Which Seniority District Had the Yard Jobs at Mystic?

I have been reading Vanishing Markers, and the Robert W. Jones books. This got me wondering which division got the yard jobs at Mystic. Was it all one, or did the Portland, Fitchburg, and New Hampshire each get a share of the jobs?

Back in the day of Vanishing Markers by Ralph Fisher, there was also a Terminal Division. It was gone by the time I started working in 1968. Couldn't tell you how it worked.

Thanks Ed. I knew about the Terminal Div. This also raises the question of the Wildcat. One chapter in Vanishing Markers was about a run to Portland. It said that the job came out the Western Route, but returned via the Wildcat. Did NH Div. crews get a part of Portland Div. work as a result?

I don't know. By the time I was working the B & M, there was only one through freight, Boston to Rigby. In the early 1960s the B & M unions agreed to system wide seniority with everyone who was working the date it was adopted had prior rights. The few new hires after that date could work anywhere qualified, if they were the next in line for an assignment. On the Central Mass. Branch, which came into the B & M via the Boston & Lowell, it was operated with New Hampshire Div. crews. When the B & M redid its Boston Terminal 1927/28, CM trains utilized the Fitchburg Route to West Cambridge and there was a further change with the Waverly grade separation and a new Fitchburg/CM junction at Clematis Brook. I rode the CM train now and then and former NH Div crews ran it most of the time, but to work off the miles a Fitchburg guy would work it from time to time.

Today I attended a function of Boston area railroad retirees, many B & M and some from Amtrak via Penn Central & Conrail, MBCR and even Keolis. I posed the question to a retired B & M trainmaster about my age (71) and he told me how the yard jobs were set up. There was also a retired conductor in on the conversation too. All the Boston Yard jobs were assigned to various divisions. The examples they gave were Yard 8, New Hampshire Div., Yard 7 Fitchburg Div., Yard 21 Portland Div., Wharf jobs to Mystic Wharf, 3 tricks, one NH, one Portland and the night (3rd trick) Fitch. Portland Division also had two parts, East and West. On the Yard 21 and Wharf, they couldn't tell me if it was Portland East or West.

Ed, thank you for getting back to me on this.