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December 4, 2020
Jack - You mean Gene "Craven" who was a friend of my father M.L. Zadnichek who was Chicago Division Superintendent at the time. I worked in the passenger department (can't remember which floor) the summer of 1965 when I was age 19. I sat at a long green bench bathed in sun light and audited tickets collected by conductors on the few remaining main line passenger trains of that era. My tally had to match the conductor's report submitted. It was an interesting job.
I also compared the tickets against reports made by "secret passengers" who occasionally rode the trains, purchased their tickets on board with cash and tried to trick the conductor with making change and other ruses to see how efficient and friendly they were under stress. I'd have to find their ticket that the conductor had sold and collected to match it against the stub submitted with their report to made sure they had really been on the train in the first place. Everything got checked.
The "secret passenger" reports were always good reading. I wonder today if the "secret passenger" got paid by the word as they could be very lengthy, full of details about the passengers that day, how sharply the conductor was dressed, if he had body odor or bad breath and what had been going on in the coach. If I remember correctly, I only came across one really negative report that I immediately gave to my supervisor. I don't know what happened to that conductor.
Some 55 years later, I can still "see" a lot of faces whom I worked with, but their names have long since escaped me. My Mom packed me a lunch every day, so I never left the building during the lunch hour. I ate my sandwich, read the Chicago Tribune and day dreamed out the window at the city skyline. Once in a while, I acted as the messenger boy and carried sealed envelopes (remember the BIG brown tie envelopes with multiple spaces for addresses) to other floors.
While carrying messages, I usually would take a detour to briefly visit with Al Rung who was director of public relations and also a friend of my Dad's. Al (well, Mr. Rung in those days....) got me interested in public relations and from that photography and journalism, professional skills that I have carried with me to this day. Plus, Al would almost always find the time to dig down in some overflowing file cabinet and pull out a couple of glossy 8x10 photographs to give me.
I do remember there was no air conditioning, at least on the floor I worked on and the ones I visited as a messenger boy. I, too, had a rock to keep paperwork from blowing away, as well as a glass jar for pins. You're right, I never saw a stabler, just pins and once in a while some big paper clips. I recall seeing the huge mechanical calculators, too, the older ones with hand cranks and the modern ones like the Friden illustration. Plus, every morning I had to wipe the soot off my bench.
One memory does stick in my mind. Although I packed my own lunch, I did once in awhile go down to the lobby during the lunch hour and "hang out" just outside the revolving front doors with the other young men to watch all the office girls parade by in their finest. There would be wolf whistles and all that in good, clean fun. The girls enjoyed it as much, if not more, than we did. But, all too soon, the lunch hour would be nearing its end and we all had to rush back to our offices.
Coming and going to work at 547 West Jackson Boulevard, I like many other employees commuted from the western suburbs on the suburban "dinkie" trains. I got on and off at Fairview Avenue in Downers Grove. If I remember correctly, it was about a 15 minute walk from home. Since the trains ran like clockwork and my Mom knew how long it took to walk home, she'd had a warm dinner waiting for me the minute I came through the door. All a long time ago - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
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