductor would fill out a time slip for himself and the two brakemen.  The engineer would fill out a time slip for himself and the fireman.

You had a stamp with your name and ID number.  You fill out what time you went on duty and what time you went off duty. The conductor had to fill out a report of how many cars he had, and the engineer filled out a report of how many engines were on the train, because the engineers got paid on weight on drivers and the conductor got paid for the number of cars – if he had 81 or more cars, you got a different rate than if you had less than 81.  When you got to 105, it was a different rate. When you got to 135, it was a different rate, so the more cars you had - and they had an accumulated rate, so I may have 30 cars out of Iowa City and pick up 45 more, so all of that 75 would add to the car rate. It was the conductor’s job to keep up with the paperwork to make sure the brakemen got paid right.  [listen to audio clip here 53:41]

3:00 p.m. Arrive at the yard

Stamp time book (all train employees)
Synchronize Jewel 21 watch
Check the rules
Do a check of the tracks

RAILWAY PERSONNEL TASKS: Each member of the train crew has specific tasks to perform before the train leaves the station.

Engineer: Pumps air into the train’s brakes

Silvis was a major hub yard. They had air in the tracks so when the switchman shut the train and it was ready to go, they’d go get the caboose. They’d hook an air hose to part of the train, and they’d pump air into the train to check the brakes. Then, when you got there, you’d turn that handle. It was on the ground.  You’d just turn that handle, open the air up, cut your air very gently, you save the air, then you’d turn on the air so it’d bleed that hose off so it would release and come apart. Then, you cut the air in the engine, then you cut it back in. All I do is walk the track because they had already checked to make sure we didn’t have any leaks.  [listen to audio clip here 30:45]

Engineer: Board caboose, complete required paperwork, number of engines, etc.

Conductor: Complete Car report – car numbers, contents, destination, gross tons
Check waybills from the chief clerk against cars – make sure bills line up (documents match car contents)
Des Moines bills first
Read train orders (Rule 214) – which gives direct instruction to the crew and shows the number, date of issue, and name of station where copied (Rule 202).
Separate waybills and put the Omaha bills in one bundle.  All other bills clipped together.

 As the conductor, you get your waybills from the chief clerk. You go down and the train will pull in, coming up from Chicago and it was a run-through train. It didn't get switched or anything. So you'd go down and they would drive you down the train and you would check your bills and make sure all your bills lined up. You'd get your Des Moines bills because you had Des Moines [cars] set out on the rear end and you'd check it and make sure it was all right. You'd get on the caboose and you'd write all your paperwork out. You'd have a pad that looks like one of these Big Chief [writing] tablets and you'd write it out.

And as you went by the open station at Davenport, Iowa you'd hold it  [orders shaped into a cone] up, you'd take led that we used to put the torpedoes on and you'd pull the led out and wrap it around it and you'd throw it out to the agent at Davenport, Iowa like a cone. He would get it and he would send it to Des Moines and let 'em know what was coming and all that kind of stuff.  [listen to audio clip here 20:35]

Head Brakeman:  Goes to the roundhouse with the firemen and the engineer to get the engines and put them on the train.

He does whatever the conductor wants him to do. When he's the head brakeman, he learns to run an engine, because your old engineers will tell you,  'I don’t have a fireman on the job.'  And at that time they were going through the rule changes and getting rid of the firemen on a lot of crews. They passed a law that they only needed firemen on certain jobs. So the ones that didn't have 'em, the engineer says [to the brakeman] 'I'm 65 or I'm 70 years of age. If I have a heart attack over here, I want you to be able to pull right over to that crossing and stop.'  So, you learned to run the engine, and when you're on the ground, you learned to pick up: pick up cars, set out cars, block cars, whatever else you had to do, change out air hoses. [listen to audio clip here 3:21]

The head brakeman would go to the roundhouse if he had to get engines. He would go with the firemen and the engineer and they'd bring the engines out and put them on the train. They get the engines out, put it on, and so when you got there, you turned that handle that was on the ground, open the air up, you’d cut your air very gently, you’d save the air, and you’d bleed that hose off so that it would easily come apart. Then you’d cut the air in from the engine and cut it back in, and then all they had to do was walk the set because they’d already checked everything, all the cars to make sure they didn’t have any leaks in ‘em.  [listen to audio clip here 31:05]

Rear Brakeman:  Walks the tracks and make sure all brake riggings are in good shape, also helps with switching

He checks for four things:  shoes, rigging, retainer valves, hand brakes.
The rear brakeman would go down and walk the track, and he would check and make sure all the brake riggings were in good shape. He'd double check the carman's work. He'd make sure of the retainer valves because you did not want the wheels getting hot going across the flat track. Make sure that the markers had oil in them so they'd light, because they weren't electric when I first started. They were kerosene lit.   [listen to audio clip here 27:08]

Carman: Inspects and performs maintenance on freight cars.

The carmen took the train and they would work the air, make sure there was air going through all the cars. They’d set the brakes. They’d walk the set.  Now most trains in most major yards, like Silvis was a major hub yard, they had air in the tracks, so when the switchman shut the train in, it was ready to go. They’d go get the caboose ready to go.  They’d hook an air hose to the front of the train and pump air into the train, so the carman could check the brakes.  [listen to audio clip here 30:45]

Conductor: rides down the track after brakeman

So you’d walk the set, the conductor would be brought back down, like I said, he would be doing his bills, get on the caboose, and then you’d call the dispatcher and tell him you’re ready to pull  out and he would guide you out of the switches coming out of the yard.  You’d come out of the yard and you’d start taking signals in the ABS territory.  So when you left Silvis, the first thing you did was you went down to Davenport, then to Iowa City. It was a double track. You had a track going east and a track going west – you’d be going west, and the first time something come up – they had stations along the way at little places – and if they needed to they could get somebody to get you some orders there, but your first orders were at West Liberty.  [listen to audio clip here 31:29]

Calls dispatcher

Dispatcher: guides the train out of the yard

4:00 p.m. Departure

(Rule 84) A train must not start until the proper signal is given.

(Rule 99) The Conductor and the Engineer are responsible for protection of their train.

Train 81 leaves the station in Silvis, Illinois going west on a double track at 50 mph, headed for West Liberty to pick up the first orders.  
Engineer and the head and rear brakemen are always watching the tracks, especially in a curve to look for hotboxes or any problems.

(Rule 712) Employees must observe trains closely and if anything unusual or defective is noted, such as a hot journal, brakes sticking, dragging brake rigging, sliding wheels, indications of fire, lading shifted over side or end of car, protruding objects, swing 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.  If train is moving, stop signal must be given.  Train dispatcher must be notified at once if unable to stop train.

The head brakeman and the rear brakeman, it is their job to inspect the train.  So every time I got ready to go around a curve, left or right, I would get out of my seat, roll down the window, (the fireman sat in the left hand seat and you sat in the middle) stick your head out, and watch the train coming around the curve.  The rear brakeman, he would go from one side of the caboose to the other side of the caboose, and he would be doing the same thing [looking out the window], because you’re looking for hotboxes. If there is dust out there, you’ve gotta find out why.  There may be a wheel on the ground, an empty car, might be a brake running down; it could be a lot of things. So, if you saw any of that, the train would stop and find out what was causing it.  Maybe something was hung up or a brake didn’t release, then you have a problem – you’d have to bleed it off or cut it down.  [listen to audio clip here 32:58]

Train cars were blocked in the order of the city destination with all cars for a particular city blocked together for ease of transfer and pick up. Carrying anywhere from 65 to 110 cars, train 81 cars were blocked as follows: Caboose – The Des Moines Iowa block – Council Bluff block – Fairbury Block, Denver Block (right behind the engine).  Upon reaching Des Moines, that block would be left and another picked up.

Train cars carried various commodities from corn syrup to livestock.  Tank cars carried liquids such as corn syrup, chemicals, fuel (diesel, gasoline, kerosene).  Hazardous chemical cars are marked with a diamond placard.  Box cars carry anything from lumber to dishes.  Reefers or refrigerated cars in the 60’s had to be refurbished with ice from an ice house.  The train would stop at a yard and huge chunks of ice would be hauled into the reefers.  The trip from Silvis to Des Moines was approximately 181 miles.



 

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