Pete,
In answer to your question of did the Aurora division have baggagemen. The
answer is a big you bet!
It was a separate seniority list and a preferred one. Many a brakemen chucked
his rights to stay on that seniority list rather than start all over as a
newbie Conductor.
Now of course you knew you'd get me to tell another true story from the BRT
archives. The story brings to mind the true meaning of the term brotherhood.
As I recall reading the file it's 1921 and there's been a passenger train
wreck on the mainline in which a baggageman in the middle of the seniority list
loses a part of a leg. He's tried returning to passenger but can't handle that
much time on the artificial limb. He can't work freight so it looks like he'll
be unable to work. Remember this is before RR disability,etc.so the man and
his family will be destitute.
At the local Aurora union meeting the number one man on the baggage seniority
list offers to give up his baggagemens seniority spot to the injured man if
his fellow baggagemen and the company mgmt. agree.
Long story short after much ado and written statements, a couple trial runs
by the injured employee; all agree and the injured mans name is placed in the
number one spot on the baggagemens roster, he places on a daily round tripper
to Galesburg and the man who gave it up goes back to braking based on his
brakemen's seniority.
Leo
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