What job did you make your date on?

Question

This goes back to the early 70's, we had the first series of locotrol (radio operated remote control locomotives) and stalled out on the hill when they quit loading. I was the fireman/trainee and walked back (about 30 cars) and put them in manual and we made it over. At Butte we stopped to pick up so I walked back to the headend. About 20 miles later we went in the dirt right ahead of the boosters, a C6 went into the cab right where I had been sitting an hour earlier. I was called the next morning off my turn as engineer on the wrecker, I made my engineer's date and the two guys ahead of me in the class. I dont even remember the dates on my next two railroad jobs, but like s*x you always remember the first time. That was August 19, 1975. Seems a lifetime ago, guess it was.

Answer 1

Oh man, I'm terrible with dates. I used to etch my wife's birthday on my drivers license so I wouldn't forget it. But I never looked at my license. And when I did, it would be expired too. I got my Brakeman's date on BN in April of 1988. And my Conductor's date was two years after that. Don't remember exactly. Then I took the BN buy-out in '93, because I was divorced at that time. I worked locally since I still had two children at home with me. They're great children, but they're on their own now. So I went back to railroading. I signed on with the Minnesota Northern RR as a conductor in 2004. After a while I realized I didn't miss the conductor part too much. So I asked if I could be an Engineer. They said, "sure you can." So that's what I've been doing since September of '06. Not an extensive personal history with railroading here. In fact, kinda boring.

Answer 2

I never did so well with ancient history...

But if memory serves:

Clerk, Sacramento Northern Railroad, Yuba City, Ca.  June 6, 1971

Brakeman, Southern Pacific, Roseville, Ca.  ---  first trip on Colfax Local May 27th, 1972

Fireman, SP ---  June 2nd, 1973   Graveyard Hostler Helper at the Ramp, Roseville, Ca.

Locomotive Engineer --- November 6th, 1976 ---  Midnight hump engine, Roseville, Ca.

RFE --- July 1, 1984 --- Dunsmuir, Ca.

Return to sanity --- Sometime in May, 1987 (Can't be sure, as the duties associated with the above threatened to leave me brain dead as many neural synapses fused in the first months of the assignment.  The good news is, I have regained about 82% of grey-matter function and the drooling has stopped....finally.)

Qualified for RRT Benefits, August 20, 2000.  The last trip was a deadhead from K Falls to Dunsmuir via Renzenberger.  (It's probably just as well.  Had I actually brought a train into town and put my last trip "plan" into action, it is very likely the conductor would have been fired, too.)

And that's that!

PS --  Locotrol?  If I didn't know you were a dinosaur, I'd know you were a dinosaur.  SP tried 'em on the Tehachepi.  They didn't work.  They then brought 'em to our neck of the woods in the Siskiyous.  They performed just as well.  

The joke was, "How many qualifying trips do you get on the remotes?"

Answer, "Three --- a knuckle, a drawbar and a runaway."