Hello all: I produce a podcast that has guests who have held interesting or unusual jobs. Riding the rails as a railroad employee seems interesting to me, certainly not the typical 9-5 job. Please help me find someone who would be willing to share such an experience with me and my podcast audience. I would be asking questions about the profession and having them share interesting events from their career. Thank you in advance.
Thomas, I'm sending this since it looks like your'e short on replies!
I don't know where you're located, but if you're anywhere near El Reno, Oklahoma, the railroader I met (& was intent on following up on... until many things got in the way since...): 1. was the Motorman in his 80's of the "Heritage Express Trolley", an interurban car that once ran on the Norristown line, converted to run on natural gas, that plies the rails of a relict El Reno Interurban Railway line for tourists east from the 1907 Rock Island Railroad station to downtown. 2. But pre-retirement, he worked for the Rock Island, doing various work that including being foreman of a steam-powered crane (mostly used for clearing wrecks), and then its vastly less grimy, cooler diesel replacement. 3.etc... He had plenty of other railroad stories, but I arrived as he was putting the streetcar away & museum (with a "train room") was closing (a collection of historic buildings set up in front of the Rock Island Station (that now serves as the Canadian County History Museum (see the Wiki for El Reno, OK)).
Though I mailed him some photocopied material (about a big snowdrift that trapped a train nearby), and encouraged him to contribute to an oral history project including railroads the University of OK was working on at the time... I do not have his name now, but he was their only Motorman in 2017.
Their museum is physically closed due to COVID, but you may find someone to refer you to him at: canadiancountymuseum.com
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