SPRING 1957 signaled the beginning of what
became known as the Eisenhower reces-
sion. My job disappeared two days before
the birth of our first child. After visiting my
wife and our son in the hospital, I dropped
by the Grand Trunk Western’s tower across
from the passenger depot in Lansing,
Mich., to hang out, which, ultimately, led to
a job with the railroad — and a lesson in
people management.
After a month of training, I bid the only
job up for which I had the “whiskers,” third
trick at Blue Island, Ill., and my wife moved
in with her parents for the present.
The drive to Chicago from southern
Michigan was through a blizzard, and the
temperature was plummeting downward. I
had allowed several hours extra time, but
was almost late, waiting 15 minutes or more
for Indiana Harbor Belt and Baltimore &
Ohio Chicago Terminal traffic, on their
parallel double-tracked main lines, to clear.
There was simply no other way in or out of
the place, and one soon learned to try to get
there early and to expect to be delayed
significantly trying to depart.
Apparently, I was considered fully quali-
fied for whatever and wherever, as I got no
break-in time or even familiarization from
the out-the-door, second-trick operator. At
least there were no interlockings or crossing
gates. And the trains picking up or setting
out cars moved by the yard office at reduced
speed, though there was an active siding
between the door and the main lines, which
meant orders, messages, and waybills had to
be hooped up as the trains rolled by, keeping
an eye out for traffic on the adjacent tracks.
With guidance from the yard clerks and
the yardmaster, I managed to get through
the night quite well, I thought. Some tem-
porary workers had commandeered a bunk
car on a siding next to the nearby Harvey
freight office, so I decided to go over there
to find a place to rest.
Unfortunately, overnight, Chicagoland
had become so bitterly cold that even my
Michigan-acclimated car refused to start, so
I had to summon AAA. Finally, I found the
bunk car, threw some more coal in the
stove, and hit the sack. I woke in the after-
noon, the fire burned out and the bunk car
stone cold. It was depressing, to say the
least. So it went for the next four weeks,
trapped in an unfamiliar town with no-
where to go and nothing to do. Eventually
another night passed, then the weekend,
and there was only one more shift between
me and heading east for two days with my
beloved wife and infant son.
As I fiddled around with this and that,
awaiting the day operator’s arrival, sudden-
ly my face was flush up against that of an
angry man, who described with elaborate
detail and incredible precision just how
dumb and stupid I was, to the obvious
enjoyment of all those gathered in the yard
office. Now, I’ve failed thus far to mention
that the third-trick operator at Blue Island
also served as crew caller, an assignment
about which I had not been advised, let
alone trained.
Apparently, the first night there were no
vacancies on the day-shift crew assign-
ments, or someone else had covered for me,
as the subject never arose.
One thing I did learn that first night,
which happened without fail, was that the
yardmaster and most if not all of the two
or three switch crews on duty would dis-
appear around two o’clock and be gone
several hours, hitting a local bar or two
and, if they thought they had time, the
notorious adult entertainment in Calumet
City. The crews would work hard the first
few hours of the shift, getting the east-
bound pick-ups and other yard work in
order. And upon their return, switch any
set-outs or deliveries which might have
come in, and have everything shipshape
before the day crews arrived.
When the Calumet City entourage
rolled in the second night, rehashing, as
always, their incredible and indescribable(at least in this magazine) adventures, the
yardmaster walked over to the crew board,
turned to me and shouted, “you haven’t
called anyone for these vacancies!”
“What do you mean,” I asked.“Who am
I supposed to call?”
Rather than explain, he just gave me
some names and showed me a list of tele-
phone numbers to call. So, I did. And that’s
the way it went every night. The yardmaster
told me who to call and I did it.
I was to learn that the man in my face
was named Kaminski, and that he was the
local “griever” for the switchman’s union.
In addition to his job with the railroad, he
also carried the responsibility to ensure
that things ran according to the union con-
tract and, if they didn’t, that the switchmen
would be paid the appropriate penalty as
called for in the contract.
The normal human response to such a
confrontation is to attempt to explain,
which I did. But the barrage of words never
slowed. Against that rush I said things like,
“I’ve never been trained or instructed,” “I
only did what the yardmaster told me,” and
“do you have a book or something that tells
how I’m supposed to do this job right?”
Finally, he just stopped and stomped off.
And so it was to go, every weekday
morning I worked thereafter at Blue Island.Kaminski would come in, look at the board,
jot down some notes in a pad, and then
head for me. He would get in my face and
recite, detail after detail, chapter and verse,
my screw-ups and what he consequently
thought about me as a human being. If I
hadn’t made a sufficient number that morn-
ing to maintain his interest, he would sim-
ply return to the errors of previous days and
chew me out about them one more time.
I finally just accepted it as an inevitabili-
ty of the job and waited more or less pa-
tiently for the weekly bid list to come down
from the chief dispatcher’s office. From the
amount of mistakes Kaminski laid at my
doorstep, I must have cost the company
plenty. But no one in management ever said
anything, then or later, or made any effort
to teach me how to get it right, especially
not the night yardmaster. In fact, he thor-
oughly enjoyed the whole scenario, perhaps
because it provided another diversion to
augment the nightly barhopping.
Of course, I soon began to form some
theories of how the call board was supposed
to work, but that didn’t necessarily keep me
out of trouble. Early one morning I checked
the crew list and noted a slot which needed
to be covered. Going to the list of those men
on rest days, I identified the man with the
most seniority and made the required call.
When I stated who I was and who I
wanted to talk with, the sleepy female voice
suddenly turned suspicious, even angry.
“He’s supposed to be down there at work,”
the woman spit out. A glance at the night
mark-up list showed his name plainly writ-
ten in. I assured her that I had made a mis-
take, that her husband was indeed out in the
yard at work, apologized for having awak-
ened her, and went on to the next name.
That evening I faced another upset man
who advised me that saving his marriage
required that I explain my stupidity in
much further detail to his wife. As soon as
he could get her on the phone, I gave it my
best, drawing on Kaminski’s descriptive vo-
cabulary to convince the woman that I was
just an incompetent temporary who had
made a most regrettable, but honest mis-
take. I hope their marriage survived my
bungling, but if he was among the bar-visit-
ing regulars, it wasn’t for long. I was franti-
cally sending in bids on every job on the
bulletin and finally struck pay dirt, being
awarded the night shift at Stillwell, Ind.,
where a Nickel Plate Road branch crossed
the GTW double-track main line.
I said good-bye to Blue Island after four
weeks. It was a real learning experience,
much of which I could have lived quite well
never having known. 2D.R. YODER is retired from a career in
health care and social service in Georgia.
This is his first Trains byline.TrainsMag.com 47SAVING HIS MARRIAGE
REQUIRED THAT I EXPLAIN MY
STUPIDITY IN MUCH FURTHER
DETAIL TO HIS WIFE.