WE RAILROADERS WERE ONCE required to be
able to get on and off of moving equipment
at 15 mph to be hired or keep our jobs. This
was true for me on the Seaboard Coast
Line, and most other railroads, I’m sure. A
prior Trains story [see “A Lesson Learned
Well,” “Railroad Reading,” August 2006]
brought to mind one of the most embar-
rassing moments in my 35-year railroad ca-
reer. Today, on many Class I railroads, get-
ting up or down off of moving equipment,
except in an emergency, is verboten. It will
get you immediately fired. No questions
asked, no excuses accepted.
Back in 1977, however, as a rookie train-
man, it was simply the way we did business.
When working the original Auto-Train, we
changed crews on the fly at Rocky Mount,
N.C. The steps on the caboose, which was
converted from what once was an express
car, were straight up and down. They were
hard to mount when the train was standing,
and even more when it was moving. When
the cab started past you, it was necessary to
throw your bag up on the leading platform,
and then board the rear one. The bulky
Motorola “lunch box” radios of the day,
slung over your shoulder, made this even
more difficult and dangerous.
Getting up on the engine was no easier,
although after a few trips, even green brake-
men, like me, had the routine down to a
science. The move was intricately choreo-
graphed. Each crew member stood about 50
yards apart on the platform, and everyone
performed their mount/dismount in
sequence. The relieving engineer got on the
leading end first to take the controls, while
at the same time, the inbound brakeman
and fireman dropped off the rear of the
locomotive, lead foot first, to insure that if
you did trip and fall, you did so away from
the side of train — not into its path. The
fresh brakeman and fireman then took their
turn, just before the engineer, who had been
relieved, got down.
Weather added another variable into the
equation. Snow and rain made the difficult
procedure dangerous, but even in the sum-
mer, as the sun began to appear in the east,
when the temperature and the dew pointGettin’ on up
48 SEPTEMBER 2019
IN MY OWN WORDS
Boarding moving
equipment was a rite of
passage in the 1970s
by Doug Riddell
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