[CBQ] Re: Re: Student Trips

["William Barber clipperw@gmail.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

Pete, 

I have to agree with Ken Martin's comments. The stories and characters are 
still there. They are just different from those driven by earlier actions and 
events. My engineer son on the UP occasionally works with one conductor who 
always brings an imaginary friend along and talks to him the whole trip just as 
though he were sitting there in the cab. Yes, for some it is "just a job', but 
I am sure that was always true. For others, like my son, they love what they do 
in spite of the long and weird hours. He just wishes that he had been able to 
start earlier than he did.

Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO

On May 21, 2014, at 2:12 PM, CBQ@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> 
> Re: Student Trips
> Wed May 21, 2014 8:48 am (PDT) . Posted by:petehedgpeth
> OK Bill That's "all well and good"...but just think of all the stories these 
> new guys won't have to tell..They won't have any"characters" to 
> describe...It'll be "just a job"
> 
> I always, in instances like this quote a message from an old RAILROAD 
> MAGAZINE article..."What we endure with hardship we remember with delight"...
> 
> Made my first student trips in 1956...At that time there were men around who 
> had seniority back to the "teens"..Lots of good stories...some of them might 
> have even been true.
> 
> My experience was that in most cases...once the old guys found out that you 
> weren't a complete screw up...and that you were trying to do your best work 
> and best of all when they found out that you knew something about 
> railroading...which I did having grown up on the RPL&N RR...they would accept 
> you with a minimum of criticism. 
> 
> I for one consider myself fortunate to have worked at the tail end of the age 
> when railroading was what it had always been and that most of the old 
> traditions and "ways" were still very much in effect.
> 
> I'm sure that railroading is much safer now and certainly more 
> efficient...but I'm sure that it ain't as much fun as some of us old coots 
> remember.
> 
> Pete