Help with telling if im going up hill or down!!

[zardoz]

ValleyX

Zardoz, did you ride the extra board for twenty years?  I would think that you might have held a regular pool turn sometime during that period of time unless, like some, you preferred the extra board. 

For the last 5 years of my career, I was able to hold a pool turn (I always thought of a pool turn as a "freight-only" extra board, as on the CNW we had to cover suburban [Metra] jobs as well).  But the rest of the time was on the board, which was most assuredly not by choice.

ValleyX

I can understand carrying your track charts although I think you didn't look at them obsessively, you used them for occasional reference.

Correct.  Especially in fog and/or when I was so tired that I could hardly see.

[ValleyX]

 I was far more fortunate than that, I really didn't spend that much time on any extra boards, was forced to jobs I really didn't want some of the time and forced out of town a few times but nothing that wore on for years.  Most of the time I've spent on extra boards was by choice and not by lack of seniority. 

 Or course, I've known some who weren't so fortunate and some who were even better off than I was. It can be a crapshoot, depending on when you hired out and sometimes gains in seniority come unexpectedly, not always because of unfortunate events. 

However, this is straying from the topic and I apologize for that.

[wabash1]

A railroader tired and can hardly see??? I dont believe that your living the dream,  Oh and these bump on my head are not from bending over to pick up my pen on the floor and hitting my head. but you didnt hear me say i was tired. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[zardoz]

ValleyX

Or course, I've known some who weren't so fortunate and some who were even better off than I was. It can be a crapshoot, depending on when you hired out and sometimes gains in seniority come unexpectedly, not always because of unfortunate events. 

My understanding is that the fortunes of seniority are the rusult of the massive hiring done after WW2.  Once all of those jobs were filled, the rate of hiring was governed generally more by retirements.  Those that hired out at the end of the big block were usually the ones stuck with the less-desireable jobs.  Then when all those that hired after the war retired, there was a second wave of hiring to make up for all those retirees.  I came in on the hind-end of that block.

Oh, and to keep it on topic, the worst grade I ever had to deal with was a short section of 1.5% on the Fond du Lac sub, and the infamous 5 miles of 1% of West Allis hill in Milwaukee. Not that 1% was that big of a deal, at least going downhill (although there was a facing-point switch in the middle of a sharp 25mph curve at the bottom of the hill), but going uphill was usually a challenge (at least to the power), as this was the only appreciable grade on the Milwaukee sub.