RAILROAD MAN

[Music] h railroad man's got a pretty good job it's hard work rough hours sometimes but when you through you've done something something's moved I on the go all the time you know I'm not uh got a ship from 8 to 4: every day and I know that's where I'm going to be today tomorrow on the next day and and I like like to be on the [Music] move but the people a whole lot of people don't realize why the man's got to go through to work on the railroad we don't have the best job in the world we're out in all kinds of weather and we work under all kinds of conditions has got a whole lot of hardships to go through with we got on a car and started shoving to North Dallas and it was freezing and we shove five miles and when we got off the top of the car our clothes was froze cold hot sleep snow ran don't make Sunshine don't make no difference man's got to be there if you don't be there and be at the right place at the right time that's just too [Music] bad what makes railroad men different is because they feel that they're individuals you make a trip or you do a a shift in the yard there's nobody there a forming right on top of you when you're finished your shift or your trip you feel well okay I've done what I was supposed to do and I'm gone home the job makes you feel as if you're an independent individual you like change you like to be be doing something different all the time working at different hours well I started on the Great Northern in h Montana about 14 years ago I worked three Summers for Canadian Pacific on wheat rushes out the Prairie then I quit railroading for about a year and then after I came down from California I couldn't hire out there I came over to Arizona and started with Santa Fe and I've been here ever since I like it this is my main reason for being here and I like this part of the country primarily oh I just plan to stay about a month and make one good check and uh I've been here ever since that's the damn truth come on let's I got two well you got 12 we got a common bind something that brings you together yeah we spent a lot of lonely hours together away from home waiting for the next Freight back and we don't even get paid for it you have something to talk about you have something in common there's only the one thing a railroad man wants to talk about that that's Railroad in well he was in the middle of changing clothes and all he had on was his long underwear so he decided Well would nobody see him so he'd just hop off of the Caboose and line the switch in his long underwear well the pastor train came by and he was so big that uh we went right on through the pass and he couldn't catch the Caboose and we left him in this country left him come out in the country in his underwar uh closer this conductor would get to his Caboose to get on faster the train went when the train caboose went by this conductor well uh it's going as fast he couldn't get on and and he was hollering at this Breakman he said don't leave me don't leave me he's wantan him to pull the air on the train you know but Ste of the Breakman pulling there he just bailed off and stayed with him well he didn't leave him he just bailed off and stayed right there with [Applause] him I defy any man that work on a railroads and not look at an oldtime steam engine and not feel a kind of a Nostalgia for what was and there's a sort of a thrill to it all you just have to stand up in those old steam engines all the time and uh and you just stand there and you just shake you just shake your insides out of you that's the way it was that's that's exactly the way it was you kind of got a that that smell of that Cinders and the the smoke uh way they started off and the huff and the puffing and I mean you felt like you were doing a man's job I missed the question only the steam engines they were a lot more colorful and in the air whistle that we have on the uh the diesel uh practically all the old-timers they they they they they had a I think a lot of different way of blowing the whistle each one of them kind of had his own way of pulling the whistle that was a it was a beautiful sound especially in the early morning when the sun was just rising and and uh as we used to make the comments some of the old boys could play a tune on that whel you know and it was colorful and it I think you you we have lost something about it I think it uh it had its its place in [Music] life these people in the freight yard uh they didn't have the business that we had in the passenger service and uh all of a sudden in about uh 10 years it changed we lost so much business and the work so declined that here we were in the reverse we were trying to affiliate with them on some railroads you'll find that uh they do give you this good service and are interested in passenger business but as a whole they're not any of them interested in anymore all the railroad really has to offer is service and if they don't give good service why they don't get the business and those that do go by train and like to travel by train they have a hard time making connections and uh their personnel isn't uh the best in the world when you go up to buy a Teck or when you get on a train you might get some old grouchy conductor that thinks he owns the railroad which he don't own one bit of it well they have uh they the other day in the favorite said they have 15 trains going and coming in the terminal now we used to have 86 or 88 yeah back in those days they discontinued them at the old Eerie Depot now your and your tour Duty now you have to switch the mail Hall and 26th Street yeah I shed the shed is the biggest job now the mail is very easily satisfied not much switching there very easily satisfied and they don't worry about the male like they used to we started you know they used to worry about the male being on but they don't worry anymore you can put it in there whenever you feel like it I recently had occasion to get through the depot um and my observation was was uh sort of upsetting and in fact it was startling I'd been away from there for a couple of years and um while going through the coach yard especially where there had always been so much activity I noticed that uh many of the tracks have been taken up small repair shops uh machine shop and so forth those were all abandoned the whole thing seemed to be in a state of disrepair on number nine track there was uh nine or 10 dining cars and the thought occurred to me good Lord Business must be picking up and then I observed that the numbers had been marked out they were no longer in service probably B shipped for scrap or sold to some Latin American country for their services there's nothing nothing left today five six years ago I had so many cars in that coach when I was on that job that I'd have to take cars out of there grab a track load run them up on the lead to make room for cars coming out of the depot to make room in the depot for cars that were coming in off of trains I get so much room today I don't know where the hell we do it whether they want to do away with the place or not why that's what we don't know we don't understand it uh we we can't figure out why we're switchman we we don't run this railroad we just don't know where in the hell the cars are going to where the trains are going to the railroads it seemed like uh they decided at some point there was more money to be made hauling things and Hauling people and then there it seemed like they just decided to hell with people you know Johnny and me seen the hand riding on the wall and we got out of Passenger he's here with the back on 16 go back for two those trains they don't put themselves together not by long shot when we go to work we know we give them a good8 hours work and then they've called us feather betters and put a big campaign on and had the Madison Avenue boys publicize it until we have a hard time living down that name everybody you meet calls you a feather B and it ra rubs the fur the wrong way you go home and you say well I didn't have to do too much today and this is what the public thinks that you don't do anything and you're getting paid all this money for doing nothing I think we've gone too long except in the fact that we're unskilled labor because once we're trained we're not unskilled because you don't learn it in 6 months you don't learn it in a year funny thing you're useless until it comes up time to strike the railroads and all of a sudden the government discovers are so Almighty important the country can't run without you and wh injunction they should stop and think about the millions of dollars that the railroad spent uh advertising feather betting and educating the general public Against The Railroad Man which lowered his character not only in the in the light of the the the Layman out here that doesn't understand railroad work but in your own neighborhoods where you used to be known as Mr Lucas or Mr King or Mr Henderson or Mr benningfield even the least kid in the neighborhood harder there comes old FEA better anybody knows that you can get more work done with three men than you can with two men and it is a much safer safer practice with three man well look at it right now you got no firemen there's no firemen on on the side so how are you going to you're going to pass signals to the hog unless you got a man on the leading car and you're on the on the top of the of the other car you can't do it yes more men so you can relay signals I was walking across the top in the dark checking for handbrakes and I started to step across there was no catwalk the roof of the car was smooth and Frosty and I slipped and fell I could have gone right off the top of the car on the ground and got got hurt well get DN badly hurt the day that I came off I just about killed myself too I saw you in the East End there flat on his back came down like that right down on his back I mean your job is fine but not to get hurt over that's a long way down there isn't a man on the railroad that hasn't come close to dying more than once they preach safety but uh just see how much uh safety there is in the yard it is a death trap you could kill yourself at any [Music] instant is allers thank you got some slow orders down here we got to keep tab on we got a slow order down there at that 73 oh wonder if they ever get that overpass finish down there getting tired of slowing down for them and then we got a got slow order down there 10:30 a.m. between M Post 104 and M post 103 okay all Val Jenner I believe we got a little smoke over here on my side don't you look over there it might be blown over your side now disappeared [Music] here yeah got a little smoke SM like a hot box me where it's hot box where it's Brak stick but we better stop and [Music] inspector come in 1862 birth uh Howard let's stop now we got a hot box up here about three cars the kabo over here doctor this thing then I think we can go on in okay okay hey these HotBox detectors see and they're supposed to be automatic but uh just the same you better keep your eye open cuz you don't want a derailment caused by hot boxes didn't get automatically detected we pull water on it I hate to pull water on it but we're going to have to cool it down a little bit or a going to go here's a hook right let's get some water and thr we do have a dangerous CH and uh it used to be where if you were a switchman you had to pay a higher rate of insurance than PR near anybody else and that's why the BT started their own insurance so that uh the men could have insurance without paying this High rate officers and members of w ring lodge number 425 the duties of my office require me to preside at all meetings of this Lodge to acquire a strict compliance with the Constitution and general rules that the business of this Lodge may be conducted in a manner looking to the best interest to the Brotherhood of Railway trainman Let each head B reverence of the supreme ruler of the universe or the chapain invokes a divine blessing most holy and glorious Lord God the great ruler of the universe the birth railroad tra has been greatly resp responsible for many improvements in our agreements but many of our young men whom are coming into railroading today are stepping into this and they think it's gravy and they think it was given to them by the by the carriers and the companies there doesn't seem to be a great Drive among the um Brothers nobody seems to have any interest in it the thing is the guys themselves they don't want to do anything there's no Drive they're seem to be all St they're too fat everybody's too fat the young men hiring out today have no realization of what in the hell has gone on before them they don't care they they automatically think that they're entitled to these things well you're not entitled to him somebody fought long ah hard for these conditions you should respect them the way a lot of the older guys talk you'd think they own a union and they don't sure it was tough in the old days and a lot of guys got killed to get where we are but no good now talking about 50 years ago the problems we've got today we have to solve today griever he says what you call him that for why don't you call him shop T like in any other Union well sir I says we call him griver because on the railroad he gets nothing but grief is there any way we could get a foot Bridge put across there uh either that or we got to walk clear down the freedom station and back up around there line them switches over there well they sure don't want you crawling over cars they preach safety that's that's an unsafety practice it's an unsafe practice but if you take time to walk down around then you're killing your killing time you're not doing your job right well perhaps that's the answer then just take your time the longer it takes by the the better chance you got of solving your problem the only way I see to do it just walk down around because crawled over those trains is a hazard you ain't got no way know of going to start shoving or pull a track or what's going to happen you don't know there's Road engines on some of them trains when you go crawl across them and if you get hurt they'll hang you stand for a griver I said what do you think I got rocks in my head and some men bring up new grievance every day they're real geniuses when it comes to finding gev put in time and a half of the day to working and then put an additional I'll tell you what I don't like I don't like the amount of time it to get a grievance settled that's right we got cases anywhere from 1 to more than 5 years old but as long as they're pending before the adjustment board we can't do anything but wait I mean under the railway Labor Act we can't even take a stri boat something I think in the future that's got to be brought into bfrt contracts and hasn't been is the training of the headend Breakman here he goes making his first or second trip he doesn't know where he's going what he's going to do he's just going I had a student with me the other day and he's been working for 3 weeks the only signal that he knew was the sign to go and eat I think they're pulling some sharp practice on us our was up at 440 and they ordered that extra crew out at 415 25 minutes before ourr I don't think that's right to you the laws are too complicated you got to have a local chairman who really knows his stuff and even then you wait forever before the carriers give up anything [Music] you can't be president of the Brotherhood of drro trainman by sitting behind a desk in Cleveland and you'd better not try you've got to get out on the ground find out what the complaints are and try to do something about them being in there if you can't you try to send an officer in there to correct them and it's nothing unusual for them to call you at 3:00 in the morning I'll admit it's rather provoking but I consider it part of my job so they go in for a raise on those kind of jobs on the annual pay that they make as a brick layer as a plumber or as a carpenter where we've got to go in on what our annual take home pay is or what our annual pay is and is no use kidding you they they don't bring the the little checks in and they exhibit the big checks and we've got some switchmen that brother they're making a fair size paycheck I don't mind do it yeah I like to get back on the issue about our can of safety now safety in most of the Yards that we have here in Chicago region uh particularly one at the 63rd Street uh yard there now we had a lot of injuries over there they pull off the right of right in clear but they still haven't uh stopped the issue of uh accidents and that they got uh one utility man I think on uh one trick and he's supposed to cover all 42 tracks down there I'm also a member of the Safety Committee a lots 225 and I've had many complaints from the Braken and conductors that perform Services there and in the uh in between the tracks the company does not clean up the rubble and they do not to clean up the the the various objects of debris there's dung and all kinds of things that come out of stock cars there's unsafe and Slick conditions your field man when he goes down there is constantly like he won't even sprinkle sand or anything over I would suggest this and I used to do it myself I would write him a letter and be on record with them tell them that someone could get seriously lures or killed I'd write them a letter on the condition of the and tell them someone could get seriously injured or killed and the same time I'd keep that record if you give the dates and figure your local chairman when this happens I'm sure he can correct some of it I'm sure of that yes I like to ask you one point blank question do we have to go to work short-handed well I'm going to answer you like yes or no I'll I'll answer you case I'll give you the number number of it a man got up and uh said that he didn't have to go to work short-handed and asked the general chairman that he said no you don't but they're going to fire you for it now if you've got guts enough and time enough we'll get you back and pay you for it now you me or nobody can tell you they can't fire you the only thing we can do if they fire you in justly is make them pay you for it that's how simple it is is well is it unjustly to go to work shorthand I'm telling you you don't have to but they'll fire you well you're you're the president concrete statement yes or no tell I told you you haven't said yes I said you don't have to but they'll fire you huh they'll fire you for in subordination other words we have no the union have we have no backing from the union we have backing for the union but you also got laws you got a railroad Labor Act and you've got Court decisions and it's already been decided on this well the only thing I know if if if if I was a president of the Union I would automatically tell my men what they had to do or wouldn't have to do I think I've told you what point you told me I have to go to work I told you if you got to go to work or get fired in subordination now can you hear it in plainer right go to work and get fired all right now let's face the issue I don't care who you are or where you come from it's never been a Union in existence that can keep a company from firing a man never has yet cuz that's my job to keep up with it but the Brotherhood of railroad trainman has made them Pam for firing more men than any Union in the United States and I can back it up amen we call it the fire hole if you ever see it you'll never forget it but that's progress I guess get rid of the old make way for the new I believe the railroads are going through a big change and eventually they will come back between the government pushing and the Brotherhood pulling maybe the railroads will get moved into the 20th century yet the carriers may not care about passengers but the government does and the Brotherhood railroad trainman does now if you'd ask me 5 years ago I'd have said passenger had no future not today you think the railroads don't belong in the J age take a look at that new turbo train when you look at the problem City people have getting uh to and from work and uh how the cities are growing you you can see a great future for passenger service seems like everybody can see it but the railroads they could compete with the airplanes if they wanted to because there are a lot of people that don't like to ride planes and and uh there is a certain thrill about riding on a train let's just put it this way we're we're living better today then we're enjoying a better salary we're enjoying better working conditions better safety features and they are trying to improve it all the time it's going to open up someday man in the future going to have a lot better job than I got [Music] I think that is their goal to improve our jobs and they [Music] have we come a long way and we're still [Music] [Music] moving h [Music]