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The Original Old Rails' Tales: Anecdotes, Stories, & Memoirs on the Road & in the Yard (New Abridged Family Edition)

by edited by Alan Allen

380 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0008; ISBN 1-4120-5113-4; US$29.95, C$37.00, EUR24.05, £16.67

True stories by six generations of steam engine rails, reviewed by New York Times as one of the best books of the year. Stories from Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, Santa Fe and Amtrak. Stories by the first women engineers in California.

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About the Book      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book Reviewed by the New York Times (12/22/91) as:"a word of praise for Old Rails' Tales, volume one of an up-to-the-minute American railroad oral history edited by Alan Allen...straight-forward, substantial and well-researched...the cream of the crop [of new railroad books]...successfully breaks away from the old self-conscious, hangdog, and almost occultist 'railroadiana' conventions of so many postwar books about train[s]...in which the tone was either wistful or aggrieved, and railroads were presented as part of a time...sealed off from modern life...In touch with railroading! Bold! And bouyant! Energetic! Compassionate! Extraordinary!" This oral journalism/oral history book is written in a style blended of classical American anecdotist James Thurber and classical Russian author Anton Chekhov, providing matter-of-fact reporting of the most emotional moments of the on-the-job lives of four generations of American 'rails' (a self-titled term used by those who work running the railroads).

The editor says of the book: You're in the cab with the hoghead when all you've got is your know-how, your pride and your pocket watch. You'll be hookin' her up, droppin' her down, makin' her work harder or easier. You'll learn how to respect the air on long trains, to judge pop (retainers) by the seat of your pants, to manage slack and bridge the air to let the train handle itself with leakage instead of using a service application of the brakes; you'll break a train in two and learn to read a knuckle to see if it was your fault. Then you'll highball and lean your head out the window and watch those drivers roll. You'll hear and run on broken rails, cross your fingers at tankers blocking crossings suddenly bound for glory. You'll run in the fog and wish you weren't. And you'll watch the rails spread ad fall over in front of you in run-down and soggy yards. And you'll find out a few tips about making proper drops, flying switches and kicks, class characteristics and engine personality. You'll manage boiler pressure safety; sand out with the right amount of scoops; have water-spouts fight back with a vengeance; learn a few tricks the hard way about breathing in tunnels, and have water fights in the cab on hot days. You'll learn how to keep yourself alive making the air and going on top in inclement weather to safely decorate a car. You'll ride a runaway boxcar down Coathanger curve, And learn about intentional and block derails. You'll put the train together properly; get some tips about handling rowdy passengers. Hang on in the crummy and watch boxcars flipping over in front of you like toys one by one and count your lucky stars. You'll work a humpyard, switch cars, watch your step in the yard at all times and learn to never turn your back on a boxcar.

"All aboard! for The Original OLD RAILS' TAILS (abridged family edition)"

The only collection of on-the-job true stories told first-hand by four generations of Rails: engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, switchmen, dispatchers, yardmasters, and superintendents; on Santa Fe, Western Pacific, Southern Pacific, and AMTRACK. (And the first women engineers and rails in California.)

See through the eyes and hearts and minds of the old-timers, as the Old Rails share their vision and know-how and humor with you; telling you the inside scoop, and sharing the truth and spirit of their railroadin' lives.

Sit back, get comfortable, an enjoy yourself as they unfold for you in real campfire stories the behind-the-scenes story of how American Railroading on-the-road and in the yard. Welcome aboard.

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Excerpts

	Endorsements as a book for libraries, classrooms & for home schooling: As a mother of four, a home-schooler then co-founder and director of a private Catholic preparatory high school, I wholeheartedly recommend this book for libraries, bookstores, classrooms and home schooling. This charming collection of real-life experiences will teach young and old about the intensive, dangerous and rigorous work of conductors, brakemen and engineers. The descriptive, detailed stories illustrate well the life-style of a train employee maintaining steam and diesel engines on the California railroad. It is oral journalism at its finest and the text is the actual (edited) stories in the interviewees own words, and you feel as if you were sitting down with the people hearing the story first hand from them. It's like you and your kids were right there experiencing the events with them! The glossary and definitions in the back increase the vocabulary of students and for the classroom could be used: (1) As a supplement for a 4th Grade California History curriculum; (2) As a focus area text for United States History; (3) As part of a Theme Teaching Unit in the areas of Trains, History, Adventure, Real Life stories, Kinds of Jobs, Mechanics; (4) The glossary words and definitions as 'spelling words" & "definitions". Sincerely, Mrs. Diana Farias, California A Fireman & Steam Engineer (add'l excerpts from Dick Murdock's true stories): It Wasn't Funny At The Time -- I was firin' for Iron Mike Harold, and we had a diesel, and we were on Number 19, which was probably back in 1954, in the summer. And we were comin' in to Gerber. About four or five miles from Gerber, there was a crossing. Here was one of those little Richfield gasoline trucks, that services the various Richfield stations at that particular time. This guy had this distributorship truck. And he took the gas and the grease around to different stations. And he was stopped all right. Then he decided to beat us. And we were makin' 60 m.p.h. with this train, and he pulls onto the track with this gasoline truck. He stopped right there. And Iron Mike puts the train into emergency, which is the right thing to do - and we're gonna hit this guy, we're gonna kill him, and we're liable to get killed ourselves. It was a passenger train, and we started to stop pretty fast, much faster than you would with a freight, because freights have all that weigh back there, and we didn't have that much weight. We started to slow down pretty good. And that driver put his truck in reverse and got off of the tracks. Just in time. We missed him by a couple of feet. But the last car on the train stopped him from crossing the track. And Mike says, "Did we get stopped in time to block that guy?" I said, "Yeah, we did, Mike." He said, "Run back there and get his name!" (continued below)
	(continued from above) There was about fourteen cars on 19, so it was a long walk back. So I walked and ran back to the guy, and I said, "Hey, you gave us an awful scare." He didn't say a heck of a lot. And I says, "The engineer says he wants your name, address, and license number." The guy says, "All right. All right." And his name was Daryl Stepp, in Gerber, California. And I got the license number off the truck. Then I went back. When we started the train up, after we got all of this information, we only had six miles to go, I could hear the wheels - some of them had locked, and flattened. CCClu-unk, CCClu-unk, CCClu-unk, CCClu-unk. So Iron Mike said, "We'll just go in slow." So we went in about 10 m.p.h. because if the flat sop on the wheel is too great, say six inches long, that means every revolution when it hits the rail, it will break the rail at that point. It'll break the rail. The CCClu-unk will break the rail. It all depends on the length of the flat spot. 'Course these weren't long enough for that. They were probably four, four and a half inches. But at 30 to 40 m.p.h. they would. So we go in there, and there's always a bunch of head-end cars, baggage cars, and mail cars on the head end of Number 19, then there'd only be maybe four or five coaches, and one pull-man; but the first five or six cars were baggage cars. One of those cars had the largest flat spots on it. It had a bunch of guinea pigs on one end of the car. And blueberries on the other end. When we went into emergency, the blueberries hit the guinea pigs, and the guinea pigs got loose. Well when we opened that door, boy there was a million guinea pigs runnin' all around. And they were just absolutely swamped in blueberries. Well you talk about a bunch of funny guys running around Gerber trying to catch them darn Guinea pigs, and they're all dripping blueberries. Took 'em a long time to inspect that train. Then they put a 30 m.p.h. speed limit on it, from Gerber to Oakland. The train went into Oakland four hours late. Just because of a guy we did not hit.
	Old Bill Knapke - He was born in 1870. Bill Knapke, he was a fine old man, an exceptional old man. He lived to be ninety-nine years old before he died in Tucson, Arizona, at the Veterans Hospital. He was a boomer. He jumped from one railroad to another in capacities ranging from section foreman of section gangs to superintendent. I knew him very well. But I knew him for a good many years, including his last years, from about 1957 to the time he died in 1969 - he was born in 1870. I knew him for about twelve years. All of his railroad stuff is in a book called The Railroad Caboose, by William Knapke, and its' a good seller, you can still get that book. He was born in east Saint Louis in 1870. He was sixteen when he started workin' on the railroad, since 1886; and he worked on all kinds of railroads. I have some of his letters yet, and I'm sure there's a lot of stories in those letters. I'd have to look them up. They're in the file cabinet somewhere. Hey, Billy - There was about five or six railroads runnin' into east Saint Louis, and he was fifteen or sixteen years old at the time when the yardmaster come out and come walkin' across the yard. "Hey, Billy," the yardmaster says. And Knapke turned around. "Yes sir, what is it?" he said. "Well one of the boys just lost his finger on a coupler link and pin, would you fill in for him, and go out on that local?" the yardmaster said. So Billy did. Billy had all his fingers; but I don't see how he did. 'Cause it was really somethin' all right, there was no question about it. Almost all of his friends didn't. 'Cause that was one of the ways they hired people. They wouldn't hire you if you had all your fingers. They wanted you to be an experienced railroad man. You'd hold up your hand, boy, and if there wasn't a couple fingers gone, Un uh, you*re not an experienced brakeman - because those link and pins, you had a great big thing you lifted up the link and pin, and then you dropped the pin down through a slot and if you got in a finger in there, it was gone. Knapke Told Me So Many Stories -- I guess it was 1893. They came in on this old wood burning locomotive, and the operator came out and stopped the train, and he says, "Fellas, we're on strike." And he handed them Gene Debse's famous train order, that told all the guys they were on strike against the Pullman Company, and not to move any engines. Bill Knapke was on the engine that stopped at this little out of the way place, and he was the one that went in and got the orders - Bill Knapke, in 1893. He was an old head then; he was twenty-three. (continued below)
	Knapke Did Tell Me This One - He dropped off the caboose to line the switch back, and the caboose was movin' pretty fast. So when he hit the ground, he did a pirouette. He went around and around, trying to keep his footing, and around and around and around, and he finally grabbed the switch stand. A little girl was standin' down beside there watchin' him. "Mister, would you please do that again?" she said. He always loved to tell that story. Griever's Foreword, by Ron Onstott, Santa Fe Engineer, & United Transportation Union Griever - When the railroads first started, as you well know, state and federal government officials, the president, and everyone else, were elected by the railroads, which were really the big land barons. The big land barons held an iron fist over everything. They killed ranchers to get their land. They didn*t care about killing off their employees. The average life-expectancy was one year or less, for a brakeman, or an engineer, back at the turn of the century. The railroads have historically ruled by fear. They've never changed. You can talk to a hundred people out there and ninety-nine of them will tell you the railroad's old right. But you become a mouse, and you get into a locker, or into the shanty, and people are so tired, so angry, and so stressed out, that they're almost ready to kill somebody. Even our bosses are called trainmaster. It*s that master-slave relationship. That's the way railroads have always worked; and rails are very tight-lipped because of that fear. Fear of things that go bump in the night - and the railroads do go bump in the night quite a bit. Even if you didn't put in the persons' names who told you the stories in this book, or anything that could be traced back to them, they might say something to a friend, and the word gets back. The railroads always seem to find out, and one they do, that person will be fired - not for that, but the railroad will invent something; they'll make something up, and that person will be fired. That's the way all railroads work. Anybody who speaks out against the railroad is soon fired. They'll make up charges. They hide in bushes, literally, they hide in toilet stalls, to list to us - that's not an exaggeration; this is done all the time. So people are in fear; they are afraid to talk. Afraid to be candid, even if they don't use their own name; 'cause the word does get out. That's why I'm sayin', the railroads rule by fear. You're afraid to talk to anybody; 'cause you will lose your job.

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Catalogue Information

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