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Fwd: [CBQ] Fwd: Away from home accomodations/was Fire Insurance

To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Fwd: Away from home accomodations/was Fire Insurance
From: qutlx1@aol.com
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:56:12 -0400 (EDT)
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Doug,
 
As far as hogger training you're describing the mid to late 70s. Prior to that a review of engineers seniority lists shows just the opposite. A guy could spend a decade or two as a fireman before being set up to loco engineer. He knew the job and the territory inside out by the time he got to the right hand seat. (Did you know I told Dick Flaar "no thanks" on the promotion to fireman ? Yup talk about 20/20 hindsight. I think he picked up the phone and called you.)
No brag,just fact. Gene Barnes was standing there. I thought I could hold better jobs quicker staying where I was. Little did I know the jobs would be gone.................
 
 
Pretty much the same for brkmn to Condr. You and I went from the left seat to the right in 3-4 years. Back in the day,again looking at seniority lists it took one to two decades. I never forgot what Elmer Fick said one night at Congress Park on the Congo standing in the yard.
We were an all extra crew as all the regular men had laid off. Elmer simply said pay attention kid because someday your going to be in the same spot on a job or this job with an all extra crew and wondering what the XXXX goes where. It happened, in I think '77 going around the horn on the wayfreight.
 
Like you, I'm not in the day operations any longer but from what I'm told by those who are and what I read in the trade pubs(still in the business) there has been a real culture change.
For example no getting on/off moving equipment, every single person has a radio and a cell phone,no trying to catch a waycar going by at 5-6 MPH,. How did we do that with a grip in the dark,night after night ?! Many,many other changes but on the other hand I'm told it is more military style than when we were on the property. Probably why the UP is proud of being a ex-military favored employer.
 
I didn't see one smile in any of the crew members coming and going from the Best Western at last years annual meet. I was really struck by that compared to what I remembered of the "fraternity".
 
Your posts sure  bring back a lot of memories
 
Leo


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To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Fwd: Away from home accomodations/was Fire Insurance
From: dhartman@mchsi.com
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2012 13:04:57 -0500 (CDT)
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(wish I had the book to compare your notes to)

My big (long winded coming) point on the subject of rules, investigations, etc. is that, basically, train crews were set up for failure with the company holding all the cards. The RR had the furthest thing from a true "safety culture" as you could get. It was all reactive, and nothing proactive.

Example: when I went to from train to engine service. It was very much like my first months as a brakeman. Anything I learned was basically up to me. There were no classes, no books, no guidance. You picked it up on the job. So, if you worked with a good engineer (same with a conductor for a brakeman) who communicated, you learned some things. If not..... (and there were a lot of engineers who wanted no part of having a fireman and acted accordingly).... And there was no guidance on that. The Road Foremen took little interest, didn't assign firemen to certain engineers, didn't monitor progress (beyond getting some minimal feedback from some engineers) or do any continuing educational efforts. The unfortunate thing was, with minimal fireman staffing, you spent most of your time on suburban. Hard to learn geography, freight handling and ops that way.

Engineer school in St Paul (in the old GN HQ building basement) was almost all on learning very rudimentary systems diagrams (cooling, air, electricity, etc). Not nearly enough to actually be able to do anything with a bad engine on the road. Very little about actual ops except repeatedly being told to "always use dynamic braking" which very few ex-Q men on the C&I did very much (but we had some amazing "wizards with an air brake").

And the set-up to engineer came very fast. I was examined in a year, and was immediately being called for fill-in engineer jobs. I was full-time set-up shortly thereafter. There were huge gaps in my knowledge and I'm surprised I didn't get in even more trouble than I did. A saving fact was that the extra list gave you wide exposure to go out and, in reality, teach yourself how to be an engineer.

I felt sorry for some fellow new firemen who came in from other departments (mechanical, a clerk, etc) who were completely lost. I mean, some of them had near zero ops (or personnel) knowledge. At least I had those years in train service that gave me a lot of basic knowledge (and knowing who to fire for and who not). The first time some of these new engineers saw a branch line is when they caught it off the engineer extra list! (This was an unfortunate byproduct of not (mostly) taking firemen from the train service as was done previously. A change in seniority policy in the early 70's didn't help)

The point is there was so much more than the Consolidated Code and Special Instructions to learn and retain. And the whole educational process was mostly ignored.

Now, compare that to say an airline pilot. The requirements to get into their "left seat" as opposed to our "right seat" weren't even on the same planet. And their procedures to run simulations of emergencies and operational situations once or twice a year to maintain their certificates - absolutely nothing like that on RR. Once you had been examined they never looked at you again. Apart from the mentioned spot tests - which were very rare as I remember - unless you screwed up (and were caught) you were out of sight, out of mind. I think I had a Road Foreman do a cab ride one time - and he was just catching a ride to a derailment site.

So, when something went wrong, it was all about blame, and blame could be very simple and easy if they weren't interested in the systemic reasons. The attitude was "that's they way it's always been, it works." But as far as a real safety culture (systemic analysis deeper than the obvious surface, learning and then educating), I saw none of that. No "lessons learned" were taught (unless you heard it through the grapevine). There were never any "refresher" efforts.

I have heard things have improved (somewhat)......sorry, ranting over

Doug

----- Original Message -----
From: qutlx1@aol.com
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2012 5:30:42 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Fwd: Away from home accomodations/was Fire Insurance

Doug et al,

Further research in "The Burlington Waycars" book appendix reveals that as of:

8/1/68 there were 7 assigned waycars in the C&I pool. The nicknames that were assigned will be familiar.

Gabby, the preacher,the crazy one, the hunkie, and a couple others who's nicknames would be too obvious to the general membership of this list. To all readers, I did change the order of nicknames to the list of names on page 651 of the book to protect myself and the innocent. Doug and a few others know exactly which goes with whom. Also the name at the bottom of the memo should ring a bell or two. I witnessed him ring a young lazy brakemans bell one morning on a dinky and I don think I've ever seen it done better.

As of 1-20-69 a internal company memo on page 643 still shows 6 assigned w/c's in the C&I pool specifically between Cicero and Savanna.

So from this it must have been sometime in 1969 or later that the C&I pool went to the thru pool waycar system

Leo Phillipp
Doug et al,

Further research in "The Burlington Waycars" book appendix reveals that as of:

8/1/68 there were 7 assigned waycars in the C&I pool. The nicknames that were assigned will be familiar.

Gabby, the preacher,the crazy one, the hunkie, and a couple others who's nicknames would be too obvious to the general membership of this list. To all readers, I did change the order of nicknames to the list of names on page 651 of the book to protect myself and the innocent. Doug and a few others know exactly which goes with whom. Also the name at the bottom of the memo should ring a bell or two. I witnessed him ring a young lazy brakemans bell one morning on a dinky and I don think I've ever seen it done better.

As of 1-20-69 a internal company memo on page 643 still shows 6 assigned w/c's in the C&I pool specifically between Cicero and Savanna.

So from this it must have been sometime in 1969 or later that the C&I pool went to the thru pool waycar system

Leo Phillipp


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