Page:Brunswick 100 Years of Memories.pdf/60

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Sandy Hook, Weverton, and Knoxville: Charlie

Shewbridge , Carroll Powers, and Ray Reynolds, to name a few recalled by T. Yale Robertson. He explained that five or six trains a day went to Strasburg Junction, Virginia, on a schedule compatible with the school hours. More recently, the Santa Claus Train, although not a steam engine, has brought much enjoyment on a Saturday before Christmas. The local fire truck brings Santa to the station, where two or three Budd cars are waiting for him and his friends. Santa distributes free fruit and candy to the children, as well as coffee, donuts and hot cocoa to visitors from all around. The train runs from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry and back five or six times that day. The crewmen donate their time for this merry occasion. The people who lived through this era deride bumper to bumper traffic on interstate highways in a crowded bus. It is no comparison to the romance of the rails experienced by kids who were lucky enough to grow up in Brunswick the first half of the twentieth century.

volves a lever behind and clear of the car. The brakeman stands on that, releasing the knuckle. This makes a cut (uncoupling ). When the engine pulls away, the cars part. If one wants to couple two cars he has the knuckles open, waits for the engine to push the cars together, the lever falls by gravity and the coupler holds. This came about early in the twentieth century."Se niority" was and is an interesting idea stringently adhered to by the railroad system. It was measured from when an employee was hired. A person who hired on or took his first turn just one hour ahead of another had seniority, therefore a job ahead of the other person. When the company was furloughing or laying off workers in a dull season, this too was done by seniority. Railroad work was not seasonal, but pulsated with the well-being and setbacks of the country's general economy. After working regularly for six months or so, an employee could be laid off in the direct order of his hiring-or seniority. His choices were to find another job or be jobless and without income until called back to the railroad. His chances of finding a good replacemen t job were slim. The prospective interim employer knew that by the time he "broke in" a former railroad worker, that employee would be recalled to the railroad and choose to return. This system made for a lot of uncertainty for all involved - except the railroads. Still, considering the advantages of the railroad job, many would sweat out the furlough with little or no income and rejoice when called back to work. John Anderson had worked for 121;,years with the B&O as a machinist when he was furloughed. Being a good manager, he lived well enough in his apartment on his railroad unemploym ent pay. But he was furloughed every year - about a month before Christmas, sometimes twice a year. He decided to change employmen t. He worked with Allied Science in experimental work in biological warfare for 17 years until that type of experimenta tion was terminated nationwide. Fortunately , he was able to transfer to a position as stationery engineer, which he held another 13 years. After 30 years, he retired from Detrick, and although he enjoyed the railroad job, he preferred the steady employmen t at Detrick to the stop-and-go kind with the railroad. Regardless of which "service" one was in, "engine service" or "train service," if the railroader was top man, he had no worries. For example, the engineer and fireman were in "engine service," and the engineer had a leg up regarding furloughs. This writer's father was a engineer; when he was cut back, he took over a fireman's job, having his choice of jobs.

S - Dutch Burns - T. Yale Robertson W-MMM

RAILROA DING IN BRUNSW ICK 1939 to 1977 The nuts and bolts of railroading keep products moving, but are not always referred to in recounting the history of the B&O Railroad. For example, the improveme nt in coupling procedures has resulted in fewer accidental injuries and deaths, according to James Francis McMurry, who retired as a conductor in 1977 after 30 years of service. In the early part of the 1900's, with the old link and pin procedure, the trainman had to get in between the cars to join them, and there was nothing to keep the cars from running flush against each other, killing the worker. He had the link and pin on one car and had to hold it and slide it into a little slot on the other car. If the connection was not made, the worker could lose a limb or even his life, it was that dangerous. There was a time when two or three times a day they were hauling somebody "up the hill" on an engine; the injured would come out minus a leg or an arm. The railroad unions, among them the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Order of Railway Conductors (predecesso rs of the United Transportation Union), militated against such dangers. Consequent ly, the automatic knuckle coupler in-

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