Folks - There were some dandy jobs
on the railroad, I worked the clerks
extra board in the late 1950's. Seeing
the men unloading a box car was
similar to working the freight house
foreman's job at Nebraska City. All
the big stores there such as
Montgomery Ward received store
merchandise
by boxcar. It was fun unloading
furniture, tractor tires and boxes and
boxes of goods in August, couldn't get
a breath of air back in the car,
so you just sweat it out. At Holdrege,
NE I worked the night job Friday
and Saturday 2000 hrs to 0500 hrs. A
large creamery was across from the
depot, 4 or 5 of the seven passenger
trains that went through Holdrege
during those hours carried mail,
express and cans of cream. I well
remember loading nearly 400 cans of
cream every night onto the baggage
carts and lugging them west of the
depot so the creamery could pick them
up. Tons of sack mail and newspapers
for Holdrege proper and three Star
routes, which went into the freight
house and sorted out onto other
baggage carts, which by morning,
especially the Saturday shift with
Denver and Omaha newspapers, well
filled the freight house. It was fun
to grab a sack of Sears or Penny's
catalogs and throw them half way
across the freight house to the proper
cart. But, that was railroading
then, it was a job with higher wages
than anywhere else.
Richard Kistler