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"George" And His Friends

Part 1: Train crews and support personnel

The railroads were the greatest single employer during the late 19th through mid-20th centuries - a distinction held today by the various levels of government bureaucracy.

A railroad job was (and still is) considered the best blue collar or middle management spot one could hope for: security, travel and romantic flair in a career that really helps to shape our way of life.

Little boys envied the lordly presence of the conductor while little girls romanticized about the heroism of Casey Jones (not recognizing the grim realities behind the legend).

So much has the railroad man become a part of our way of life that even an obscure conductor of the small Port St. Joe RR has been immortalized in this turn of the century cameo postcard.

In this Topic, we look at the human face of Passenger Service to see who it is that makes the Golden Age what it is.

The Chain Of Command

A typical passenger train can have a staff and crew of 30 or more. These, in turn, represent various operating departments within the railroad (or in some cases, of more than one railroad) as well as Pullman, REA and the U. S. Government. To say, then, that daily operations involve a lot of diplomacy (and occasional knocking heads together) is no exaduration. Here is the political structure of the typical passenger train.

Conductor	Pullman Representative	Dining Car Steward	RPO Chief Clerk	Express Messenger
Road Superintendent	Pullman	Commissary Department	Railway Mail Service District Superintendent	Express Agency District Manager
.	.	.	.	.
engineer	porters	1st, 2nd, 3rd cooks	RPO clerks	.
fireman	club car stewards	helper	(may number 1-12)	.
head end brakeman	club car cooks	dining car waiters	.	.
rear brakeman	train secretary	.	.	.
..	barber	.	.	.
.	maid	.	.	.

The Conductor

(Road Superintendent)

The Conductor controls the actual movement of the train, receiving movement clearances from the Dispatcher and directing the locomotive crew and brakemen. In the case of a combined train, each road will have a Conductor for its respective consist, with the one whose road they are presently traveling over being designated as senior Conductor (and thus in overall command).

Interestingly, for most railroads, passenger trains are the responsibility of the Road Superintendent, who has his own problems in getting freight, equipment movements and MoW over the road. This is one of the weaknesses of passenger operation which has never been adequately addressed.

Contributing monograph:

The Conductor

by

Tom Greco

The Pullman Representative

(The Pullman Company)

Pullman normally owns and controls the sleeping cars, baggage-clubs and observation cars, providing their own crews for them. As these account for the great bulk of the train crew, a representative is assigned by Pullman to provide overall control and monitor the condition of Pullman property. In this capacity, the Pullman Representative is a formidable authority figure, who can cut a defective car out, discipline or remove porters and other staff and who handles the receipts for "shorts" who board en route or who want to upgrade their accomodations.

However, while the Pullman Representative is the second most powerful person on board, he is not a railroad employee and thus does not have any authority over train operations or movements: a fact carefully drummed into them. As a practical matter, however, the Pullman Rep often works closely with the Conductor as an informal second in command. On long distance runs, the Conductor and Pullman Representative will each have their own compartment: generally those in the observation car.

Contributing monograph:

The Pullman Representative

by

Tom Greco

The Dining Car Steward

(Commissary Department)

Almost all diners and some lounge cars are owned by the railroads, who supply their crews through the Commissary Department. This is especially true after 1947 and the breakup of Pullman. The leader of the dining car crew is the Steward. In cases where there are both railroad staffed dining and lounge cars, the latter will have a lounge Steward. However, as lounge services are usually a one man operation, a lounge Steward does not enjoy the same social status as his compatriot in the dining car.

The dining car Steward has a number of specific responsibilities:

• Chief among these, he handles the cash receipts and accepts payments. As he is the custodian of the cash box, a Steward traditionally has his own sleeping quarters. He must also account for all supplies expended.

• He manages the traffic flow in the diner, directing people toward available tables where a waiter will take their order. This is a subtle, but important social distinction, as the Steward is the only crew member who normally has command authority in a diner.

• He has the authority to issue special supply requisitions for reprovisioning en route: for which he must obtain the recepts from the local Commissary and account for funds spent.

• He also has disciplinary authority over his people, referring them to the District Superintendent of the Commissary or to the train Conductor as circumstances require.

As with the Pullman Representative, the Steward is generally a white man while most of the staff are from other ethnic groups. This is done, as with the Pullman Rep, so that the mostly white passengers do not have to interact with a black or latino authority figure.

Interestingly, as the dining cars are owned and staffed by the railroads, diner crews have benefited from improved living conditions on board. As more and more trains operate in multi-road through long haul, the practice of cutting the diner in and out has declined. As crews stay with the train for up to 3 days, dormitory facilities are often provided.

In some cases, these take the form of an old heavyweight section Pullman leased for non-revenue duty (the porter is not provided). The most popular is the venerable 12-1, as the drawingroom can be used by the Steward. Among the newer lightweight streamliners, many dining cars are twin units- having the dining section in one carbody and the kitchen, pantry and crew dorm in the other.

RPO Chief Clerk

(U. S. Railway Mail Service)

The Chief Clerk commands the RPO car, with the most senior man being in overall charge when more than one working RPO is involved. He is answerable to the District Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service of the U. S. Post Office and, in turn, commands the RPO clerks (who many number as many as a dozen) on board.

These are the only employees on the train who are normally armed: carrying revolvers, shotguns and, in some cases, hand grenades. The crew of the RPO have their own problems and do not normally mingle with other train personnel. As most work a specific route, they are rotated off after a set time and do not need meal or dorm facilities.

For further information about the Railway Post Office, see "The RPO And The REA".

Express Messenger

(Railway Express Agency and/or other Express Agencies)

It is rare to see more than one Express Messenger on a given train unless there are several working Express cars, in which case there would usually be one Messenger on each car. As with the RPO, the most senior man is designated in overall charge, although for practical purposes Express operations are run by committee of the Messengers present (who help each other with bulky parcels or talk things over and agree on a course of action).

As with the RPO, Express Messengers usually stay with their car and do not mingle. Also like the RPO, Messengers may be armed, particularly on cars equipped with valuable shipment safes.

Terminal Personnel

Just as a train has its crew, so are there people on hand at various points en route to supply technical support. A big city terminal is practically a small town in its own right with hundreds of employees on duty. Even a smaller regional station will have a team of technicians and custodial people on hand for routine checkups and minor repairs. These are some of the railroad people one is likely to encounter in the course of a journey.

Red Caps

What the porter is on the road, the Red Cap is in the terminal. Indeed, most Red Caps come from the same social origin - black males - and labor under the same conditions as their mobile counterparts.

Red Caps are generally subcontractors, operating with the blessing of the terminal management but receiving no return other than the passenger's tips. As with porters, they are subject to strict and often arbitrary discipline. Unlike their bretheren, they also face the uncertain weather conditions of a blistering hot or rain soaked or numbing cold station platform. Moreover, as their service to and contact with the passenger is usually brief, tips are nowhere as good as porters enjoy.

Still, in a day prior to Civil Rights legislation, a spot as a Red Cap at a big city terminal is one of the better jobs a black man might hope to hold. Many porters suspended or dismissed by Pullman have wound up decorating the platform.

Commissary

The Commissary Department replenishes critically needed food and potable water, beverage and refrigeration ice, liquor, linen, tablewear and flower settings according to a preset plan or in response to orders dropped at the previous station by the Steward. This involves the diner(s) as well as the club car at the head, the lounge-obs at the rear and any midtrain buffets. These supplies are delivered to trackside by truck, or in the case of the major terminals, by a battery operated rail jittney.

Diners pose a particular problem - drinking water and ice - which involves a certain amount of gymnastics. Most dining cars carry their potable water in overhead tanks which drain down through the cookstove to provide hot water. These overhead tanks have to be filled via roof hatches, along with the ice for the "ice boxes" (a term still used today for a domestic refrigerator - until fairly recently, they really were "iced" boxes).

Icing and watering are normally done at the major terminals where adequate facilities and time can be had. When reprovisioning must be done in the field, it creates major headaches. For the most part, it is not really practical to build an overhead walkway on the terminal platform, so icing and watering must be done by an elevated truck.

This may involve a standard box bed truck with a wood roof: commissary men hand up the filling hose and bagged ice, then man the pumps while one of them on the truck roof handles the hose. In a few instances, this tedious task is expedited by a truck body that raises on a huge scissors jack to bring the cargo bed to cartop level. However, these are less common in these days of cheap labor.

Car Department

Whenever a passenger train stops at a city of any real size, a tense human drama is played out. The passengers embark and debark, baggage is quickly exchanged, RPO and express is transferred. At the same time, and unnoticed by most, the train is swiftly serviced by the Car Department.

These "Car Toads" perform a highly skilled ballet comparable to a marching band. In the fifteen minutes or so that the train is standing still:

 

• Sanitary water for the passenger carrying cars (the under floor water tanks on sleepers, parlors and coaches) is replenished. This is a ticklish process as these systems are pressurized and the air pressure must first be drawn off, the tanks filled, then repressurized from the train line. Careless handling or a broken relief valve can empty the train line, stranding the consist untill repairs can be made and the air pumped up again.

• In winter, the air conditioning technicians check the steam hoses for ice blockage or damage: in summer, they do a quick spot check and lube on the A/C system. On ice A/C equipped trains, trucks loaded with ice are strategically placed on the platform and the huge ice blocks - 3000 pounds to a car - quickly transferred.

• Most critically, the brake systems and generators are given a quick once-over; damaged drive belts replaced (if a few more minutes can be spared) and the batteries quickly topped off.

• Finally, the truck bearings are checked, one by one: the Car Toads using their symbolic tool - a large hammer - to lift the journal lids and check for dry or scorched packing. Even on the later roller bearing equipped cars, each bearing is felt to see if it is overly warm (the early roller bearings have not proven particularly reliable).

In the mean time, the locomotive is either changed out or its working mechanism is given a quick check by the roundhouse forces: one Shopman going around with a wire scrub brush to clear away the grime and check the spot welds on the piston slides while others refill the power lubricators and pack grease into the Alemite fittings with their huge air powered grease guns.

Social Pioneers

As much as some people despise the railroads as crass exploiters of their near monopoly on transportation, the railroad industry has long been a leader in social opportunity and employee benefits. Here are some of the areas where the industry has set the standard others follow:

• Opportunity

Ethnic minorities have benefited from railroading careers. Many immigrants: Chinese (the construction gangs on the Central Pacific) Irish, Germans, Poles began as laborers, craft trades, road crews, and therefrom - eventually - middle management.

 

Women have also found new horizons in the industry. As early as the 1880s, a few women (mostly wives of railroad men) were being hired as telegraphers, station agents and clerks. The Great War - and even moreso the World War - brought about a rapid expansion of women in railroading. So many railroad men had been called into arms that industry - including the railroads - turned to women en mass to fill the vital roles. The performance the wives and daughters of railroaders turned in has done much to break down social barriers in the mid 20th century.

 

• Advancement

The railroad industry is very clannish and inward turning, due in part to its continent wide scope that keeps it from identifying too closely with any one place and partly to the hostility that some segments of society show to the industry. Promotion from within is a universal practice: not only as a matter of technical skill and experience, but also because those being promoted are "one of us".

 

Generally speaking, once you got on the payroll, you could look forward to eventual promotion. In the long run, this has been a disadvantage to the industry since a fellow who makes a perfectly good switchman will often not have the ability to serve as a Yardmaster.

 

For good or ill, the middle management of most roads is recruited from the rank and file. While this is a dandy opportunity for the individual, it often leads to the conservatism and medeocrity which has made it so hard for the industry to respond to change.

 

• Social environment

The railroad industry takes a decidedly paternal role in their workers lives, not only on the job but in their homes. In earlier times, a trainman having family problems or not attending church regularly would be sternly lectured by his superiors and persistant slovenliness, having your pay garnished or being arrested - even if not charged - could get a man demoted or fired.

 

A certain amount of this was the intellectual arrogance of the times. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an unspoken assumption that the laborer was little more than a semi-intelligent beast of burden who had to be guided in their moral values and daily lives lest they become drunkards, consort with loose women or join a Union. This attitude is not unique to the railroads - note for example the various Temperance societies - but as the railroads are the primary employer, they exert the strongest social influence on their people.

 

The most striking example of this is the town of Pullman, Illinois - built at the insistance of George M himself - to house workmen at the Chicago car works. The town is laid out in picture-book perfection, with broad avenues and parks. The residence one is assigned is based on their importance to the company: skilled craftsmen having better homes than laborers. And above it all lays the paternal Pullman organization, assuring that everyone attends church and that loiterers, saloons, barber shops and other riff-raff are excluded.

 

A more typical example is the railroad sponsored YMCA, found in most major cities and available to railroaders and their families. These double as social centers and overnight accommodations for road crews.

 

Being afilliated with the national YMCA, these railroad sponsored YMCAs often serve as a social center of the neighborhood, putting on dances and picnic outings (often by trolley to the beach or amusement park).

 

This has done much to help the industry improve its social relations and public image, and serves as a helpful recruiting ground as well.

 

The industry's paternalism also extends to sports and other organized family activities. In a day when sand lot baseball teams are common, the local railroad team will defend the company honor against all comers such as the brewery, various Unions, local colleges and neighborhood teams.

 

In many cases, standout players from these local teams are recruited to the road's national team who often played in the various regional leagues.

 

• Education

Education plays an important role in the railroad industry. In the early days, European railroads sought men with little or no education on the novel theory that, as their heads were empty, there was no impediment to teaching them the needed skills for their jobs.

 

American and (eventually) Canadian roads preferred men with at least the ability to read, write and do simple arithmetic; as having these skills made their tasks (such as reading a timetable) easier. Another advantage was believed to be that, since educated workmen were in the habit of reasoning thought, they could perform their duties better and more attentively.

 

As the industry matured, it developed a voracious appetite for skilled technicians and craftsmen. Machinists, boiler makers, carpenters, masons, cooks, meat cutters, telegraphers, clerks, shipping agents - the list is endless and the demand relentless. The railroad industry has even pioneered in new technical fields- such as telecommunications and electronics (for the vital telegraph services and for the electropneumatic interlocking signals that were introduced at the turn of the century).

 

To fill this voracious demand, the railroads have long been leaders in job training through Apprenticeship programs. For specific job related skills, training cars fitted out as rolling classrooms teach such skills as air brake, air conditioning and dynamo servicing. These cars are found on practically every roster in the country and their operations covered by Special Movement priorities.

 

• Medical care

Railroading has always been a hazardous calling, especially in the early days of hand brakes and link-and-pin couplers. As such, the railroads have long had a close working relationship with the medical profession.

 

An interesting example of this is the Department Of Sanitation And Surgery, run by an MD, on the general management of Pullman. This office is responsible for sanitation, inspecting food service facilities, first aid training and employee health (it would not do for a porter to go on duty with the Chicken Pox!)

 

An institution among the larger railroads are the hospitals established specifically for their workers and families. These facilities are generally available to the public for the customary fees (railroad people having, in effect, an insurance plan that provides health care free of charge). As these hospitals have to be prepared for the casualties of a major train wreak, they are an early form of trauma treatment center.

 

This close standing relationship with the medical profession has been both caused by and a boon to coping with train wreaks and other disasters. For example, when the "City Of San Francisco" was wreaked at Harney, Nevada in 1939, every doctor and nurse in that thinly settled region was press ganged and more were brought in on a special train from Reno. Few other industries (and oddly enough, most of them transportation) have that kind of moral authority.

 

• Workman's Disability

If all else fails, the railroads provide for a disabled railroader by setting him up with a modest salary as a watchman, crossing guard or switchtender. Railroading is a labor intensive industry and by providing a meager living for their disabled workers, they cover many small but important tasks at a minimal cost. This is, in a crude way, the first widespread form of disability compensation.

 

• Retirement

In the 1930s, when the pressing need for financial stability gave rise to the concept of Social Security, the railroads had enough people on their payroll that they were given their own separate Railroad Retirement Act, which is still in effect today.

 

 

*****

And in the end, the railroad man and his family can find a final resting place in the cemeteries many roads have established for their own.

Go to Part 2: "George"