About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

November 8, 2007
If you are old enough to recall this song performed by Cher from the early 70’s of this name, you’re likely presuming there is a direct correlation between it and railroaders. There is. This song popped into my head Monday evening at work and kept rattling around. It was the inspiration for today’s lesson.

As I have frequently mentioned in the past, railroaders are quite the diverse and colorful assembly of characters. Just go back and look at some of the “Characters of the Game” pieces I have discussed. Today’s theme will rise above the Characters of the Game by volumes. It might be said we are “going where no man has ever gone before.”

We’ll launch today’s little diatribe with Gypsies. In the book that descended from Noah Webster which contains definitions for all those words, in part a gypsy is defined as follows; “they are known as musicians, fortune-tellers, etc.” While there is some basis for the first two descriptions, there is that “etcetera” portion that really rises to the top. Gypsies are alleged to be able to find “every lock that ain’t locked when no one’s around” among other skills we shall describe as shady. While I personally have never met any gypsies I have heard plenty of stories over the years. And these stories have carried quite the allegations.

I have known and worked with railroaders over the years that probably spent more time figuring out how to beat the company out of money than they probably have actually tried to make for the company money over the years. There have been situations where employees have taken gratuities from shippers for performing extra switching at an industry that was not previously requested and then not showing that additional work on their work orders. Here is how this works. A shipper contacts the customer service department of the railroad and requests certain cars to be spotted and pulled. In some cases the request included having cars moved from one spot within the plant to another. This is known as an interplant switch. There are charges for all moves performed by a rail crew when working within an industry. These charges can quickly mount when there are considerable interplant moves. In some instances, interplant switches can cost more than regular pulling and spotting. When extra moves are performed, the conductor is required to show such moves on the work orders he turns in at the end of his tour of duty. This is how the railroad knows how to bill the shipper for switching services. 

In offering a gratuity to a crew, the shipper wants the conductor to not show a move not previously requested on the work order so they won’t be charged for it. These moves are not cheap and all traffic managers or car control employees strive to save their company all the money they can. Instead, the gratuity is offered. In most cases it is cash but in others it might be goods, such as a substantial amount of the product produced or distributed at this industry. Whatever the offer is, it is always less than the switching charge, but a tax free chunk of change for the employees involved. The traffic manager or employee responsible for making such an offer can usually obtain this money from a so-called “petty cash fund” or even hide within their expense account. In any case, it is a violation of railroad operating rules and also a felony crime.

In some cases, there may be some collusion involved as not only the crew performing the switching may be involved, there may also be company officials involved as well. I used to be acquainted with a guy that was a ranking manager of one railroad who was caught up in this and wound up getting caught. While I never learned of the final resolve, I know he was dismissed from the company. I know too, that he had to hire himself a very high priced attorney as well. 

There have been many employees that have presented their own “forecasts” of situations that may be developing within an industry to their local managers. They were foretelling the future as it were. The reason for this was to create overtime that didn’t really exist in order to make more on their paycheck. They might tell a company official that for whatever reason, a particular shipper might require more time to switch owing to cars not being ready account production delays or construction at that facility or track work within that company’s confines. Most industries hire private contractors to repair or maintain their trackage. They may or may not inform the railroad directly of such conditions or circumstances. I knew several guys that did this before Christmas so as to make some extra cash so they could afford presents for family and friends.

I used to know a guy that owned an RV and always drove it to work. His wife thought he was nuts. There was a method to his madness though. There were guys we all worked with that used to “borrow” his RV for an hour or two. They used to leave him some money, call it a non-refundable key deposit, for the use of the vehicle. It seems these guys were “entertaining” some dolly in there. They might be off duty and bring the lovely over to the rail yard and into the RV. This guy once claimed that by taking the key deposits he was paying off the loan on the vehicle and also making use of it on a full time basis instead of just weekends and vacations. While I never checked into the rolling motel, I’m betting his key deposit was somewhat less than one of the local “two hour joints” where lovers tend to head when the romantic urge strikes and you don’t want your spouse to discover the romantic tryst. It was tax free income and pure profit. Today this is known as “total asset optimization.” He was years ahead of his time. In those days he was just the help. Today they would probably promote him to Chief Financial Officer or Comptroller or something.

Now onto the tramps. Most people think of a tramp as a bum, only spelled differently or perhaps an extremely loose woman. For today’s lesson we’ll go with the bum aspect of tramp. One generally associates a tramp or bum as one being a drifter going from town to town, having no visible means of support and often lacking on cleanliness and personal hygiene. Over the years I have spotted many folks like this around rail yards. Only problem is, some of them were at work and working on the railroad at the time. I have worked with many over the years whom, if you didn’t know better, you would believe were destitute.

There have been those that only change clothes once a week. They will work all week in hot, humid weather, sweating like a marathon runner. At the end of the day they change out of their work clothes, toss them in the locker and go home. The next day they put on those same dirty clothes and go to work. By the end of the week, their clothes are totally disgusting and stink to high heaven. They could probably walk around by themselves they are so strong. And of course, there you are stuck in the cab only five feet away from them. There have been times the overflowing, stinking, disgusting toilet smelled better than these characters.

In one instance, the head brakeman on the job used to wear the same clothes for the entire pay period. He took them home the last day of the half (two weeks) and washed them. I think he also only bathed once a pay period as well as he always was a might bit strong, even in his civilian clothes. I recall running into him one night away from work and he reeked. It was several days before payday, so he probably didn’t have any money to pay for water for a bath or shower. Our conductor invited me out onto his boat on our days off and we were out tearing around all over a lake at high speeds. He said to me while we were racing around on the water, “Do you think if we brought the headman out here like this we could blow the stink off him?”

Still another guy I knew was stretched out financially. He had been forced some 300 plus miles from home to the terminal where I was working. He was a new hire and low man on the seniority list. Where he was hired developed an abundance of employees and had a shortage at the terminal where I was working, so he got forced. And this occurred almost immediately after he was hired. He hadn’t even received his first paycheck yet. He was paying child support to his ex wife and one of his kids was experiencing some serious health problems; more than the insurance covered. He owned a place where he came from and couldn’t afford to pay both a mortgage and then rent at his new terminal and he couldn’t sell his home. So now he has to pack up his stuff and find a place to stay. He couldn’t afford the rent anywhere, so he lived in his truck. He had it parked on the lot at the yard and lived there. Now I had to give him a great deal of credit. When he got his first paycheck, in addition to sending the child support check to his ex, he also went out and bought some toys and stuff for his kids, packed it all up and shipped it off to them. He was far more concerned with his children’s well being than his own.

He lived in that truck for several months and hung around the yard office when he wasn’t working. He used the shower facilities we had there but had one serious drawback; he would put those same stinky dirty clothes back on that he took off before he showered. This sort of neutralized the effects of the shower. As a joke I took a lumber crayon and wrote “The Hilton” on the front of his truck. He thought that was hysterical and left it on there. I saw him several years ago and we talked. He was long since back home and in much better shape financially. He told me he kept that old truck and had it parked on his farm. I was told you could still just barely make out where I had written on the front of it. Said he wanted to keep it as a reminder of the difficulties he endured and how he had survived and overcome a difficult time in his life.

And finally, it’s the thieves. Theft is a major concern for the rail industry. We haul a large volume of high value goods as well as commodities that will render quick cash for those that are trying to make a quick buck. And as it would happen, many rail yards tend to be situated in higher crime areas. We also tend to have to sit and wait frequently in high crime areas as well. And many times while sitting, the trains get hit and robbed. And you thought the likes of the James-Younger Gang were long since history. But the theft we’re going to discuss here is not the theft from without, but rather, the theft from within.

Being that we haul such commodities as food products, distilled spirits, wine, beer, tires, auto parts, finished autos, TV’s, stereos and other electronics, as well as copper, lumber and more, there is the potential for theft from within. And over the years there has been a great deal of theft from within. When I first began my railroad career, an old head conductor told me, “Never ever break into a car and steal anything, it is against the law and you can go to prison as it is a Federal offense.” He then went on to tell me, “Now, should a set of tires happen to fall out of a boxcar that just so happen to fit your truck, well then it is okay to take them home. The same thing goes for a battery. Or if you happen to find a couple of cases of cigarettes lying there too” Talk about your basic mixed message, eh?

There have been periods where thievery among employees reached epidemic proportions. It got so bad at one railroad that one evening when I arrived for work, a trainmaster came up to me and told me, “We’re watching you.” When I asked what he was talking about he enlightened me to the fact they had brought in additional railroad police as well as the FBI. Surveillance equipment was being installed to monitor us as well. I told him there was no worry as I was not about to jeopardize my job. I didn’t subscribe to the theft thing anyway so I had no concerns for myself. However, I had to be concerned about those around me and how they could take me with them. Some of these guys would “find” something in the yard and want to hide it on the engine until they could stash it somewhere else later. Allowing this would make me an accessory. That wasn’t going to happen. I got into huge arguments with a couple of guys when I refused to cooperate. They knew they couldn’t do anything about it so I just became an a**hole to them (their exact words). I wasn’t about to risk losing my good job with good pay and benefits because they were too cheap to go out and buy a car stereo or new set of tires.

When the ax fell, it came crashing down in mammoth proportions on those that felt obliged to help themselves. A large number of employees were caught on video and still photos breaking into cars and stealing some of the contents. One of the employees involved was off work after suffering an injury on the job. He was still recovering and unable to work, at least according to his doctor anyway. He was one of the employees caught on video breaking into cars and unloading merchandise from it. Allegedly, they had him on video climbing into and out from a boxcar carrying a TV under each arm. He and the others captured all lost their jobs. Some of them went to jail. None of them ever got back on that railroad. Can you imagine having to go home and tell your spouse and family that you lost your job because you got caught stealing, TV’s, untaxed cigarettes or liquor, or anything for that matter? They caught employees in virtually all the crafts, including one of the company police officers and a manager. Over a period of a couple of years, they caught over 30 employees. Several others that were caught cut deals and resigned instead. I actually gained seniority as several engineers ahead of me were apprehended and dismissed from service. And ironically I was called out to relieve one of them the night they were caught.

I was called out to an outlying location to replace an Engineer working a local. I thought this was odd as this local did not go on and off duty at this location. They were prompting me to try to get there ASAP, irregardless of the two hour call. When I arrived at the yard office, another employee, a brakeman, also arrived telling me he too received the same type of call. We were wondering if maybe there had been some sort of accident or collision. The Yardmaster arrived and filled us in on the details. It seems the head end crew of this train was observed stealing cases of untaxed cigarettes out of a boxcar. They kept the crew under surveillance as the train departed. This job usually had to make a stop at one particular location every night.

When the train stopped, the spouse of one of the crew members arrived. This spouse was also a railroader there working in another department. They began to unload the cases of smoke from the locomotive and into the car the spouse had driven to the scene. Then out came the railroad police and the FBI.

“It’s Officer O’Malley of the vice squad and you’re busted!”

One of the three crew members on the head end of the train was not actually involved as they took no part in the theft. They were taken into custody just the same. The others that were involved stated this person had no part of the scheme and the Feds then released him without prejudice.

Now hearing all this, if it didn’t scare one straight, nothing would. But some folks are just incorrigible. We had several others after these major events get caught up in and eventually caught in the act of theft. 

I once worked with one guy that boasted how he built his entire garage from lumber he had stolen from the railroad. Another told of getting all the shingles he needed for his roof. Yet another was widely known for stealing anything he could steal, just because he could. I was told he had a garage full of stuff that he couldn’t use and couldn’t fence, but kept just the same. I guess he was waiting for a market to develop for whatever it was he had taken home with him. I always wondered if a market would develop for twenty year old car parts. This guy would also steal from industries his assignment switched. He was actually barred from entering the buildings at one industry. Still another was caught when his wife dropped a dime on him after he threw her out. A search warrant was executed based on the information she provided to the railroad. The crime fighters found over $25,000 worth of items stolen from the property in his garage. You name it; he had it, it was like a giant flea market. He was dumping the ill-gotten gain onto the black market and reaping in all sorts of cash. He needed it to hire a good lawyer, but he got to spend some time as a guest of the government anyway. I believe they also took a substantial amount of his black market earnings from him as well as part of the conviction.

“Give him ten years in Leavenworth or eleven years in Twelveworth. How about I take five and ten in Woolworth?”

And then there was a band of guys that were stealing grain. This group would go to elevators after hours and literally steal grain right out of the grain hoppers that were already loaded but not yet pulled. In some instances they would have somebody meet them while on duty to get the grain at the elevator they were switching. The grain was loaded into the backs of their pick up trucks and then taken back to that very same elevator or another and sold it back to them the following day. It became too easy and these guys got too greedy. Eventually they were caught and all wound up dismissed from the railroad.

And now for something completely different; I guess many of you have read the article in the December issue of TRAINS by now. Kathi Kube did an outstanding piece on the CN’s Chicago and Gilman Subdivision Santa Train. If you haven’t seen it, please feel free to go out and pick one up. Do it now, this instant! Just be sure to pay for it too. I have received quite a few compliments on the article, but I cannot and will not take credit for something I didn’t write. Kathi wrote it so if you want to compliment somebody on it please send an email to her. I’m positive she’ll appreciate hearing from you. Kathi spent the entire weekend with us last year conducting interviews and getting an up close and personal view of exactly what goes into the two days of operation. And like the rest of us, she discovered how much fun one can have standing around in the cold for hours just to make the children smile. We were all sworn to secrecy in a blood oath so as not to spill the beans on the article in advance which is why I didn’t tip you all off sooner.

I sent the 2007 Santa Train schedule out this past weekend so most of you should now have it. There were all sorts of computer glitches and problems as I sent it out. I have been told that some of you received several copies of it and others received unreadable copies so I had to send it out in another format. Computers!

And finally, to all of my readers here in the US, I want to take the opportunity to wish you and yours a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

And so it goes.

Tuch

Hot Times on the High Iron and the HTOTHI initials, ©2005 by JD Santucci.