Often I have “railed” about the generation gap of understanding how railroads used to work and how things are done today; and how the railfan press…even the professional rail press…does nothing to explain or compare those differences. So now I must applaud Ed King and recommmend to all his story in the current Classic Trains about a Southern RR Wreck in 1926 at Rockmart, GA. In his opening paragraphs he very clearly describes how train operations were done at the time with people, paper, and knowledge of the railroad, the job, and the people who worked together. It is the kind of information I hope Trains and Classic Trains can publish more often so that all who love trains understand the major changes of railroading that existsed into the 70’s to today’s spartan and technical operations. The need for these explanations works both ways…the young and “newbies”, be they fan or railroader, often can’t comprhend how it was done years ago and the older among us can’t understand today’s operations. This confusion often leads to misundedrstandings of terms and discriptions and meanings and sometimes frustrations of miscommunications. Publishing such information goes a long way in filling the generation gap.
(And note: yes, I am duplicating this post in both Trains’ General" and Classic Trains’ General forums.)
When I started railroading, the old guys would tell us how rough they had it, and how easy things were ‘now’. They would regale us with stories of steam power, AB brakes, brass journals, etc. (all of which were being phased out at the time). Us young know-it-all’s would just roll our eyes and get on with thinking how good we were.
Of course, after a few years of actual railroad experience, we (at least I) started to appreciate what the old guys were telling us. I understood that while the technology was changing, the basics still governed how one operated. Tonnage and gravity still ruled.
Fast forward to today, and I find myself wearing the shoes of those old-timers. If any of the youngsters were willing to listen, I would tell them all about how difficult operating was back “in my day” compared to today.
I would tell them about operating without radios; operating without dynamic brakes; climbing to the tops of boxcars so that the groundpounders could relay hand signals around multiple curves; grabbing flimsisies on the fly at 50mph; trying to find (and stop by) the wayside phone at 3am in a pouring rain or snow with 150 cars in hogback territory to call the dispatcher to ask about a yet-again hotbox signal against us without injuring the guys in the caboose; about having to literally be near your home phone to take a report-for-duty call (and having to rely on the callers to give you an honest breakdown of crew needs).
Assuming that steam was phased out somewhere between 1955 and 1959, the oldtimers in 1973 would have been new hires or low on the seniority list at that time.
Makes sense, there was a bit of ambiguity about whether the trend away from AB brakes, brass bearings and steam was taking place when you hired on vs when the old-timers of '73 hired on. Still a good story.
In my profession of electrical engineering, the stories before my time involve the pleasures of vacuum tubes and germanium transistors. I can regale stories to the young-uns about life before personal computers and calculators - started college fall '72 and got my first calculator just before start of the winter '74 quarter.
I forgot about classes and trying to get those little colored lenses to fully cover the white light. Which also reminds me of other things no longer used: sections, timetables, and time freights.
I so well remember trying to MU 4 or 5 different types of locomotives (with their equally differing air systems). Trying to get a 6BL to mate with a 24RL to mate with a 26L such that all locomotive brakes respond to the independent and not the trainline brakes, setting the MU2A valve correctly in each loco, and of course the whole connection would not work the same if a different valve was in the lead locomotive or if one had to change ends…
I think part of the reason the “gap” exist is because from early 1970s to mid-1980s railroads were not hiring anywhere near the volume of people they did in the late 1990s.
I know on my railroad most of the old heads show marked up between 1965 and 1975, then the roster has 3 or 4 guys a year after that up to 1993 or so…1990 has 2 guys only.
My class in 1997 had 16 guys and one girl, out of the 17, only 5 of us are still here, and one of those went to yardmaster service.
For quite a few of the new guys we hired these last few years, this is not a career, but just a job.
They don’t know how things, like air brakes, work, and they don’t want to know.
"…For quite a few of the new guys we hired these last few years, this is not a career, but just a job.
They don’t know how things, like air brakes, work, and they don’t want to know…"
More truth than poetry in those lines,Ed! I went into trucking after some time in Service.
My first truck was a 1959 Mack. It was more educator than educated.[:'(] Back then you were expected to carry a box of tools. When something broke out on the road you were either expected to fix it, or to have the part off when help arrived. If you were not rolling you were not earning($$$$, read as no money coming in.)
When I retired in 2001 the company policy was that the driver did not touch anything other than the steering wheel, and the adjustable seat.OH, Yeah, They had to be able to hook and unhook the trailer. The trailer wheel slide was a separate issue.
The driver’s job was to just drive and if anything broke, bent or dropped off. a call in to Road Maint. was all that was expected. THEY would dispatch the appropriate organization to get the truck moving again. The driver’s loyalty was limited to just driving and finding the pick-up or delivery, and going from point A To B.
For many of the ‘new breed’ of driver they were always in search of the next job. It was sort of analogous to the saying in the Military, The Two best bases were the one you had justr lef and your next assignment. One of the bigger issues in the trucking business these days is the recovery of abandoned equipment, and loads. THAT is a long,painful story! [sigh][soapbox]
The RR Retirement board though that allowing folks with 30 years’ service to retire at 60 with full benefits would stimulate a lot of new hiring.
It didn’t, just thinned the rosters a lot.
Railroads didn’t have to come up with ways to fire guys to cut the payroll; the federally managed RRR Board did it for them.
Most carriers simply didn’t hire back up to anywhere near the number of guys that left, so a lot of institutional knowledge walked away, long before they had the opportunity to pass that knowledge along.
AS it stands now I have to work until I am 68 to get full retirement benefits.
Thank goodness my wife works for the state, when she pulls the pin, I am outta here too.
Seen way to many guys work till they are near that, trying to get every last dollar they can out of their retirement, then retire, go home, and die of a heart attack or other such illness in a year or so.
It makes no sense to me, why not go when you can and enjoy the time left.
I wasn’t talking about the RRB…in fact I don’t think they did anything. It was the companies themselves that offered early retirement packages to mainly management… They didn’t have to do anything special for rank and file in that they just eliminated jobs by closing facilities and not running trains. Thus employees fell back on the rosters until they were at the bottom of the extra list. If they hadn’t read the writing on the wall, then they were reading their bills and bank accounts and just moved on without much ado. But it was management ranks that the railroads thinned out with early retirement packages.