About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

March 26, 2004
As I constantly remind folks, railroaders are quite a diverse group of people coming from a multitude of backgrounds. We are a true melting pot having although at times it appears that we have melted down into a pile of goo. The beautiful bride thinks that we're really all nothing but a weird and strange bunch. Of course she married a railroader so what then does that say about her?

Being that it has been awhile since I've done one of these little tributes to some of the folks I've worked with over the years, I figured it was about time to present a few more of them. So from the collection of some of the most colorful and unusual people I've ever met anywhere comes a few more for your reading pleasure. And of course, none of the names, railroads or locations will be mentioned to protect the guilty.

We'll start out with those that are financially prudent. It is amazing just how "thrifty" some railroaders can be. To observe their methods of frugality you'd think these people were destitute. Now while I have worked with a few guys that were flat broke, others had a few bucks but lived like they were homeless. Still others have become quite successful financially, but again, to look at them and listen to them talk; you'd believe they were destitute. There are a few I've known over the years that actually buy their clothes at those resale shops operated by Amvets, the Salvation Army and the like.

One character I've known would never ever take a turn to buy coffee and doughnuts. You'd work a job with two or three, or sometimes even four other guys and it was sort of an unwritten rule that periodically somebody would stop and pick up doughnuts and maybe coffee as well for the entire crew. A dozen doughnuts and a few coffees are not exactly going to break the bank. We'd all take turns usually picking up the goodies once a week or so. Whenever it came to this guy's turn he would always have some idiotic excuse on why he couldn't buy. And the worst part was this guy had more money than all of the rest of us on the assignment put together. Probably why, he never spent any of it. Rumor was that he had not only the first dollar he ever made; he also had the first penny, nickel, dime and quarter as well.

I worked with one guy that drove an expensive Lincoln. He loved that car like a mother loves her children. He had a wood burning stove in his house and was literally a slave to it. Every day at work he would scrounge up the loose wood left behind on empty flatcars. This was lumber used to support, secure and block loads and most of the time it was rough sawn hardwood which will burn quite nicely. Every free moment this guy had would find him climbing onto empty flats or into empty gons to gather up this wood and toss it off onto the ground. He would then have me pull the engine up to him and proceed to load it onto the catwalks of the engine. When we got back out onto the switching lead he would then toss it all off the engine. He worked his tail off gathering up this wood and on summer days would be sweating like a pig in doing so.

One particularly hot summer day he really hit the "mother lode" with a huge amount of scrap wood on a flatcar. He tossed it all off and when the engine got up to him, proceeded to load it all up. The side of my engine looked like a lumber delivery truck. He called up to me to give him a hand loading it as there was so much of there. It was extremely hot and humid and he was starting to struggle a bit to handle it all. I asked him if he was going to let me have any of it and he immediately became defiant and proclaimed that this was "his wood." I politely declined and just sat there watching him struggle. My attitude was "your wood, your struggle."

He kept an electric chainsaw in the trunk of his car and at the end of the day would pull it out and plug it into one of the outlets outside and proceed to saw the larger pieces down. When this chore was complete he would put the chainsaw away, open the sun roof on his Lincoln and then load the wood through the sun roof and onto the floor of his car. He would pull out and head for home with all this wood sticking out well above the roof line of his car. Of course this had him looking like a real hillbilly.

I once commented to him about his being a slave to the wood burner. He boasted that with the money he saved on heating bills. He claimed that not having to spend big money to heat his house every winter, he could afford that Lincoln. I commented to him that all he really had was a very high priced lumber wagon. His feelings were truly hurt and he went off to pout.

Another tightwad I worked with never brought a lunch. When we would go to dinner, he would just hang around watching us eat. He gave you that look that a puppy trying to beg for food would give only he didn't sit up or give paw. If you didn't finish something he would ask you for it. If you refused his request he would try to guilt you into giving it to him by commenting something like "Well all you're gonna do is toss it out!" I'd always tell him that I was saving it for later.

Another character would conveniently forget his wallet several times a week. When you went to dinner, he would comment that he was rushing out the door for work and forgot to grab his wallet in his haste to get to work on time. He was frequently late too. At one point I caught an extra job with him every afternoon for five days straight and each and every one of those nights he "forgot" his wallet. I guess he figured nobody would begin to notice the pattern developing.

After the third straight night of his forgetfulness, the excuse began to wear really thin. Nobody offered to buy him dinner but one guy did offer him part of their leftover sandwich. He begrudgingly took it and spent the rest of the evening complaining about how hungry he was and how tired he was getting as he didn't have sufficient nourishment to sustain him for the rest of the evening. Nobody cared and we suggested to him that maybe this would be a good lesson for him. It would teach him to be certain that he had his wallet with him whenever he departed his house for work.

Another time I worked with him I had to hear all about how his car broke down and how he didn't have any money to fix it. He cried about his wife having to drop him off at work and then come back out and pick him up in the middle of the night when we were finished. So when we tied up, I offered to drop him off at his house. He was quite grateful for the gesture. When we arrived at his house he sees that his wife is out. He suddenly remembers some party that was going on. He then asks if I could wait a few minutes while he went in, cleaned up and changed and then asked if I would take him to that party. When I asked who was watching his kids he told me about some babysitter they hired. Needless to say, he didn't get the ride to his party out of me.

This same guy routinely showed up for work with no gloves and work boots that looked like they were never new. He cried poor constantly but we always heard about concerts he attended and fancy parties he was supposedly invited too. He was borrowing duct tape from me to tape up his boots that were falling apart or the old gloves that he scrounged up from somewhere.

Another character was always driving an old beater car. He didn't believe in spending decent money on reliable transportation. One day he was using his own car while working and driving it from one end of the yard to the other. He had some vision trouble but never wanted to wear his glasses. Of course one of the reasons he didn't want to wear them was because they were broken and taped together. As a result, they wouldn't stay on his face and head properly making them quite uncomfortable so he usually didn't wear them. He claimed he couldn't afford to get a new pair.

Anyway, he was driving through the yard in his car not seeing too clearly as he was not wearing his glasses. He didn't see a switch stand and he clobbered it. There was some damage to the exterior as a result of the crash and it broke the driver's side seat. The seat itself was bent out of shape and the back was twisted to one side. He flat out refused to pay to get it fixed. Instead he used a pillow to fill in the space where the seat was out of shape in order to allow him to sit up straight. This car was running around with bald tires as well and more than once he was observed slipping and sliding around on wet or snowy pavement.

Then there have been those that gave up cigarettes. I should clarify that, they gave up buying cigarettes. They would tell you all about how they are quitting smoking. Then all throughout the course of the trip they would bum smokes from you. I worked with one guy that was hitting me up all night for smokes. We got held at one particular spot and there was a grocery store right there. This guy didn't bring a lunch and was getting hungry. He offered to spring for some munchies and sodas if I were willing to make the run over there. I made the run and while there and using his cash, purchased him a couple of packs of smokes and also one for myself. Oddly enough, he never mooched a smoke from me again.

Then there was the guy who really was tapped out financially. He landed a job at the railroad I was working at during that time period. He had been out of the rail industry for several years as he had been laid off from his previous job and not called back as of that point in time. He had taken a job far from his home just to remain employed somehow while trying to stay close to his kids. He had previously been divorced and his ex-wife had moved across the country. The job he took near where she was living while providing him with enough to keep a roof over his head and child support payments was doing little else for him.

When he got the new railroad job he was tight pressed financially. This job took him several hundred miles away from where he had been living for the past few years. He could not afford to stay in a motel of any type. So he resorted to living in his truck in the parking lot of the yard. He stayed in that truck for months. In fact it seems that truck became a fixture in the parking lot. I dubbed it "the Hilton" I had used his first name in the Hilton name as well but I have omitted it to protect his identity. He used to get a kick out of me calling it that and the name stuck. Everybody began calling it that. I even took a lumber crayon and wrote in on the front and rear of the truck. He thought it was hysterical and left it there never once attempting to clean it off. He told me the last time I saw him a few years ago that he still has that old truck out on his farm and you can still see remnants of my artwork.

I will give this guy credit though, when he got his first paycheck from the railroad he went to the store and picked up some toys for his youngest child and some other gifts for his older one, then had them shipped back to their home. Now that's integrity.

One guy I worked with was notorious for inviting you to stop off for a drink after work. Only problem was he frequently did not have any money to be able to buy a round or two. You'd wind up picking up his tab as well as yours. Nonetheless, he was always willing to offer to buy you one, with your money of course. On more than one occasion he bought everybody a drink with somebody else's change that was sitting on the bar, while that guy was in the restroom.

We'll close this lesson out with a guy that had a serious drinking problem. The hell you say, a railroader with a drinking problem? Hard to believe I know but yes kids it's true. This guy was nailed seemingly countless times for operating a motor vehicle under the influence. And most all of those offenses occurred while he was already under suspension from a previous conviction. With his last offense the judge told him that he would never be issued a license of any type again, ever. It seems that he repeated the offense so many times and did so while driving on that revoked license that it was decided that he should never be allowed to have driving privileges again.

Anyhow, his wife became fed up with his illegal activities and having to frequently throw some bail to spring him from the slammer. The drinking also became unbearable and she tossed him out. Getting thrown out; a common affliction that affects many railroaders. He wouldn't spend the money to stay in a hotel or boarding house, so he stayed in the Car Inspector's shanty in the yard. This facility had a large locker room and he slept in there on one of the benches. He used the shower facilities there to clean up. He would catch a city bus and go to a Laundromat to wash his clothes. He would do all of his dinning at a nearby coffee shop. This practice went on for months before his wife finally took him back home.

To this day he still commutes back and forth using public transportation and can only mark up to jobs that work with their schedules. Oh yes, he's too cheap to take a taxi to or from work. With all the money he is saving by no longer owning his own car and paying maintenance and insurance, you'd think he'd spring for a cab once in awhile.

I guess it's more efficient for him to take the longer, slower way home.

"Take the long way home."

And so it goes.

Tuch