Rich Nice picture. Working with the SP in the late 50's and early 60's I still find it disconcerting to see a UP train on what used to be SP tracks.
Dick, Where did you work out of on the SP? , How'd they treat you? , now since UP brought back the wings ive been chasing them more often If I see a SP unit I have to shoot it the Ex SP units are fading real fast these days with the UP takeover.
Rich. I was a Telegrapher clerk, Wire Chief, Key Punch Operator and Ticket Seller at a little place on the old Shasta Division called Gerber, Calif.from 1959 to 1963. When they installed CTC and the guys started bumping, I got bumped out. I bumped into Anderson and lasted a couple of months and got bumped again. I bumped into Redding and that was my last bump. I only lasted 3 months there. My seniority gave out there. Gerber was the division point joining the Rosevelle division and had a small switching yard and engine house and the trains changed crews there. Before I bid on Gerber, I worked the extra board as Telegrapher clerk and had worked almost every station from Klamath Falls to Alturas to Ashland to Gerber. Quite often I worked a different station every night for weeks at a time. I had a old 41 dodge sedan and times when it was broke down, I hopped freights between stations. Most of the Hog heads got to know me and most were nice about slowing down for me to hop on. A few others were put out for having to slow down for me. One engineer was so put out that when we got to the station where I was to jump off, he didn't slow down enough and when I hit the ground I did a double somersault and ended up about 15 or 20 feet away from the tracks. After that I checked with the Dispatcher to see who the engineer would be on different trains coming through that day and picked the ones that were nice. [ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: Telegrapher ]</p>
