Good morning,
Back in the “good old days” when trains still ran w/ a caboose, how many people were normally on a train crew, vs. the typical 2 man crew of today?
Also, was there a standard crew size, based on National Union rules or did it differ by RR or region.
Thanks much in advance,
DBLSTACK
Being closely aquainted with two RRS the GN and NP the crews were the same as you mentioned but only two on the rear the Brakeman and Conductor. The NP crew size was reduced to two in the caboose when diesels took over the runs across the Cascades. Prior to dieselization those NP crews operating over the Cascades Stevens Pass carried the second brakeman on the rear to tie down some cars brakes for the descent. This was not necessary on the GN as Stampede Pass was electrified for years so they only carried the two man crew in their cabooses.
Al - in - Stockton
Crew size was pretty much what was described in the previous posts. It was governed primarily by union agreements and state full-crew laws. Some roads (mostly former interurbans) with union representation were allowed smaller crews.
Excuse me for reversing the two passes of course it was GN on Stevens Pass and NP on Stampede.
Al - in - Stockton
Didn’t some states have a 6 crew person law way back in time? I recall reading something on that but can’t remember where. In 2002 I worked a job that had 6 crewmembers on the train. No joke. This was a local where I was a brkmn, which made me crewman #3, behind the engr & condr. THat night we had a student engr, a student new hire condr trainee and a condr who came over from a different region and was taking a required familiaraztion trip to make a total of 6 of us. Three of us on each of the two engs. I loved it. I can also recall a few other times where we had 5 of us (w/students).
Back in the real old days, link-and-pin and for some time thereafter, there were 6 person train crews with the brakemen often riding on top of the cars. Not sure when it was standardized to 5 man crews. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that Indiana was the last state to require 6 man crews and I believe it lasted until the beginning of the diesel era. It lasted long after the need for it had gone due to union influence in various states’ legislatures–which was the same reason that a few states continued to require a caboose on every train long after the need for them had gone on most trains. Note: I’ve talked with a couple of RR Risk Managers and they couldn’t get rid of cabooses fast enough due to many Worker’s Compensation claims from the personnel riding in them (as well as drinking that sometimes went on in them despite the rules). Both told me that a large majority of all WC claims from the road crews came from injuries suffered in or about cabooses when they were still in use.
Sad but true many caboose stories were made of personal injuries and abuse from what I have learned.My late Uncle retired in 1973 and spent many, many yrs in caboose service. He loved his work and stated riding in the caboose was his favorite part of the job. When I was a little and cabooses just captured me, I asked what he did back there. In between job duties, quote “play cards and make sure the cooler was full of Bud”. If he were alive, we would disagree on this, but abolishing cabooses was one of the very few smart decisions the carriers ever made.
I seem to recall a figure of one brakeman for every fifteen cars in the era before power (i.e. air) brakes. That’s one job that I’d rather not have, especially on a cold, windy and snowy night going down “The Hill”.
I’ll bet 6-man crews weren’t rare even in, say, 1940. Total of six guys on the train, that is-- engineer and fireman, conductor, two or three brakeman, maybe a flagman? (On the railroad, the term “train crew” didn’t include the engineer and fireman-- they were the “engine crew”.)
Some? Many? states required more brakemen on longer trains. California had a law until 1948 requiring more brakemen on steeper downgrades; dunno if other states did that too. According to P. C. Kauke, SFe freights would pick up an extra brakeman just for the steep-grade section, drop him off at the bottom, and he’d deadhead back to ride another one.
North Dakota had a full crew law in effect when I hired out on the Soo Line the Third brakeman would ride as far as Fairmount ND and the get off the train before the train entered MN. Would be called to return on the next Westbound if rested.
I found a reference in an old Pennsy publication from the later 1950’s bemoaning the fact that all freights entering Indiana had to add a 3rd brakeman as soon as they entered the state. The article stated that this person had no duties at all. I gathered from the article that it was the only state that the Pennsy was operating in at that time which had this 3rd brakeman requirement.
I believe that Indiana’s full-crew law required a third brakeman on any freight train that exceeded 70 cars in length. George Hilton’s book on the Monon includes a picture of a rider car that Monon had on its roster to house the additional brakeman.
One factor could be the type of motive power used. With a steam, you needed both an engineer to run the engine and a fireman to watch the fire, the water levels etc. so you would need a head brakeman to do any ‘ground work’ like throwing switches etc. When diesels came along, the ‘fireman’ was less necessary and could get out of the cab for extended periods to assist in switching moves from the ground while the engineer ran the engine by himself.
I’m not sure about that, but it occured to me that the MN&S line I grew up along ran a four man crew (two in the diesel, two in the caboose) from as far back as I can remember (c.1959) until the end of cabooses in the early nineties on that line. Yet the old MNS steam engines often had a “doghouse” on the tender for a head brakeman. Must have been a reason they needed a fifth man with a 2-10-0 and not with a FM H-10-44.
Montana had a state/labor law requiring the use of cabooses for quite some time into the late 1980s after the rest of the country had generally quit using them. This meant eastbound BN trains had to stop at Yardley (Spokane) to have a caboose tacked on the rear before continuing across Idaho and into Montana. BN’s elimination of cabooses hinged heavily on the issue of crew size. When they first did away with cabooses, five-man crews were still the norm, at least around the Inland Northwest, so when BN ordered up new and/or rebuilt GP50s with those orange tiger stripes on the front of the cab, we saw those extended-length cabs that had seats added to accommodate the extra bodies who previously would have been riding the caboose. During the last days of the BN local running the street trackage in Coeur d’Alene, ID, in 1987-88, they made sure to assign a unit capable of seating a five-man crew. But on at least one occasion, they got a Geep that wasn’t set up for a five-man crew, so the local showed up with a caboose on the rear, the first time that had happened in a couple of years.
Someone who knows the Sou RR history of old Geezer firmen when Sou still had cabooses needs to post the history. It would break you up.
Indiana Full Crew Law was abolished in the summer in 1972, July, I believe. Any trainman who was hired prior to that date was grandfathered in, so there were actually six man crews operating in Indiana for several years after. It was for trains of over 69 cars.
New York State also had a full crew law but I don’t know when it was abolished. I believe Arkansas was another state that I’m thinking had a full crew law with up to six crew members.
ValleyX, those states sound familiar as some of the last holdouts, especially Indiana and Arkansas.
A tactic which put some economic and political pressure on one or two of those states was, as I recall, the ICC agreeing that the larger crews were unnecessary and permitting the carriers to put a per-carload surcharge on every load originating or terminating in a full-crew state.
It’s been a long time and I don’t remember all the details, but I think that the money talked.