One great memory of mine on The Penn Central was when my brother and I took an evening train from GCT to Poughkeepsie.
At the time, the summer of 1975, I was a conductor on The MIlwaukee Road. My brother was attending The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) not to be confused with The Food and Beverage Institue (FBI.) The CIA was located in Poughkeepsie and I was staying with him up there. We had finished up the day in Manhattan by visiting Grand Uniform Company in GCT where I had my usual fitting of my newest uniform. At this time I was serving as the Chicago rep of Grand Uniform and I had become a friend of the company's owner who knew absolutely everybody in train service on the East Coast. The owner escorted my brother and I down to the track where the next Poughkeepsie train was departing and introduced us to the crew where upon my Milwaukee pass was politley honored, and we swapped funny railroad stories for a moment. We were seated in the rear car, an old NYC stainless through coach of Pullman extraction.
Somewhere around Ossining the coach caught fire. Smoke came billowing up from the floor followed by flames. We swung into action. My brother helped move the passengers, who seemed to take this in stride, up to the next coach. I went to the vestibule and did the only thing I could. I gave 2 on the signal, and then pulled the air. The locomotive fireman came back with an extinguisher. We threw sand and dirt on the offending flames. I was scared silly of the third rail. I figured I'd get sent back to flag. We all help each other ya know.
The fire was struck out 40 minutes later. We crawled to Harmon and cut the coach off. everything went back to normal.
As for crotchety old trainmen on the Penn Central. That was prevelant on a lot of railroads at the time. If some of today's flight attendants wore blue serge uniforms and a square cap and carried a punch and a lantern, you'd have a trainman of the old days. Passengers can play havoc on one's emotions.
The attitude came from many things. One of them was years and years of working as long as 16 hours, 7 days a week. After the time it took to hold a regular passenger run this took its toll. In a lot of cases just when a guy with 38 years rights could hold a regular passenger run, it would be discontinued and back to the box cars he went. This was frustrating. Next in line was the dispair of working trains that one knew the company hated to operate. Everything was broken, and the company was broke. Remember these guys hired out in the late '30s and early '40s when bad behavior on a passenger train was a fireing offense. They didn't start out by being mean. Working for a railroad is tough to begin with and one learns bad behavior from some of the older heads as they abused the new hires.
So when they hired out good passenger trains were newly streamined, clean, and respected by the public. Your job on a railroad was one of honor. As time went on everything slowly went to hell. Combine this with a total lack of sleep and you have the recipe for some really crappy remarks made to passengers.
One of my fellow brakeman/conductors on The MIlwaukee had an uncle that was a PC conductor on the Michigan Central division. The uncle worked Chicago-Detroit passenger jobs and my co-worker went with him one day and helped him collect tickets. A passenger stopped the guy's uncle and complained,"Uh sir? This car is too hot." The uncle turned to my friend and whispered, "Hot? I'll show her hot," and proceeded to the electrical locker and shut the air conditioning off. About 15 minutes later the conductor turned the air back on and approached the passenger, who was feeling cool air come from the vents. She replied, "Oh, that's much better."
In defense of Lines West PC trainmen I have to say I knew a number of them as we shared accomodations with them at Chicago Union Station. I don't think there was a mean one in the bunch. I rode Amtrak 40 and 41 with a number of them on my trips east. One in particular, and the only one I'll name was Harold Parr out of Fort Wayne. He was a perfect gentleman in manner and dress, and conducted himself as if the train was his personal property, and the passengers were his guests. He gave me wise counsel when I needed to be re-directed as a young passenger man. I learned a lot from him and he was a roll model for many of us.
At the time, the summer of 1975, I was a conductor on The MIlwaukee Road. My brother was attending The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) not to be confused with The Food and Beverage Institue (FBI.) The CIA was located in Poughkeepsie and I was staying with him up there. We had finished up the day in Manhattan by visiting Grand Uniform Company in GCT where I had my usual fitting of my newest uniform. At this time I was serving as the Chicago rep of Grand Uniform and I had become a friend of the company's owner who knew absolutely everybody in train service on the East Coast. The owner escorted my brother and I down to the track where the next Poughkeepsie train was departing and introduced us to the crew where upon my Milwaukee pass was politley honored, and we swapped funny railroad stories for a moment. We were seated in the rear car, an old NYC stainless through coach of Pullman extraction.
Somewhere around Ossining the coach caught fire. Smoke came billowing up from the floor followed by flames. We swung into action. My brother helped move the passengers, who seemed to take this in stride, up to the next coach. I went to the vestibule and did the only thing I could. I gave 2 on the signal, and then pulled the air. The locomotive fireman came back with an extinguisher. We threw sand and dirt on the offending flames. I was scared silly of the third rail. I figured I'd get sent back to flag. We all help each other ya know.
The fire was struck out 40 minutes later. We crawled to Harmon and cut the coach off. everything went back to normal.
As for crotchety old trainmen on the Penn Central. That was prevelant on a lot of railroads at the time. If some of today's flight attendants wore blue serge uniforms and a square cap and carried a punch and a lantern, you'd have a trainman of the old days. Passengers can play havoc on one's emotions.
The attitude came from many things. One of them was years and years of working as long as 16 hours, 7 days a week. After the time it took to hold a regular passenger run this took its toll. In a lot of cases just when a guy with 38 years rights could hold a regular passenger run, it would be discontinued and back to the box cars he went. This was frustrating. Next in line was the dispair of working trains that one knew the company hated to operate. Everything was broken, and the company was broke. Remember these guys hired out in the late '30s and early '40s when bad behavior on a passenger train was a fireing offense. They didn't start out by being mean. Working for a railroad is tough to begin with and one learns bad behavior from some of the older heads as they abused the new hires.
So when they hired out good passenger trains were newly streamined, clean, and respected by the public. Your job on a railroad was one of honor. As time went on everything slowly went to hell. Combine this with a total lack of sleep and you have the recipe for some really crappy remarks made to passengers.
One of my fellow brakeman/conductors on The MIlwaukee had an uncle that was a PC conductor on the Michigan Central division. The uncle worked Chicago-Detroit passenger jobs and my co-worker went with him one day and helped him collect tickets. A passenger stopped the guy's uncle and complained,"Uh sir? This car is too hot." The uncle turned to my friend and whispered, "Hot? I'll show her hot," and proceeded to the electrical locker and shut the air conditioning off. About 15 minutes later the conductor turned the air back on and approached the passenger, who was feeling cool air come from the vents. She replied, "Oh, that's much better."
In defense of Lines West PC trainmen I have to say I knew a number of them as we shared accomodations with them at Chicago Union Station. I don't think there was a mean one in the bunch. I rode Amtrak 40 and 41 with a number of them on my trips east. One in particular, and the only one I'll name was Harold Parr out of Fort Wayne. He was a perfect gentleman in manner and dress, and conducted himself as if the train was his personal property, and the passengers were his guests. He gave me wise counsel when I needed to be re-directed as a young passenger man. I learned a lot from him and he was a roll model for many of us.
Mitch