After 31 years it can be said the Frisco at Wichita has offically come to an end. The last trainman w/SLSF senority working in Wichita on both a Frisco roster and union contract retired in March. Truly the end of an era from a fallen flag which I had family ties to The final Frisco roster, RB82, will be no more. . This got me to thinking on the other merged carriers in town and how many of those guys are left. The last RI guy retired in 2001. Only two known ex Rock trainmen here are still alive and both in their 80’s. About two yrs ago, the #1 senority Mopac man retired. Its going to be awhile before the Santa Fe gets into this discussion as the bottom ATSF guys in the area hired in 4/94. How do other fallen flag crews rank in other parts of the nation who are still working? Any B&O, L&N, WP, PC, etc trainmen still going at it?
Not too many real Missabe (pre 1988) or dark ages Missabe (pre 2004) still working in T&E. Number is low 20’s IIRC.
I figure CNW has about 20 years’ worth of seniority to exhaust yet–they were hiring around merger time, after a long hiatus through the 1980s.
It’s been quite a while since the last CGW guy retired in our neck of the woods.
I’m sure there are still some L&N guys left, that merger wasn’t that long ago. I ran into one a few years ago actually. I knew a couple guys who hired out with the ACL and have retired within the last couple years.
If E Hunter Harrison comes out of retirement and goes to CP then he will be one ex Frisco man who is still working. Time sure flies…people who started out in the 70s are now approaching retirement…
I am aware of one NKP man still working, yes, he is well past retirement age. Meanwhile, the number of N&W men continue to dwindle, I’m aware of maybe 15 in my area almost thirty years past the N&W/SOU merger. I do not know if there are any Wabash men working. If there are, they must be on the western end of the former Wabash.
I know of one MILW man still at Muskego Yard in Milwaukee for CP.
At least one MILW man (started on the section, moved to T&E) still in T&E for WSOR, stayed with the territory in 1980.
One MILW guy and a Soo-Liner in the office. A few WICT guys still around as well.
I know there’s still a few GBW and FVW guys out there on the CN. Keeping things wrinkled up on the contract side…but that’s a union negotiation tale best told elsewhere.
Seeing the Frisco name caught my eye and was interesting to read one of the last Frisco employees was retiring. I had a grade school classmate who started with Frisco at Lindenwood Yards as a switchman, where his father worked. He stayed employed when BN took over, but he said it was never the same, not the family feeling that Frisco had. He retired a few years ago too.
My Dad died while it was still Frisco, so he never lived to see his beloved “coonskin” fall. Mom was 3rd generation Frisco and she did not like to see the name removed from Dad’s office. Now the office is gone too-time marches on, the end of an era. I didn’t work for them , because most of the office staff had been moved to Springfield, MO. But if I had, I would have retired by now too. So there are probably not too many left from some of the roads, except the more recently absorbed like SP or ATSF.