For much of our married life, my railroad husband traveled. A lot. I knew that he traveled when I married him, that traveling was part of working on the railroad, but as the daughter of a teacher, I did not exactly realize what that would mean. What it started out as was a two-week honeymoon after which he went to Goshen, Indiana, three hours away from home. He worked ten or more hours a day four days a week,which was really too long for him to come home every night. He would leave on Sunday night and come home on Thursday. The railroad provided him with less-than-luxurious accommodations. Later on, those accommodations were motels, but in the early days they were camp cars.
Ah, the camp cars. These were railroad cars, approximately the same size as a semi box, fitted with metal bunks and showers, one shower and bathroom per car. In the beginning there were ten or twelve men per car. That went on until the union pushed the issue of floor space per man. The upper bunks were eliminated; that meant five or six men per car. Still not a lot of room.
One of my favorite (NOT) stories about the camp cars has to do with chlorine poisoning. The bacteria in the one toilet per car had to be controlled in some way, so chlorine tablets were dropped into the holding tank. One time somebody did it wrong, and chlorine gas filled the car. Several people were hospitalized.
You have to remember that we were married in the pre-cell phone days, so I didn't find out about this right away. As a matter of fact, my husband and I survived on one phone call a week, which we planned for Tuesday night. There was no such thing as cheap long distance then. My husband had to find a pay phone. Local calls had just gone up from ten cents to a quarter. Long distance cost quite a bit more.
Another story involves my husband's working with an employee who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. As I have said, camp car quarters were close. One night this man had been drinking and stormed into the camp car, grabbed my husband's foot and dragged him off his cot. The reason? He didn't think my husband had paid him correctly. That man is in prison now. He tied his wife to the bed and doused her with kerosene after an argument one night. Not being able to find a match or a lighter, he headed out for the store. Unfortunately for him, his wife got loose during that time and called the police, who were waiting for him when he returned with a lighter and some matches in case the lighter didn't work.
People I have talked to tend to think that having a husband who travels is hard on the wife and kids, and it is, but it is hard on the husband, too. I think about the time our five-year-old daughter was hospitalized in serious condition and I wanted to reach my husband before I gave permission for a medical procedure. I called the office, and the secretary/clerk informed me that you couldn't interrupt the work day for "just anything." The decision had to be made; I gave permission. My husband called the hospital hours later. He would rather have been there.
Or there was the time six years ago when our home was broken into. That might not have happened had it not been known that my husband traveled. My daughter and I survived the whole ugly business and called my husband, who was three hours away in Elyria, as we waited for the police. Our son hurried home from college in the next town to stay with us. I told my husband not to come home. He might as well have, he said. He didn't sleep at all.
The railroad employs men predominantly, and those who have lived under the conditions I just described have a common bond. They survived. They lived in conditions that were uncivilized even under the standards of the day. They ate camp car food like green bologna, which was probably full of bacteria since it was not handled according to today's standards. Most of them, at least in the track department, started out doing physical labor, so they are strong men. Have you ever swung a sledge hammer all day? They probably weigh ten pounds. Such a job is not for the weak.
Mostly, though, these men survive the loneliness. I know many of them are proud to work on the railroad. There is a romance there. It never ceases to amaze me that people come up to my husband when they see him in his truck to ask what he does. Does he ride the trains? How does his truck get on the track? And all that big equipment! The men who are asking these questions, though, have no idea what it is like to live without your family four or five days a week for most or all of the year. They don't know how boring restaurant food can get or how tired you can get of channel surfing when there is just no one to talk to.
The railroad has changed some since those early days. It was bought out twice. Consolidated. Abandoned in some areas. The management moved from local to regional. The territories expanded. Men who used to only have to go two hundred or so miles to the job might now have to travel eight hundred if they want to work. And most of them do. They love the job, even if they don't like the travel. They are honorable men. They pay the bills. They do the job.
My husband is always glad to see the men he knew in the old days, and for a while one of them, Eddie, has been in town. Eddie worked on my husband's gang way back when. He has been around a long time. He knows his job. I think he finds a certain comfort in working with someone that he knows. My husband does. Each of them knows the other's expectations. Each of them knows the way things SHOULD be done. They know about each other's kids. And grandkids. And the knowing gives continuity, stability, to a job that can change from minute to minute.
I saw Eddie today, and we talked for a bit. We talked about kids,about grandkids. About jobs. He mentioned a backhoe operator he and my husband both knew. I asked if the man was still ornery. A little smile crept onto Eddie's face. Yeah, he said. Still the same. The funny thing about this is that at dinner, I told my husband about the conversation and the same exact smile appeared on his face. Some things never change, he guessed.
People think that because working on the railroad is such a physical thing that all there is to the men who work there is brute, but there's a lot more. Just like men anywhere, they need their families. They may not ever talk about it, but they need their friends. They need people around who know both what the railroad is and what it can be.
That's why I also am glad when Eddie is in town. He and my husband share a lot of memories. I'm thankful that though the railroad has changed a lot, they can get pleasure out of sharing their "railroad ties."
Ah, the camp cars. These were railroad cars, approximately the same size as a semi box, fitted with metal bunks and showers, one shower and bathroom per car. In the beginning there were ten or twelve men per car. That went on until the union pushed the issue of floor space per man. The upper bunks were eliminated; that meant five or six men per car. Still not a lot of room.
One of my favorite (NOT) stories about the camp cars has to do with chlorine poisoning. The bacteria in the one toilet per car had to be controlled in some way, so chlorine tablets were dropped into the holding tank. One time somebody did it wrong, and chlorine gas filled the car. Several people were hospitalized.
You have to remember that we were married in the pre-cell phone days, so I didn't find out about this right away. As a matter of fact, my husband and I survived on one phone call a week, which we planned for Tuesday night. There was no such thing as cheap long distance then. My husband had to find a pay phone. Local calls had just gone up from ten cents to a quarter. Long distance cost quite a bit more.
Another story involves my husband's working with an employee who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. As I have said, camp car quarters were close. One night this man had been drinking and stormed into the camp car, grabbed my husband's foot and dragged him off his cot. The reason? He didn't think my husband had paid him correctly. That man is in prison now. He tied his wife to the bed and doused her with kerosene after an argument one night. Not being able to find a match or a lighter, he headed out for the store. Unfortunately for him, his wife got loose during that time and called the police, who were waiting for him when he returned with a lighter and some matches in case the lighter didn't work.
People I have talked to tend to think that having a husband who travels is hard on the wife and kids, and it is, but it is hard on the husband, too. I think about the time our five-year-old daughter was hospitalized in serious condition and I wanted to reach my husband before I gave permission for a medical procedure. I called the office, and the secretary/clerk informed me that you couldn't interrupt the work day for "just anything." The decision had to be made; I gave permission. My husband called the hospital hours later. He would rather have been there.
Or there was the time six years ago when our home was broken into. That might not have happened had it not been known that my husband traveled. My daughter and I survived the whole ugly business and called my husband, who was three hours away in Elyria, as we waited for the police. Our son hurried home from college in the next town to stay with us. I told my husband not to come home. He might as well have, he said. He didn't sleep at all.
The railroad employs men predominantly, and those who have lived under the conditions I just described have a common bond. They survived. They lived in conditions that were uncivilized even under the standards of the day. They ate camp car food like green bologna, which was probably full of bacteria since it was not handled according to today's standards. Most of them, at least in the track department, started out doing physical labor, so they are strong men. Have you ever swung a sledge hammer all day? They probably weigh ten pounds. Such a job is not for the weak.
Mostly, though, these men survive the loneliness. I know many of them are proud to work on the railroad. There is a romance there. It never ceases to amaze me that people come up to my husband when they see him in his truck to ask what he does. Does he ride the trains? How does his truck get on the track? And all that big equipment! The men who are asking these questions, though, have no idea what it is like to live without your family four or five days a week for most or all of the year. They don't know how boring restaurant food can get or how tired you can get of channel surfing when there is just no one to talk to.
The railroad has changed some since those early days. It was bought out twice. Consolidated. Abandoned in some areas. The management moved from local to regional. The territories expanded. Men who used to only have to go two hundred or so miles to the job might now have to travel eight hundred if they want to work. And most of them do. They love the job, even if they don't like the travel. They are honorable men. They pay the bills. They do the job.
My husband is always glad to see the men he knew in the old days, and for a while one of them, Eddie, has been in town. Eddie worked on my husband's gang way back when. He has been around a long time. He knows his job. I think he finds a certain comfort in working with someone that he knows. My husband does. Each of them knows the other's expectations. Each of them knows the way things SHOULD be done. They know about each other's kids. And grandkids. And the knowing gives continuity, stability, to a job that can change from minute to minute.
I saw Eddie today, and we talked for a bit. We talked about kids,about grandkids. About jobs. He mentioned a backhoe operator he and my husband both knew. I asked if the man was still ornery. A little smile crept onto Eddie's face. Yeah, he said. Still the same. The funny thing about this is that at dinner, I told my husband about the conversation and the same exact smile appeared on his face. Some things never change, he guessed.
People think that because working on the railroad is such a physical thing that all there is to the men who work there is brute, but there's a lot more. Just like men anywhere, they need their families. They may not ever talk about it, but they need their friends. They need people around who know both what the railroad is and what it can be.
That's why I also am glad when Eddie is in town. He and my husband share a lot of memories. I'm thankful that though the railroad has changed a lot, they can get pleasure out of sharing their "railroad ties."
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