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Re: [CBQ] Official Correspondence

To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Official Correspondence
From: LZadnichek@aol.com
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:46:01 -0500 (EST)
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Hol - When E.L. Potarf took-up residence in the Western Suburbs of Chicago, he chose a home (as I recall) in Clarendon Hills, a stone's throw away from the triple track mainline. That way, my dad said, Mr. Potarf could keep track of every train. You could look down on the home when seated on the upper level of a suburban coach passing by. In the early 1960s when dad was Chicago Division Supt., the hottest freight train on the Q was the run-though to the UP at Grand Island, NE. Dad said Mr. Potarf monitored seven days a week the exact departure times and if the GI (as I recall the train being named) was more than a few minutes late in departing the Cicero Yard, dad's office or our home phone would be ringing off the hook with Mr. Potarf loudly demanding to know exactly what the delay was and how it was caused. E.L. Potarf was, in my opinion, the epitome of the classic, old time, hard crusted operating railroad official (they were never called executives in that era, it was "officials"). The name Sam Fee also brings back memories. Mr. Fee ( believe it was S.L. Fee) had his own railroad nickname "The Great White Father" for his long collar length snow white hair. Mr. Fee was part of the "Irish mafia" that included President Harry Murphy and others of Irish heritage who were so prominent in upper management prior to the 1950s. It was customary in the 50s and 60s that when a senior operating official was making inspection tours of various terminals and divisions in his business car, he would invite junior officials with their wives to have dinner on the business car. Such guests might include the division or terminal superintendents, senior train masters, chief dispatchers, road masters, master mechanics and so on. Liquor was never served, but, as my mom would relate, the food was plentiful and delicious all served by selected dining car staff assigned to business car service. After dinner, the men would then all talk railroading over cigars and coffee while the wives chatted. Of course, all this stopped when the business car fleet was retired. Looking back, it was all rather civilized compared to how upper level railroading business is handled today by smart phones and computers with most business cars now in museums. As I've said before, I remember the Burlington Route of that era really being like a big extended family regardless of whether you were union represented or management. Getting back to Mr. Fee, my mother was from south Alabama and had a most decidedly Southern accent which really stood out in the Midwest, let alone on a business car. My mom said that said Mr. Fee was always a most charming person and would always invite dad and her to have dinner on the business car when in town. I also remember that after one of the hi-rail Buick autos derailed due to excessive speed, Mr. Fee had stainless steel plates affixed to the dash boards of each Buick limiting the speed to such-and-such miles per hour with his name beneath. And as for Lou Menk, my dad didn't care for him in the least. Dad just didn't think Menk was such a hot shot operating official as everyone had been lead to believe. Dad said that Menk only knew how to improve the bottom line by cutting every expense imaginable, not by running trains and providing the service to the shippers. But, that was at the end of dad's career as my mom had passed away at an early age and he left the Q just prior to the BN merger so he could retire to south Alabama. Another part of dad's dislike for Menk involved what was a relatively small matter to Menk, but it meant so much to so many Q management and union employees at the time - the untimely retirement and disposal of both the 5632 and 4960. Dad made the comment that if Menk had become president a few years earlier, he never would've donated a single steam engine for display as he had no great love and respect for the Burlington Route and its culture as did Harry Murphy, Sam Fee, E.L. Potarf and so many hundreds of other employees, it was just a job to Menk. In retrospect, I think my dad made the right decision for himself in leaving the Q as he was from the old school of operating officials and using a corporate aircraft instead of a business car just wasn't his thing, let alone the advent of computers and all the confusion that was to follow the BN merger. Dad remarried and had a good, but short, retirement before his health failed and he passed away. He would be in his 99th year if he was still with us. As the years pass all too quickly and I age, too, my childhood and teenage memories of the Q become like dinner in the business car, plentiful and delicious! I look forward to further commenting from time-to-time upon those subjects I have some knowledge of and where I can make a contribution to the Group. I do have my dad's personal papers and within there are some recollections of his days both in train service as a brake man in World War Two and later as a train master in the 1950s. If any one remembers my dad "good or bad" I'd enjoy hearing about him - Louis                              
In a message dated 1/24/2013 6:29:09 P.M. Central Standard Time, cbqrr47@yahoo.com writes:


Oh how well, I remember the warning, "Potarf is coming!". Everybody tried to make everything look perfect because he WAS a nit picker. The couple of times, I talked to him, he was a true gentleman and a true professional who knew what he wanted and how to get it. On one occasion, he gave me a tour of the office car much to the shock of the other employees.

--- On Thu, 1/24/13, HOL WAGNER <holpennywagner@msn.com> wrote:

From: HOL WAGNER <holpennywagner@msn.com>
Subject: RE: [CBQ] Official Correspondence
To: "CB&Q Group" <cbq@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2013, 4:23 PM

 
Lou:
 
Your mention of E.L. Potarf reminds me of how much he was feared by employees after he rose to the position of vice president-operations in the late 1950s, succeeding Sam Fee.  But that seems to go with the territory; virtually all operating vice presidents seem to have been feared by their employees, whether it was justified or not.  The two times I talked with Mr. Potarf (both times aboard his office car 100 here in Denver) he impressed me as a warm and friendly man -- but then I didn't work for him.  A few years later, I would say the same thing about perhaps the most hated man in Q history: Lou Menk.  I talked with him for over an hour on his BN business car here in the early 1970s, and we generally reminisced about the "good old days."  But I had the advantage there of having graduated from the same Denver high school as he did -- only years later.  Having that in common really seemed to open him up to me.  Another member of this group, John Manion, also graduated with me from Denver's South High School.
 
Thanks for reminding me of those times.

 
Hol 

To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: LZadnichek@aol.com
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:58:01 -0500
Subject: [CBQ] Official Correspondence

 
Hol - I'm a "silent" member of this List and want to step forward and say how much I enjoy reading the transcribed official correspondence. My late father M.L. Zadnichek was a Lines East and West train master, division superintendent and director of TOFC during the 1950s and 60s. Dad may've been train master at St. Joseph, MO, at the time E.R. Schrader was division superintendent as we lived there in the mid-1950s. Dad was a baggage man and brake man on the C&I during World War Two. All his family were C&NW people going back to my g-g-grandfather who established his seniority on the section at Quarry, IA, in 1870 having immigrated earlier from Bohemia. I was born in 1946 at Mendota, IL, where my mom said the vibration from passing trains would shake the pictures loose on the walls, as well as make her rewash the clothes from the cinders that fell in the yard where the clothes line was located. The name E.L. Potarf particularly rang a bell as he mentored my father as a young trainmaster at Casper, WY, in the early 1950s. Mr. Potarf  became a close family friend and I have snapshots taken by my dad of Mr. and Mrs. Potarf and daughter with myself, brother and mother at Sunday afternoon family get-togethers. Both my dad and mom thought the world of Mr. Potarf and stayed in touch with him through their lifetimes. I also see other names of Q officials who my dad was well acquainted with and some of whom I met as a child. It really was one big Burlington Family in that era, something that today has been lost. Dad was a collector, too, and I have his personal papers, official documents pertaining to his career, lanterns, bells, headlights, whistles, builders plates, photographs and other Q memorabilia. Today, my son Miles continues the Zadnichek Family railroad heritage as a revenue accountant with NS in Atlanta, GA. I encourage you to continue researching and transcribing the official correspondence. I very much appreciate your efforts. Best Regards - Louis Zadnichek II, Fairhope, AL       
 
In a message dated 1/24/2013 10:59:53 A.M. Central Standard Time, holpennywagner@msn.com writes:


Pete:
Yup, I checked an Alliance Division ETT and he was indeed division superintendent.  Thanks!
 
Hol
 

To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:46:03 -0500
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Boxcars in Passenger Service

 
E.R. Shrader was a Superintendent...He was at St. Joe in the 1950's...I have a personal letter from him turning down my request for Jim Christen and I to ride the "head end" of No.93 from Corning to Villisca.
 
Shrader's nephew lives here in Lincoln and we have had several conversations recently about "uncle Ed".  He is buried near York, NE...His nephew is going to take me out to his burial site sometime next spring.
 
Pete



 





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