Why did so many RR workers "migrate" from road to road?

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

Hi,

In reading many stories about railroad workers in the pre and post war era, I have found that many of them moved from road to road during their career. While there is nothing unusual with that, it just seemed that the “job hopping” (no negative meaning meant - just best word I could think of) was quite common during a time when a lot of other workers would tend to stay with a company “for life”.

Were there other (than usual) reasons for these moves? Did the union bennies go with them? Did they tend to get the same job at the new employer, or did they have to start from the bottom?

Thanks,

Mobilman44

2

‘Boomers’ (which doesn’t mean the same thing today!) were the equivalent of Kelly temps - they moved along with the peak traffic, which didn’t peak at the same time on every road. So, they’d work the wheat extras during the harvest (which moved southeast - northwest through the wheat belt,) then migrate to coal roads when traffic picked up during the winter heating season…

I’m not sure, but I assume that they were Brotherhood members, and their pension funds were handled by the Brotherhoods. They would have to start at the bottom of the extra board with each move - but they moved to places where the assignments were coming in thick and fast. Once things slowed down, they were off to the next hot spot.

Chuck

3

Some boomers carried documents from former employing railroads that gave them credentials. There was a story, however, that the man who hired for the new road would examine the watermark on such a document, to see if a crane in the watermark had a broken neck or not. A broken necked-crane indicated that the boomer was a trouble maker.

4

The “crane with a broken neck” watermark is a legend stemming from the Pullman strike of 1894. See

http://www.amtrakengineer.net/Gamst07crane.pdf

for a brief synopsis.

5

Remember that railroaders’ benefit packages were negotiated nationally by the various brotherhoods and would be consistent from one railroad to another. The only thing you’d lose was your seniority within your workgroup or craft

Remember too that railroaders’ pensions are administered through Railroad Retirement which is national in scope. One’s pension credits continue to accumulate undisturbed regardless of what railroad you work for. In other words, there was no penalty incurred by moving from one railroad to another. This was and is not true in private industry or business.

6

I was repeating what Botkin and Harlow said in their A Treasury of Railroad Folklore, p. 166-169, in the section on boomers. I would not doubt that such a device could be used by both Pullman and railroad companies, if it was ever used…

7

Remember also that there was no Railroad Retirement Board in effect until in 1937. I do not know just what date it went into effect, but I know that my mother was unable to collect anything after my father’s death because he had not participated long enough (he died just after Christmas of 1937). She was also unable to collect any veteran benefits from his service in WWI since he received a medical discharge before he had been in the army ninety days.

8

An interesting thing is that when RR retirement came in, it required railroaders to retire at 70. Remember this was during the Depression and it was at least in part just to open up jobs - some railroads, particularly in the South, had a brief shortage of engineers after it came into effect. It wasn’t unusual for a railroad’s most senior engineers to be in their eighties - or older!!

As noted, railroaders can pay into the RRB wherever they are working, so it doesn’t matter if they work for one railroad or ten or more. RRB benefits aren’t taxable by the states by the way.

Harry Bedwell was a boomer who wrote many short stories about Eddie Sand - a fictionalized version of himself - and one book, “The Boomer”. It seems boomers were just guys who had wanderlust, and couldn’t take becoming one of the “old guard” who worked year after year on the same road and job.

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/B/bedwell_boomer.html

9

There were situations where you would have men changing districts within a company as well.

When my father started out in 1948 he worked in the Pacific Region - Alberta District - Calgary Division. This included the famous Laggan Subdivision, on the mainline; the Red Deer Sub. portion of the Calgary Edmonton line, several branch lines, and the Calgary Terminal Sub. which included all operations in Calgary.

This was a very significant distinction, no doubt carried over from the WWI and WWII veterans who learned the go with your unit mentality. Staff assignments were handled by a “Staff Man”, who reported to the Chief Dispatcher. Occasions would come up where different divisions within the district would run short of men, due to illnesses, vacation coverage, or local seasonal demands.

Men could not be easily moved from one division to another, as this decision had to be made at a level well above the staff man’s pay grade. Superintendents made these decisions, and when it was decided, you went. My father was sent to the Medicine Hat Division, as an Operator, for two weeks in the spring of 1948, and to the Lethbridge Division, as a Relief Agent, for a month in the summer of 1953.

When Dad would tell us these stories when my brother and me were teenagers, we would joke that he was traded for two Relief Agents and an Operator to be named later. I guess if your Superintendent got more for you the second time, that must of meant that your job performance was improving.[:)]

When Dad bid in his first station at Hatton, SK., on the Medicine Hat Division, this was still a “thing”, (paperwork, signatures, etc.) but these distinctions lost their significance by th

10

Last night, I did not re-read the article, so I re-read it today. BreiflyBriefly, it credits the Pullman strike and its aftermath as the origin of the legend–and then quotes one man by name, who says that he had had such a service letter. However, no such letter has been found, and the explanation is that perhaps everyone who found that he had such threw it away since it was less than worthless to him.

11

Rock Island workers on the roster at the shutdown is a perfect example of this. Some of these guys at Wichita started out 1980 working on the Rock then to Frisco and back on Rock property when OKT started up. In a 60 day period, they worked on three different carriers. Extending this further, in 1988 when OKT/Katy merged into UP, in a eight yr period the former RI dudes then worked on their 4th railroad.

12

I have heard that DM&IR enginemen would go to Florida to work on the FEC during the winter until the end of the 1950’s. FEC would need extra crews during the winter and they did employ DM&IR men who were furloughed over the winter in Minnesota. They would then return to Minnesota in the spring. I don’t know if FEC men did the same. I don’t have first hand knowledge of this but I’m sure somebody out there does.

13

The fictional “boomer” in Harry Bedwell’s good book, The Boomer, not only had the previously mentioned wanderlust, but was also portrayed as an accomplished telegrapher (in addition to being quite competent in all areas), to the surprise of his new bosses. Eventually, he became very well known amongst the fictional railroad management all over the country.