Careers in railroading

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

While this mailing list is on the subject of careers in railroading, I 
thought you might find this interesting.

  	In 1952, when I graduated from high school, I started college at IIT and 
I became a member of the Illinois Tech Model Railroad Club 
(http://www.iit.edu/~itmr.org/).  As it turned out, the club members had 
connections with many of the major railroads in the Chicago area.  Many 
members found summer jobs through those connections. In 1953, I got a 
summer job as a towerman (Leverman-Operator) for the B&OCT by visiting with 
the Chief Dispatcher F.W. (Pete) Peters.  If you talked to him long enough 
and he liked you, he would hire you to work summer vacations.  We had a 
number of club members who did just that and then found full time careers 
with the railroads.

	One member recently retired after 48 years as a locomotive engineer with 
the Santa Fe.  Another, who started as a towerman, will shortly be retiring 
as a locomotive engineer for the B&OCT.  Another, who worked summers for 
the C&NW, became a P.E. (Professional Engineer) and manager for the New 
Haven and now runs his 15" gauge Peconic County RR out on Long 
Island.  Another ran the AAR Testing Lab.  Another, after working for the 
C&NW while going to night school, ended up as an electrical engineer with 
BART in San Francisco.  It is a much longer list.  All these guys have one 
thing in common; they are railroad fans.  They do not have the kind of 
disinterest that some employees show to their jobs.  In fact, some of them 
found RR work so interesting ($$$) that they never finished college.

	In 1962, after a stint in the Navy teaching degaussing (I photographed the 
N&W on weekends) and having had two jobs in electronics, I started teaching 
high school physics.  That summer, because of Pete Peters, I again went 
back to work for the B&OCT.  In the fall I was able to bid a regular job, 
and that started a career that lasted twenty-five years.  Many towermen 
went on to become dispatchers, trainmasters, locomotive engineers, or even 
superintendents.  Not me -
I was happy to work third trick because I was also teaching high school 
full time during the day.  When I first started, I saw B&O, Soo, CGW, and 
Pere Marquete passenger trains on third trick and it was not too easy to 
get some rest.  By the time I took a CSX buyout in 1987, there was very 
little traffic and I was able to rest much of the time. As a railfan, I 
look back on my railroad career with fond memories.

Ron Peisker