Summer 1958
After having been forced on No. 93 and 94 (The Lincoln-Wymore local), a most
detestable job albeit long hours and good overtime, and suffering there under
2:30am calls for 4:00am on duty at Lincoln and then not getting out until
8:00am or so and then getting to Wymore about noon and attempting to get rest
in a waycar spotted near the old freight house during the afternoon with the
thermometer hovering near 100 degrees and being called for 8:30pm and getting
up to Crete about 10:30 and a 6-8 hour switching stint in the mill and
getting back to Lincoln about 11:00am I was scanning the bulletin board to
see if I could bid in another job with somewhat better hours. I thought
that there wouldn't be much hope since I was about the Juniorist man on the
brakeman's extra board, but the old guys always said. "You'll never get that
job if you don't bid on it"....
There was a vacancy bulletined for "Brakeman...Fairmont-Hildreth Local with
Conductor Caldwell. I asked my braking partner, Lloyd Stice, just recently
retired about that job along with a couple of other brakemen I knew, about
the job and the work. The consensus was that "there was about as much work,
but at least you got to ride between the stations....I decided to put in a
bid and see what happened...the night work was just not for me...especially
the 2:30am calls. So I put in my bid and kind of forgot about it.
A couple of days later my Conductor, Don Walker came in the waycar as we
reposed at Wymore on a hot July afternoon...Don said "What's the
matter?...are you mad at us?....how come you're leaving us"....I said what do
you mean? He said go in and look at the Bulletin Board...you got the
Fairmont Job.....
I jumped up off the bunk, pulled on my overalls and shirt and went over to
the Trainmaster's office in the old Wymore depot. Graydon Ragan was the
Trainmaster's Clerk. He said "you got that Fairmont Job. This was a Friday
and we would work back to Lincoln that night and would normally be off
Saturday night.
I said "good, I'll protect the job on Monday....What time does it go to work?
The timing was perfect I wouldn't lose any days.
Graydon said "I think those guys drive out from Lincoln and go to work about
3:00pm Why don't you call Merle Caldwelll (the conductor) and arrange a ride
with him.
I did call Merle Saturday afternoon and he did confirm that the crew had an
agreement with the Trainmaster that they would be at Fairmont by 3:00pm on
Mon, Wed, and Friday and available for call anytime after that. Merle said.
"It's my turn to drive on Monday just come on out to my house by 1:30 and
ride with me and you can take your turn driving when it comes up.
Well that was the beginning of the most fun job I ever had on the railroad.
I went to Merle's house on Monday afternoon....He had his car parked in the
street and said.."here just pull your car up in my driveway and you can leave
it there while we're gone.
We drove over to pick up Ernie Mack, the Engineer who lived in South Lincoln
and headed on over to Crete where we met Gene Schlegel, a laid off UP
fireman who lived in Beatrice and was working on the Q during his layoff. We
motored on out to Fairmont to await the call.
Up until a few weeks before, as I recall, there had been a "roundhouse
foreman" at Fairmont whose job it was to service and fuel the branch line
engines which ran out of there. Under the operating arrangement at that
time, there was an engine at Fairmont 5 nights each week. On Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday when our job went west, the local which ran between
Wymore and FAirmont, via DeWitt and Strang came in, so he had an engine to
fiddle with every night. As a brief aside there was the same kind of
arrangement at Sargent and Burwell where a "roundhouse foreman" alternated
between the two towns each night. This was, of course, a hold over from
steam days when a steam engine had to be "watched" when left overnight.
Well It had apparently come to someone's attention that these engines didn't
need to be watched and the RH Foreman's job had been cut off just a few weeks
before. Consequently, because of the limited fuel capacity of the SD's and
their inability to make more than one round trip on one filling of fuel, we
had to trade engines with the Lincoln Hastings local each time....On
Saturday after we got into Fairmont something going east would pick up our
engine and work it into Lincoln, consequently on Mondays we had no engine
until No. 71 arrived with two units, one of which he left for us...On
Wednesday and Friday we used the engine we had brought in on Tuesday and
Thursday to do the station switching and make up our train, and then when 71
came we just traded engines with him.
71's arrival was, as they say,..."right problematical" and because it was
the wheat loading season he was heavy and had lots of work as well as giving
the Crete Mill a switch and sometimes it would be as late as 9:30pm before we
got our train made up and were ready to go west. Normally though we were
ready to go by 7:00pm or so. We liked to get out in time to get to
Schickley by 8:00pm so we could have supper at the plush Owl Cafe.
Now I've set the scene...as they say in show BZ. I'll do this in two
sections, since it's so long...I'll send the first section out "carrying the
green" and try to get the second one out in awhile.
Pete
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