Re: [CBQ] 547 West Jackson Boulevard

["Leo Phillipp via groups.io" <qutlx1=aol.com@groups.io>]

I worked at what had by then become the Chicago Regional H.Q. In 1979-80. The windows had been replaced but most everything else looked like it came right out of the 1950s or 60s. My first computer queries were run on a device that looked like an adding machine. You typed in your query and it appeared on the paper tape with your answer under it. You didn’t know you left out a word or character until the answer appeared on the tape. Once I became semi-proficient with it, I was amazed at the amount of info. One could pull up on operations and costs.

I do remember the steps leading into the bathrooms with their fixtures from the dark ages. But then that was normal as they were similar to the ones in the trainmens locker room in Chicago Union Station across the street.

While working there great anticipation was building for the upcoming remodel. But I’m not sure it ever happened because I believe in 1982 came the axe to most staff positions.

Leo Phillipp

On Dec 4, 2020, at 2:02 PM, Jack Schroeder <jack@highlandwebworks.com> wrote:

Tom:
I worked on the 8th floor of the white marble HQ in Chicago from June 1969 until March of 1970. I remember on my first day. I was handed a small stone and a dust rag. I was told that the rock was to keep the papers on my desk from blowing off when the windows were open, esp on a windy day. The rag was to wipe the soot off of my desk that blew in from  the windows.  I also remember the oak toilet seats and old wooden stalls!  Some people I remember were  Don Lamb, Al Rung, Ivan Ethington, Gene Carven, Gene Lacy, Roger Sperry, Art Pew  and a many others.

There were two phones on the floor of our Costs and Statistics office. One shared by seven of us, and one used by the office manager. When we needed to talk to someone in Fort Worth, we contacted the operator and ask for a line to Fort Worth. When a line opened up, she would ring us back with the Fort Worth connection. We didn't have paper staplers, we had pins for bind pages together. The were cheaper then staplers.  My 'in basket' was full of capital budget requests with supporting papers all 'pined' together. It was a daily thing getting badly stuck by a pin.

I also remember eating a Lou Mitchel's restaurant about a block west on Jackson. We made a visit there about two or three times a week. When the line to enter started to get long Lou, who always stood just inside the entrance, would shout to the customers "Don't any of you folks need to get back to work?".

 
I had a great big Friden calculator on my disk that I had to learn to use. Making it divide was a special feat!   Another memory was when I needed to get the freight rate for a shipment. I went down to the 7th floor marketing, (I believe it was the 7th),  and ask a man at the rate desk for the price. He opened up a document, make a note from it,  then another and then a third rate document. He wrote down the rate $ 1.54. I was shocked that it took that much work to just get a rate. I was more shocked at the rate! "Oh that is per hundred rate" he said.  I returned to the 8th floor asked what a 'per hundred rate' was and then told my story to my co-workers about needed three documents to get a rate.  I pronounced that I was never going get near freight rates again as long as I worked for the RR. It was the computerization of railroad freight rates and rate distribution systems that was the core of my railroad work for the last 25+ years of my career.  And I loved it.
Jack Schroeder
Hurst, TX

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