Nicknames, and some fellow employees

One railroader wrote in a rail fan magazine that he carried a notebook to write about happenings on the railroad. It did not take him long to realize that unless you knew the railroad, rules, practices, and personalities, these incidents were largely inaccessible to outsiders. Anyhow, here goes......

Mentioned to my brothers that Susan Sontag had sold her papers to UCLA for some $850,000 but that they were out of luck with me. The best they could do with me was to get a few dollars for my rules cards and annual pass at a railroad show.

Before I retired, I had written down a list of nicknames that I remembered.

I read them to my Mother's roommate in the nursing home. She had wide interests and enjoyed hearing about the railroad, how it worked, and some of the characters that I had worked with.

On paper, the railroad identified employees by their two initials and last name. Some nicknames came from an employees initials.

Some nicknames such as 'Cough Drop', 'Mumbles', and 'Banjo' were known by one and all and sufficient for identification under all conditions.

Others such as 'Seldom' and 'Hammerhead' were only used behind the owners back.

Some others were only used among close friends, or carried down by old heads from long years earlier.

There were innumerable stories carried down through the years. Some were known to the whole Yard, others to smaller circles of employees. A few were known only to those involved in the incident, and revolved around what had actually occurred.

One Conductor always enjoyed telling about being in Conductors Room when a heavy gondola loaded with steel derailed out on the lead. The 5 or 6 fellows in the small room all had the same idea and got wedged in the doorway on their out. At the time the Carmen were proud of their new heavy duty truck with a heavy duty crane. When I came on duty they tried to lift the car, but all it did was to settle the truck down on the blocking. The Car Foreman said: "Give me steam". He would have to use the regular wrecking crane.

E.C. 'Gene' Berney had been a Switchman and Yardmaster. He transferred to Las Vegas. Years later he came into Los Angeles on a run-through crew. He and some of the local fellows were talking about old times. It was not long before a story from his days at the 'C' Yard Tower was remembered, and accompanied with a lot of laughter. When shoving a long cut into the long tracks at 'C' Yard, to save a long walk some of the Switchmen would tie 6 good handbrakes on the cut and then get off to watch the end of the cut in the distance until it got to where it was supposed to be. Sometimes the handbrakes would bog the engine down.  One time an Engineer called Berney over the radio and said that he could not move the cut any farther. Berney said: "Take the slack and shove". The Engineer tried several times, but was unable to move the cut. A new Switchman had lined the wrong switch, and as many cars as it is possible to shove off the end of the track were in the dirt. Berney was properly abashed as the fellows had a good time laughing as they repeated Berney's "Take the slack and shove".

J.K. Westbrook deserves special mention. He was not the smartest man on the railroad, but in an almost charming way. Until he quit smoking, he smoked small cigars until they were about to blister his lip. He spoke in short bursts of phrases. "Get 'em on the rollby", or "Here we go, buddy" as he would say on his way out the door. All you would have to do is repeat one or other of the phrases, and everyone knew who you were talking about. Before he left the office, he would always take a very short sip of water. No matter hot it was. It was as if it was the only water in his canteen that had to last for the whole day.

One of the fellows was a poor driver, always getting traffic tickets. Within a week, he got two tickets from the same policeman. Once there was a more or less worthless fellow that worked for the railroad for a while. He was working the midnite shift as messenger. He drove into the narrow road to 'A' Yard and fell asleep in the middle of the road. Our poor driver was going out to lunch. With his windows obscured by dew, he backed right into him. Years later he got a ticket in a town with only one policeman. When he was working the midnite shift at the 'C' Yard Tower he would check a track, come into the Yard Office at the East End of 'C' Yard for coffee and to shoot the breeze. He always hoped that when he called the Yardmaster, he could walk back without doing anything, but usually there was a track to check. At that point he would slam down the phone and mutter some well chosen words about the injustice of it all. Once we put a 'Don't slam me!' notice on all the phones in the office.

The U.P. had a very good Hospital Association that covered all the employees. It was out of character for a railroad to be so generous. Never did hear how or why it had come to be. When dialysis was new, it took a bit of pressure from the Clerks Union, but a fellow was put on dialysis. (The people that knew him said that his health would have been much better if he had not been such a heavy consumer of alcohol). Years ago the Association paid for everything, the only exception being mental illness and what were then called so delicately: the social diseases. Our poor driver was always bothered about the exception of the social diseases. He said that if there was anything he could not stand, it was a moralizing railroad.

The newspaper once reported that a court had ordered the U.P. to furnish birth control pills to female employees. It reminded me of how the Chief Clerk used to order aspirin from the Dispensary. He said that they probably thought that he was the sickest S.O.B. on the railroad. We kept them in a drawer where they were available around the clock. One time a switchman came in and asked for aspirin. As I opened the drawer, he noticed that they were in an unmarked container. I said, 'Who knows, they might be left over birth control pills from the gal on the afternoon shift'. He shook his head, and walked off with his headache. Did not expect things to go that far.

One of the older fellows was quite a character. He and his son were Mormons, but not good ones. His son was working as a switchman. Not long after I hired out I was working the afternoon shift. He came in looking for his son. He was mad at everyone. He was especially mad at the Crew Dispatchers for handing his son his paycheck after he had had too much to drink. The railroad was busy, and his son had been working 16 hours a day and had a big paycheck. Unfortunately, his son had started out payday in a bar. The father was scouring the area trying to find his son before he spent his entire big paycheck. By the way, does anyone remember the last time they saw someone on TV admitting the reason that they had no money after they had retired was because they had spent it all in a bar when they were young?

He used to come in at least 30 minutes early, get a cup of coffee, and walk around talking to himself. It sometimes caused confusion when a new employee was around. The new employee would politely answer him as he walked by talking to himself, mystifying both of them until it got straightened out.

One time he came in about 7:30 in the evening, got his cup of coffee and commenced his usual routine of walking around talking to himself. Finally one of the fellows asked him what he was doing there in the evening. It turned out that he had been drinking and had fallen asleep on the couch. He woke up and saw it was time to go to work, not noticing that it was evening instead of morning. He asked the fellows not to say anything, but it was too juicy a story to keep quiet.

He was a rabid Democrat. He had been laid off during the Depression. One of the older fellows said that he had been troublesome in his early years, getting into fights and such. He said that if the railroad had really wanted to, they might have found somewhere to put him during the Depression, but with his track record made no attempt to do so.

One morning during the political season we were changing shifts. He hated Nixon. As he was walking by with his cup of coffee and talking to himself, I mentioned something about Nixon. Griff, an older fellow relieving me got really mad at me, grumbling "Bleepedly bleep Crowner, now we are going to have to hear about Nixon ALL day long. Bleepedly bleep".

The fluorescent lights used to burn out now and then.You could smell it for an hour or two, then a hiss and some smoke as it burned out. Nothing more ever happened. It happened one afternoon when Hank was the Chief Clerk. Victor Beck was agitating him, saying 'Call the Fire Dept.' Hank would reply 'Who do I call?' They went back and forth that way 7 or 8 times before Beck was finished with the fun.

A woman from Kansas City had worked for the U.P. there. When she was breaking up with her husband she put her daughters and some clothes but no pots or pans or anything else into the car and came to California. It is all hazy, from sometime around 1965. I think that she was living in a motel when she hired out with the U.P. here. She then moved in for a while with one of the other women in the Yard Office. I was the Nite Asst. Chief Clerk. While not on the bid sheet, the coffee pot came with the job. She was quite attractive. The first night she worked, the coffee pot was empty in 2 hours as all the crews were coming in to get a cup of coffee and to see the new girl. That was the fastest the coffee pot had ever emptied.

Later she was working on the keypunch machines with an easy going fellow named Jack. We were all quietly working one night when Jack suddenly stood up and with a very loud and quite agitated voice said 'I am not an old grouch!' Never did hear what she said that had set him off.

Jack was good at keeping secrets. My specialty in my early years on the railroad was to chop up rubber bands and put them in pipe tobacco. The fellows soon learned to keep their tobacco in their pocket. One time Jack said that I had never put anything into Eddie Brien's tobacco. I said that Eddie did not have much of a sense of humor, and besides that I had to work with him. Jack said that he would not say anything. I somehow believed him, and loaded Eddie's tobacco with rubber bands. About 2 weeks later all three of us happened to be on the same shift. Jack, with perfect nonchalance and absolute innocence said, 'Eddie, haven't seen your pipe lately.' My heart about stopped. Eddie said that the pipe had not tasted very good lately. Then I had a hard time to keep from laughing. Jack never said a word about me. Fortunately nothing more ever came of it.

One summer a college kid was working vacations. I put rubber bands in his tobacco. It smelled awful as he left to go home. It smelled even worse that night when he came in for the next shift. I finally told him what was going on in order to end the assault on our noses. He then said 'So that is what happened'. He went to to say that when he had stopped for gas the attendant (that was when gas stations had attendants) had smelled something burning, but they were unable to find anything wrong with his car. I was laughing so hard I had to go outside for a while.

Another time someone had forgotten some tobacco on the window sill. I did my usual with it. About two weeks later one of the fellows put it into his pocket. Later he innocently gave it to a switchman at 'C' Yard, and had to do some fast talking to the switchman and bystanders when the fellow tried to smoke it.

The Yard Office never did ventilate very well, and at times the smoke would hang heavy. One of the fellows was not too smart, a former smoker to boot, and got a brilliant idea. Whenever the smoke got too heavy, he would light some incense. That upset all the smokers.  It ruffled a lot of feathers and went up and down the line to both management and union. The guy was also a fanatic on cleanliness. He walked around and opened files and drawers with a paper towel. He scrubbed his typewriter and phone so they were always stained white with soap residue. His job was a daylite only job, so on the night shift we would leave flies on his desk. It did not really matter to him, he would have scrubbed the area anyhow. Once we got a big piece of plastic out of  a car on the wash track and wrapped his desk. With some ribbons and a 'Sanitized for your protection' notice from a motel, the package was ready for him in the morning. He had enough of a sense of humor to partly enjoy the attention. He was known as 'Mr. Clean' from the soap of the same name.  

With the poor air conditioning, and to try to keep the peace, the railroad eventually put a plastic cover with a lock over the thermostat. I would take a match or two and heat the plastic to start the air conditioning running for a while. Some of the other fellows used many more matches and were starting to melt the plastic.

Getting back to Jack, and the ultimate secret. He was easy going, and his practice was to take a month off to go home to Canada for vacation. One year the railroad refused his application for a leave. So he resigned, took his usual vacation in Canada, and then came back and hired out again. All he lost was his seniority. Which for him was of little concern.

He had never talked about a family or women. As far as anyone knew, he was a bachelor. One day a woman called the Chief Clerk on the daylite shift and said that she was Jack's wife, and that Jack had a heart attack, died, and would not be coming to work anymore. The Chief Clerk thought someone was trying to pull some sort of stunt, and argued with her. She stood her ground, and finally convinced him. Then he had to apologize. There was a teen aged boy and girl also. The fellows that went to the funeral said that the boy walked in the same manner that Jack did. Never did hear anything more about his family. I had know him for 20 years by then, and cannot imagine what his situation was. Afterwards one of the women said that his lunch was wrapped more neatly that a man would have wrapped it, but that was only in hindsight

There used to be a job on the Alameda Team Track at 8th and Alameda on the night shift. He worked by himself. One of his duties was to come to the Yard Office and pick up all the paperwork and deliver it to the Freight House adjacent to the Alameda Team. This clerk had a reputation. Soon after I hired out, he did not show up for the paperwork. G.E. 'Buck' Buchanan, the Chief Clerk that night, called around to some of his friends. No one knew where he was, other than he was supposed to be at work. Without saying anything to anyone 'Buck' pulled the phone book out of the drawer, and called the jails around Los Angeles asking if they had our fellow employee. Don't remember why he was not at work, but this preacher's kid learned immediately that he was in the big leagues. Later this fellow was living with two women in the same house. In later years he was working at the L.A. Junction.  He and the two women were all large people. One of the fellows that worked with him said that when the lunch truck saw him and his two women coming out the door, the truck was going to make a profit. When the U.P. personnel finally were phased out at the L.A. Junction, he relieved me at "A' Yard.  I only saw one of the women. When 'A' Yard was phased out, I went to the Yard Office, and he went to the Freight House. When his job later came up for bid, I asked about him, and he had cancer. I went to the hospital to visit him. He was too far gone by then to carry on a conversation. One of his relatives had come to visit him. She said that they knew something was wrong when he quit eating after Thanksgiving. Truer words were never said. He was dead by Christmas. I went to his funeral, and really would like to have known who all the people were that attended.

When I hired out there was a fellow employee, Charles Garabedian, who was an artist. He was working for the railroad and also a teaching assistant at UCLA. He left the railroad to teach at UCLA. One time when Charlie was at the L.A.J. he got into an argument with the Agent, a U.P. employee named G.L. Pulliam. Pulliam was reputed to be well over 65, and had a 1910 or so seniority date. Nothing happened for a day. Then the Agent ran him off the L.A.J. and back to the U.P. Yard Office. One of the fellows joked that with Charlie's education the Agent had to go home and get his dictionary to see what Charlie had called him. My brother the professor once saw a Garabedian painting in the art museum downtown. Rather strange that any culture could come to my brother through me. Garabedian had a fine sense of humor and a light hearted view of life. He was not a tormented personality. He had an old Ford. Someone had torched off the top The road that came into the yard had a sharp turn as it climbed over a track, and then a sharp turn the other way. One day he somehow rolled the car. One of the fellows later noted that it took several days before Charlie realized that he could have been killed. That was in the days before seat belts.

I once noticed Garabedian's name in the Art section of the L.A. Times. I wrote him a short note mentioning that I had worked with him 40 years earlier. He invited me to his studio. Before visiting him it took only a few hours to dredge up from my memory at least 50 names of fellow employees that we had worked with 40 years earlier. There were a lot of people around the railroad in those days.

When the railroad abolished the telegraph operator job there were many rumors about who would be put in the former telegraph room. One rumor was that the IBM machines would go in there since they were so noisy. One of the fellows that worked the IBM machines was perpetually worried. This rumor really bothered him, he did not want to be in the back room alone with a woman. It took me some time to figure out the reason for his concern. Thinking it over, when there was a problem, it was the fellow that got the boot. The woman stayed on.

Once there was a fellow from Egypt working as a clerk. There were a lot of stories about him. One Christmas he was working at the Trailer Dock.When the Supervisor from the Trailer Dock happened to come to the Yard Office, he brought a Christmas Card from the Egyptian to the Supervisor in the Yard Office. As he handed the card to the Supervisor he said, "Please don't open it until I am gone." That was when people in the Middle East were mailing letter bombs.

The ATSF ran the Egyptian out of Hobart Tower. He wanted to argue rather than run trains.

One of the few times I raised my voice was at the Egyptian. It was not a judgment call. I explained several times how the rules applied to the situation. Finally I raised my voice and told him what we were going to do.

A few times he made Egyptian coffee. It was in a small cup and exceedingly bitter. If or when you finished the coffee, he would read your fortune from the mush at the bottom of the cup. After examining the mush at the bottom of Willie's cup, in his thick Egyptian accent he told Willie that his past was lousy, and that his future was lousy too. It left Willie standing there with his mouth open, but no sound coming out.

The last we ever heard of the Egyptian were several articles in the L.A. Times. He had an illegal food cart in front of the building that the California Supreme Court used when they were in Los Angeles. He was attempting to get the Supreme Court Judges to represent him in his troubles with the Health Dept.

One fellow liked to act dumb. A few of the fellows sometimes called him 'Dumb U...........' He was not necessarily as dumb as he liked to act. His eyes sometimes bounced in a strange manner. One afternoon he worked his regular shift, and then was going to work the next shift as overtime. Around 2 or 3AM he went out for lunch. However he fell asleep before he had gone 300 feet.  He hit a pole that carried the steam line across the yard.  He hit it fair and square, right on the hood ornament. He cut his scalp on the windshield. It was not really funny, but I could not help smiling at the thought of some unfortunate doctor trying to examine 'Dumb U........' for a head injury at 2 or 3AM in the morning.

Not being too smart could have its advantages. Once there were problems at the Harbor. Two fellows were fired, one ending up in court along with a railroad customer. One of the other employees was unscathed. The word on the grapevine was that whatever had been going on, this employee would not have been aware of it.

One classic story was when one of the crew bus drivers got together with a conductor, neither of which were too smart. The event could have only happened between those two. I think that Jess Fitch was the brakeman on the job who told me the story later. When the conductor came out to the bus, the driver asked the conductor where he wanted to go. The conductor asked the bus driver where he wanted to go. They went back and forth until the conductor said to leave the yard and get some food. So away they went. The carmen plus management were waiting out at the train, and management wanted the train out of town right away. None of the crew had their radios turned on. No one could get in touch with the crew, or knew where they had gone. They left the yard office and disappeared from the face of the earth as far as the railroad was concerned. Besides having left the yard, it took them a long time to get served. By the time they got back to the yard the situation was so ridiculous that it was laughable.

Another classic that I could enjoy since I was not responsible or involved was a crew that was supposed to go to the west end of "A" Yard, take two lite units to the Harbor, and come back with a train. Knowing the people involved only added to the enjoyment. The units were nowhere to be found. What should have been a routine move took two or three hours and a lot of talking on the radio before the crew was able to find their power and get by me at Hobart Tower to leave town. Rather than bringing the Harbor power to the west end of the yard, the Hostlers had been confused and left it to deadhead east behind the power on an eastbound train. The units could not be seen until someone walked back along the track. Then the Hostlers had to be found to get the units off the train and give them to the outbound Harbor crew.

One night W.... twisted his ankle. Raleigh Jones was the messenger and took him to the hospital. It turned out to be quite a story. They, unfortunately, went to the wrong door. A nurse told them where the correct door was, and offered a wheelchair. W..... said that he was not sick, it was his ankle that hurt. When they got to the doctor asking questions on the forms, it got no better.  W...... did not see any connection between being a Methodist, similar questions and his hurting ankle. The doctor took his blood pressure, and said that it was high, he really should have something done about it. At that point, W..... said that if he could have walked, he would have walked out. After treating him, the doctor gave W..... some pain pills. When he got back to work several weeks later, W..... said that he had thrown the pills away. He said that he would never take any pills from a doctor like that.

Raleigh Jones was a waiter off the dining cars. He came to the Yard Office when Amtrak took over. From the manner Raleigh told the story of the encounter, he had heard us talking about W....., but had not taken us seriously. He was a believer now.

W..... had trouble keeping a telephone. One night he was eligible for overtime, but no telephone. Some four hours later W.... called. However, everything had been taken care of earlier. One of the other employees on the shift, without telling any else had gotten involved. She had sent W..... a telegram. She always worked the afternoon shift. Once when I was working with her she was on the phone a long time telling her son what to cook and how to cook it for supper. A while later he called, and then she was telling him how to get the burned mess out of the pan. Her dog died and she had it buried at a pet cemetery. It broke her heart when they charged her $5 or $10 extra to open the casket for a last look at the dog. She stayed two or three hours after the end of a shift writing a letter to the cemetery. She was another one that was often late. Her record as far as I know was 2 hours late one Christmas Eve. There was not much work on the holiday, so I was able to send her home 2 hours later.

In 44 years I had known three generations of two families, and more families with two generations on the railroad. One employee seemed surprised that I had known his father. I attempted to be at my discrete and diplomatic best, and did not tell him how well I knew his father. The father had a distinct problem with Rule G on or off the railroad. A fellow horse player sometimes called him by the name of the wrong horse that he had bet on. Two horses had similar names, and with some drinks under his belt he put his money on the wrong one. The horse he intended to bet on won the race. One time I had to clean up the paperwork mess he made of his train. From what he said over the radio as his train arrived, I knew we were going to have a problem when the paperwork got to us.

One set of employees always fascinated me. They were the three biggest liars on the railroad. Everyone acquainted with them knew them to be tellers of tall tales, many of said tall tales being told for no reason whatsoever. Since everyone knew the liars job responsibilities and what they were authorized to do, they could more or less trusted to do their job. Anything else was not to be believed unless corroborated by some other source.

War stories were among their favorite flights of fancy. Never having been in the Armed Forces, even I could soon tell that all was not well with either their memories of imaginations. I was never able to understand what these three got from always telling tall tales. Even more perplexing was their lack of embarrassment when their lies were exposed.

The best example was a man of distinguished appearance, looking you straight in the eye, and speaking with the utmost sincerity. And unless you had some sort of independent proof you were foolish to believe a word of it! A young and hard charging management trainee was in Los Angeles to get experience out in the field. When talk turned to injuries the employee said that his arm had been torn off in an accident and had been sewed back on. Hard charging management trainee said that he had heard about the stories. So he asked to see the arm. The sleeve was rolled up. Hard charging management trainee said "There is no scar there!" The reply was, "Those surgeons were real experts". Another of his stories was that a pilot on a 747 had a heart attack and died. The copilot was so upset that the control tower had to call him in to talk the copilot down. He once talked about living next to a radio personality. That eventually turned out to be true. He used to talk about a video store. A fellow employee had installed carpet there, so there was some element of truth there.

The second was somewhat derisively called 'Captain' or 'Commander' because of all his war stories.

The third was not as good a liar, but had a most vivid imagination.

One employee was well known for the bunch of nudist magazines that he always carried. In later years he dressed up. One time an IBM customer engineer saw him walking in dressed up and with his brief case. The customer engineer thought he was a Supervisor and walked over to him, just as he was dragging out his magazines. It was not what the customer engineer expected to see. It set him back a step or two. This employee always said that his children had a good sex education. One evening when I was on duty, he came in to pick up his paycheck. He had his family along. One of the fellows kept a close eye on any women in the vicinity. The daughter came over to him and invited him home for more than a beer. The fellow politely declined. He wanted nothing whatsoever to do with THAT family. For anyone else, your life might have been in danger if you were between him and the door.

Our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been struggling with the gay issue. There were several meetings held on the issue. At one of them a Pastor said that since we are ill at ease talking about sex in our family, the same holds true in our Church family. He said it very nicely. If I had been listening more closely, I might have heard a bit of 'If you were only as sophisticated as we are, this would not be such a problem'.

It was not until that evening that the thought of my fellow employee's daughter with a good sex education and her kind offer popped into my head. The memory kept me amused for several days. I still keep in touch with the fellow that declined the kind offer. So I  called him and mentioned the meeting I had attended and the memory our fellow employee's daughter. We laughed about a 40 year old incident all over again. I have wracked my brain since, but cannot remember whether I overheard the conversation, believed my fellow employee, or both. The usual rule around the railroad is not to believe anything you hear, and not too much of what you see.

I always brought my lunch along. I seldom went out to eat unless I was working 16 hours. Around 1955 East L.A. was a much more multicultural area than now. The afternoon PFE clerk often went out to get various ethnic foods. When he returned with pizza Tom Finley and I would share a pepperoni and onion pizza. Fifty years later I still think about Tom whenever I have pepperoni and onion pizza. Tom always answered the phone, 'Tom talking' '. Tom also had a unique scratchy lightning bolt style of penmanship. The railroad did change my diet a bit, George Raman was able to convince me that a green burrito is a better burrito than a red burrito.

I worked with J.D. Terry for a while when I hired out. He was finishing up his college degree in business. I got into the habit of reading his Wall Street Journal. When he left for graduate school and greater things I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and have maintained the subscription ever since. While the U.P. may not know it, and has rules about using reading matter not concerned with my duties while on duty, I owe a considerable amount of my education to the railroad.

One fellow employee heard me mention chocolate malts. He said that I should buy a mixer and make my own. I said that he was trying to get me to drinking chocolate malts all the time, clogging my arteries with cholesterol, and dying ahead of my time so that he could get my seniority (job). He always replied that he did not want my seniority, only my sick days. Later, he gave me a mixer for Christmas. For the last 15 or so years I have had one big chocolate malt a week. At first it was on my rest day of Wednesday when I had survived another week on the railroad. After retirement, my big chocolate malt was moved to Sunday afternoon.

Whenever the railroad changed computer systems, classes were held to learn the  new system. One time the keyboards were in one room, and the printers in another. One employee was highly excitable, and often gave the impression that he was in over his head. He was having problems learning the new system. Two brothers knew about computers. They typed up a bogus award with congratulatory language awarding him the million error award. I happened to be in the room when he got it off the printer. He had a fit. I thought it was hilarious. He had a fit all over again. To his dying day, he will think that I did it. The next day I happened to be in the printer room when he walked in. I said that I had better get out of there before anything worse happened. He had a fit all over again. After I left the fellows said that he had asked them what I had said. For many years one of the brothers called me 'The Agitator' and reminded me of the incident when he happened to see me.

A brakeman, while laying over in Yermo was out in the desert with his high powered pistol. He accidentally shot himself in the leg. Due to an uncontrollable infection his leg was later amputated. He became a Yardmaster. One night he was a Rover Yardmaster in the 'Weeds' when he came across a box of kittens someone had left along the street. He picked them up and brought them into the shanty at 'A' Yard. El Madole, another Yardmaster had a big purebred Doberman which he sometimes brought to the railroad. When the Rover brought the kittens into the the 'A' Yard shanty, the big Doberman never took her eyes off the squirming kittens. Beverly Murillo, Engineer, walked into the office and immediately exclaimed how cute the kittens were, and asked what he was going to do with them. He was sitting in the low chair, and he said that he was going to feed them to the dog. He held one of them out a couple of inches, and the dog went right for the kitten. He grabbed the kitten back to his chest as fast as he could, and ended up looking at the unhappy Doberman nose to nose. Beverly then said, 'If you feed those kittens to the dog, I will put a termite in your leg!'  Not a bad retort under the circumstances. The dog would race around the yard like a deer. When Madole came on duty, he would go into the bathroom, flush the toilet, and give the dog a drink. Benny Lucero, a Carman, would often be sitting in the low chair. When the big dog came dripping out of the bathroom, one or more of us would tell the dog to give Benny a big wet kiss. Benny would react with mock horror. Fortunately for Benny that command was not in the dog's vocabulary. Benny was an Indian from the Laguna Pueblo. He always took it in good humor when the fellows walked in dripping from the rain and accused him of doing the 'Rain Dance'.

One Switchman raised Dobermans. The 4th Street shanty was in a bad neighborhood. During a strike, the story was that he brought along one or more of his Dobermans to help man the picket line.  

Harry Barris was the daylite Yardmaster at 'A' Yard when I hired out. He was close to retiring. He was nervous and excitable. One of the stories about him was that he was on the phone when something happened to the cars being switched out on the lead. He is reported to have run out the door, tearing the telephone off the wall. Les Rice said that when he was a switchman after the 2nd World War, he was on a job delivering an interchange cut to the S.P. at Taylor Yard. He was in the S.P. shanty when Harry Barris called the S.P. Yardmaster wanting his crew sent back to the U.P. The S.P. Yardmaster told Les that he had had enough of Harry Barris. So he told Les to put his engine on a stub track, blocked the track with S.P. locomotives, and told Les to take his crew to the Bar across San Fernando Road and come back in about six hours. Les did as he was told, but he didn't think that Harry ever got the idea.

After working at Hobart Tower, the story about Harry Barris tearing the phone off the wall is not quite so funny any more.

When I was still new and did not know much about what to do, I got one of the worst tirades of my time on the railroad. The Conductor from the Pasadena Local put his bills down on the desk. Not knowing any better, I sent them to the Yard Office. When he found out what I had done, Harry Barris chewed me out, and sketched out all sorts of scenarios about how the bills could get lost in the tube, delayed in the Tower, get lost in the Yard Office, and how the railroad would grind to a halt and the world stop turning if a little 5 or 6 car Pasadena Local was not switched immediately. As it happened, the Pasadena Local seldom if ever had anything of any importance, and was informally switched at 'A" Yard.

Another Yardmaster was a strange combination. He was unfailingly polite, but a nervous wreck. He smoked cigarettes and drank coffee all night long. Mike Alexoff said that whenever he worked with him he wondered if that would be the night they had to carry the Yardmaster out. One of the other switchmen, Gene Coccozza wrote a clever spoof of the Crew Dispatchers bid sheets when he was going on vacation. He said that one of the benefits of the job was listening to all the tall tales from one Yardmaster, and watching another Yardmaster fall apart.

One night when I came on duty and walked into the 'A' Yard shanty the floor seemed to be wet. The Foreman off the S.P. interchange cut was shaking his head. At the time the shanty was an old boxcar up on blocks. It was nicely built when new, but had deteriorated over the years of wear and tear and was on its way out. After Pete the afternoon clerk left, the Foreman shook his head some more. He said that Pete had dragged the hose in and hosed the shanty down. There was enough wiring in the shanty to make the practice questionable, but Pete got away with it.

Many years ago a clerk at A Yard got the bright idea of washing the windows. Since the shanty sat high off the ground, he got something to stand on. Unfortunately, he fell off whatever he was standing on. He broke bones in both arms. Everything else had been going wrong also, and for a week or more. W.K. 'Brad' Bradford was moaning and groaning when he came on duty in the morning, and had a long laundry list of problems. And, he said, to top it all off he had a clerk that could not wipe his own ass.

A  brakemen was very friendly and always said a cheerful good morning when he came on duty and got his cup of coffee. When he made his first trip as a conductor he never even looked at me as he came in to get his cup of coffee. With railroad luck, the train ahead of him was going straight to Yermo, he had pickups all the way. The next time I saw his brakeman I asked her about the trip. She said that it had been interesting. She had done all the talking on the radio, both conductor and engineer having strong accents difficult to understand on the radio.

There were the usual men who had trouble with wine, women, and song. One was rumored to be on his way to Canada when he resigned. Another was rumored to be hanging around horse racing in the Midwest after he resigned. His brother worked for the railroad, and for a number of years would not admit to knowing where his brother was. I have no idea whether he actually knew or not. Another man really knew railroading and was quite personable. With more than a little justification, he always boasted about how he streamlined whatever job he was working. Long after he resigned he patronized the bar in a restaurant that a Switchman ran on the side. The Switchman said that one day the ex-employee collapsed off the barstool. They could not find a pulse, called the rescue squad, and figured that was the last they would see of him. Several days later he came walking in the door proclaiming that 'You can't get rid of Ol' Dad (as he called himself) that easy!' Sounds just like him. No one ever heard of him after that. Most of the people that had worked with him would like to have known whatever became of him.

I knew a young Switchman whose father was also a Switchman. One morning when we were changing shifts, the son stopped to say hello. He mentioned that he had been in an automobile accident. While he was unhurt, the car was totaled. He took half the insurance money and bought an old Volkswagen. The other half he took to Las Vegas. "Sounds just like his father", said Griff as he relieved me.

One fellow Clerk lived in Riverside. Late one night when there were only vineyards east of Ontario, he got a traffic ticket for going 100 mph. He called the Courthouse to find out how much the fine might be. They told him to bring his toothbrush. As far as the railroad was concerned, the stated reason for laying off a weekend or two was to go fishing. However, he was a long way from any body of water.

I got a traffic ticket one night on the way to work. It was a judgment call, and I had not been a danger to anyone. The Sheriff stopped me at the entrance to the Yard. It was not possible to remain anonymous in my bright red Austin Healey as my fellow employees were arriving or leaving the Yard. It took a while to live it down. Years later when being examined for jury duty the Judge asked if I had contested the ticket. I replied no, it made up for the times I may have deserved a ticket, the operative word being 'may'.

When the railroad began moving the clerks jobs out of Los Angeles, one of the fellows jumped at the chance. The people that knew him said there were two reasons. The first was that for a keg or two of beer for his friends he could borrow a truck, get it loaded, and put the $10,000 moving allowance into his pocket. The other reason was that he could get away from his two ex-wives.

There was a cute young gal I called 'Gorgeous'. She provoked one of the few times in my life when I knew the right thing to say. When I got my first pair of glasses she mentioned them when I walked in. In a flash of inspiration, and quite a bit of exaggeration, I told her that I had not been able to see her very well for a long time. So I told her that I would take a good look at her with my new glasses, looked her up and down, and told her that she was still 'Gorgeous'. She said thank you almost like she meant it, and one of the women sitting nearby muttered half under her breath, 'O how nice'.

Mention above of Hank being layed off during the Depression reminded me of Joe McLaughlin. He was about to retire when I hired out on the railroad. Joe once said that he had 13 years on the railroad when he was layed off during the Depression. Figuring that conditions would never get any worse, I made a mental note and felt better after I had passed the milestone of completing 13 years on the railroad. One of the other old timers said that he  made a lot of money by working overtime during the Depression. The railroad not hiring anyone without an overwhelming reason. By the time I was ready to retire business was very good. However, the changing nature of the railroad, along with computers, fax machines, and 800 numbers left very few Clerks jobs around the yard, or in Los Angeles for that matter.

As for myself, I never did pick up a universal nickname. When I hired out, I worked for a month or two with a fellow who was called 'Shafty' because of his penchant for avoiding work. He spent about as much energy avoiding work as he would have just doing it. A few of the fellows called me 'Shafty Jr'. After the real 'Shafty' quit, I attained my majority. One or two of the older fellows then called me 'Shafty'. One time a fellow was trying to agitate me, and called me 'Clarence'. One of the Yardmasters happened to hear it, and he called me 'Clarence' for years, thinking that it was my real name. One of the women used to call me 'Mr.' Crowner. One of the conductors always called me 'Slim'. 'Jaws' sometimes called me 'Jelly Belly' as I sat there laughing. Apart from employees getting killed, injured, or maimed now and then, there were some hilarious things that happened around the railroad. 'Jaws' was ill equipped to notice the humorous side of life. His normal reaction to anything was to get mad. Don't know what I might have been called behind my back. Besides his temper, 'Jaws' was a bit chubby, not bad, but he would never admit it. That was too much for me. I told him that we should get on a teeter-totter, and we would see who was chubby or not. I had known him long enough to get away with it, as long as I did not use it more than a few times a year. One time a woman that had not been on the nite shift much happened to hear me call him 'Teeter-Totter', and wondered what that was about. Just telling her the story was enough to raise his blood pressure, with the color rising on his neck. She then said, "Spend a lot of time up in the air, don't you Crowner".

One of the Mexican fellows had always called the longtime employees 'old goats'. Many years later, he was himself an 'old goat'. I once asked a different Mexican what the Spanish words were for 'old goat'. He gave me the words and worked on my pronunciation. Several months later an Anglo fellow asked me if I knew what I was calling my fellow employee. "Sure, 'old goat'", I said. "Oh no you're not, you are calling him an 'old pimp'", came the answer. That ended my gullible, too trusting, and unsupervised excursion into the Spanish language.

I first met Gary Galda when he hired out in the Yard Office around 1962. He later went to the Trailer Dock. I saw him now and then around the railroad, also at Union meetings. He retired early as a result of severe health problems. I kept in touch with him until he died late in 2008. My aunt died about the same time. It is a bit too risqué for this website, but the demeanor and manner of speaking of one of my aunt's therapists precipitated some memories surrounding a fellow railroad employee of bygone years, and his dreams of women. If Gary were still alive, we both would have had a long and hearty laugh over these shared memories of our fellow employee.

A recent experience that immediately took me back to the railroad occurred at an office supply store, which shall remain unnamed. The employee was able to process my order, but his demeanor and manner of speaking strongly reminded me of one or two of the dummies that I had worked with on the railroad. I felt right at home. I  took the trouble to mention the incident to my brothers the next time I sent them an email.

To the longer term employees, if not known as a preacher's kid, I was at least known as being religious.

During their tour of duty the West Industry/Zone 9 job went by a company that handled scrap paper. There were large sheets of paper from printing presses blowing around. I was often out checking the 'Runarounds' when they stopped at the shanty to drop off their paperwork on the way home. When I got back to the shanty, Pete had sometimes covered my desk with large sheets of paper from the printing press that were intended for porno magazines. When I threw it all in the trash, the next crew that came by would be digging in the trash. I never said anything. I accepted Pete's contribution in the same light hearted way in which he had left it.

Charlie Coulter, the old telegraph operator on the daylite shift called anyone who he did not know 'Dick'. He never used his false teeth unless his wife wanted him to take her somewhere. From his teeth or lack thereof, you could tell what he was doing after going home.

One of the other old telegraph operators was John Colbert. He mentioned once that he had been a teenage hobo during WW1. The Sheriff in Cobre, NV saw him and told him that if he was seen again he was going into the Army. So he kept out of sight and got of town as soon as possible. John was a personally messy person. The telegraph office had a long shelf. When he came in he would spread out his jacket, lunch, and newspaper. Once he was going to save money by rolling his own cigarettes. That added tobacco all over the place.  He always told me not to trust my retirement to any else. He always said to invest in the stock market. His only warning was to not invest in United Fruit, their day was over. He must have gotten his fingers burned in that stock.

The telegraphers used double sided carbon paper and a stylus when they copied a bunch of train orders. The double sided carbon paper was placed between every second sheet in the pad of thin train order paper. It printed on the bottom of the first sheet, and the top of the next on down through the pad.

To keep in practice, some of the old operators used to do the the CX report, if I remember the name correctly, using Morse. The report was a form on a big piece of paper, so doing the report hands free was better than dragging a phone cord around. Otherwise all business was done on the Teletype. One time an old clerk had to take a message on the telegraph for a new operator that had forgotten what little Morse he had learned.

Years ago a fellow church member worked for the S.P.  He had an interesting story. He was born in Germany and went through his apprenticeship there and became a journeyman machinist. He was drafted into the German Army in the 1st World War on the Eastern Front. He did not want any more of that. He wanted to go to the U.S.  Being German and with quotas the closest he could get was Cuba. He got a job on the waterfront in Cuba. One day everyone was sent home without pay. He asked the boss why they were sent home. The boss said that a conveyor belt had failed and there was no one to repair it. He replied that he was a journeyman machinist and had seen a lathe in one of the waterfront buildings. He could make a new part. He said that from that day to the day he left Cuba he always had a job. When he eventually got to the U.S. he got a job at the S.P. roundhouse in Los Angeles. He said that he was still a journeyman machinist but did not know anything about automobiles. So he took night classes in Auto Mechanics. He always said that working on steam engines was either heavy, dirty, or both. Physically, he was a small fellow. When the S.P. started buying diesels, he applied for and was accepted in the diesel shop, noting his auto mechanics courses. He worked in the diesel shops until he retired, a better place to work than the roundhouse. He always said that he told his children and grandchildren to get all the education they could, his had served him well. Although I never heard it, his wife was Hungarian and had an even more interesting story.