| September 25, 1970 - The year I was hired by SAL RR in Hamlet, NC. This year, it is 38 years ago that a young, not long married and not long out of high school kid, went to work for a company that I thought surely would just be a temporary job. I had applied at the first of the summer but they were not hiring, so I got a job with Southern Bread Co. on Mill Road in Rockingham. It helped a lot that my wife's uncle Jack Watson worked there and had some pull as to whom was hired, since this young kid of 22 had not much experience in working many jobs at that time. When I did go back to the railroad at the end of that summer, Mr Elton Cook, Superintendant at that time, pulled my application from the bottom of the stack and gave me that job I had wanted all summer. So, I said so long to Southern Bread and hello SAL railroad. I spent 18 years at Hamlet working different jobs in the office before the railroad started centralizing all the clerical jobs on the system and moved practically all of them to Jacksonville, Fla. A lot of us went but some decided to stay on in Hamlet. But back to the story. In Richmond County, the railroad was a great place to work because it was union and the pay was a lot better than other jobs in the county. So I was glad to get the job. Little did I know at the time, I would work at that company for 29 years before having to retire on disability. I really didn't want to travel, so I was hired as a clerk. But, I ended up having to travel anyway. I knew if I wanted to make the big bucks, I would have to hire out as a trainman or engineer - the latter being where the best pay was. But, in order to make more money, you would have to ride the trains and work long hours. I didn't want that at the time but after looking back - of course hindsight is 20/20 - that might have been the best option since I had to work long hours, third shifts, second shifts and travel anyway. I was introduced to Richard Presler, the Office Manager at the time. He was a likeable guy and showed me around the office. I met some of the folks I would be working with over the coming years and will name some of the other clerks I worked with during that time - maybe some of these names will be familiar to you: Larry Privette, Donald Jenkins, Harold Guinn, Bobby Norton, Eddie Ackerman, Elma Monteith, Louise Pate, Ed Pate, Portia Lanier, O W Altman, Dexter Altman, R L Altman, Russell Lancaster, Gerald Lewis, Ben Davis, Oscar Sellars, Cathie Ackerman, Oscar Lee, Margaret Spivey, Jimmy Saunders, Bobby Hicks, Carole Gillis, Tommy Bullock, Carol Liles, Lee Jenkins, Harold Davis, Tommy Jernigan, Jerry Lunceford, Tyree Massagee, David Covington, Louise Thomas, Louise Pate, Worth Nash, Jimmy Lassiter, and others that might have slipped my memory over the years. As this is the first part of my story, as time goes along I will add more that I remember to this list. I had attended Richmond Technical Institute before I began at the railroad and eventually became the first Student Body president there. I remember I took a computer class and a Mr Blackwelder was the instructor at the time. This was about the time computers were just coming on the scene and boy were they huge. Anyway, that class helped prepare me for some of the work at the railroad. I remember those old IBM cards that had holes punched in them and the computers would read the holes. Boy, talking about showing your age, that should do it. At the railroad, all the clerk jobs had specific names. I remember most of them but not all. Some were called the 1050 clerk (so named because that is what the computers were called that read the cards), the scale clerk (this clerk lined up the waybills for outbound trains and weighed any cars that was required), the vent clerk - worked with the scale clerk, the chief clerk, assistant chief clerk, utility clerk, check clerk (worked at Yard B, checking the cuts as they went by and called it in to the scale clerk for the outbound train), and the infamous crew clerk. Now there might have been more but these are the ones that stand out in my mind. When you worked at the railroad, seniority meant everything. I first started working on the extra board...whenever someone marked off sick, vacation, etc. I would be called to work the job. Needless to say, this didn't leave you any time to make plans with your family because you never knew when you would be working. But that was typical railroad life. I believe the first regular job I had was second shift utility clerk with Mondays and Tuesdays off. Also, when you were one of the youngest clerks, if you wanted overtime, you could forget it because all the older clerks would take it all. Or, if you didn't want to have to double or work overtime, you would be forced to because you were the youngest. This could and did go on for years until seniority was built up. After 10 to 15 years working there, I finally had enough seniority to get some pretty decent jobs with good off days...and I could get all the overtime I wanted or I could force the younger clerks to double if I didn't want to. So, the time you had put in finally paid off but it was tough getting there. At the beginning of my career with the railroad, the one job that nobody wanted was the crew clerk. Mr Presler made me learn that job to start with but I was not happy about it. A second shift job came open in the crew office and I was forced to work it. I worked that job for about a month and was pulled (somebody else took the job away - seniority, remember). I swore when that happened I would never go back into the crew office again. Well, like they say, never say never. Years later, I got to the point it was either work the extra board or work the crew office - but - the job that was open was 2nd shift with Fridays and Saturdays off. This is what convinced me to go back into the crew office - even tho I swore I never would. But it helped at that time that Ms Lois Wheeler was the one in charge in the crew office. That lady knew her stuff. She really helped me along and I finally learned to like the job - even tho it was very demanding...and, most of the time you would not have to worry about getting displaced because it was such a demanding and stressfull job. __________________________________________________ This is a start to my story of working on the railroad. I am not sure right now how many chapters there will be. It just depends on how much more I can get out of my head to put down on this website and hopefully paint a picture of how it was for me during those years. So, this is the first chapter of Working on the Railroad - My Story - another memory of how it was growing up in Rockingham, North Carolina - a small textile town in the South in the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. |
| Working on the Railroad - My Story - Chapter 1 written by Joel Bailey November 21, 2008 |
| So, as the Train of Life keeps chugging along, another page written of my Memories of.... Rockingham Remembered. |
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