In My Own Words: Helping each other out
Fierce competitors worked together to make things happen
FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE IN 1981, I was hired by the Chicago & North Western. I worked “the Car Desk,” the position that oversaw the disposition and distribution of empty cars across the railroad. One night, I was talking to my counterpart in Motive Power. He had previously been at the diesel shop at Proviso Yard. He was telling about cases when they would need a part for a locomotive, none were in stock, and it was the middle of the night. The resolution was to call over to the Milwaukee Road shop a few miles away at Bensenville. If they had the needed part, they would “loan” it to the C&NW. Of course, it was a reciprocal arrangement. I was impressed. That they were two fierce competitors was irrelevant to the grunts on the front lines — each was the solution to resolve an immediate problem for the other.
Years later, I would experience this reciprocity firsthand. I was a trainmaster for Wisconsin Central at Schiller Park, the Chicago terminal. In times of need, you had to do what you had to do.
WC shared Schiller Park yard with the Soo Line. This created the potential for many trade-offs. We ran a local out of Schiller up to Wheeling and Mundelein. The industry track curvature required a four-axle locomotive, and the engineers preferred it face south. The Soo switched its yard with a four-axle locomotive, and it also faced south. Occasionally our local engine would go bad order, creating the possibility that we would be unable to serve our customers that day. The resolve? Usually we had a SD45 road engine on hand. We’d make a quick call to the Soo yardmaster to explain our situation and ask if it would be possible to borrow their yard engine for our local, and we would loan them the SD45. As long as it faced south, they were agreeable. I always thought they would complain, as it didn’t load up as fast as their Geep, but the crew didn’t mind.
Another scenario was shove moves that we had to make to nearby industries. Usually our guys didn’t mind riding the car, but if the weather was bad or if it was bitterly cold, we would ask the Soo if we could borrow their caboose. “Sure. Put it back when you’re done and don’t derail.” In return, when their transfer returned from Bensenville during the night, I’d watch their shove into the yard. Technically, these arrangements should have been covered by formal agreements, with liability and indemnities spelled out, etc. But nothing adverse ever happened, so no one was the wiser.
We connected with the Indiana Harbor Belt at B-12, and ran many trains over its line. One night, one of our trains was having a tortuous trip traversing the IHB. In conversation with their “back room,” the operations supervisor was bemoaning how he desperately needed a cab to transport one of his crews. I knew Bellwood Cab had drivers available, so I asked why he didn’t call them. “We don’t have an account with them.” What if WC ordered a cab for his crew — which also meant we were on the hook for paying for it? Could he give some consideration to moving my train? Of course.
Perhaps my favorite example of taking care of each other was with the C&NW (later Union Pacific) crew from Proviso that delivered to Schiller Park. Three times a week, the C&NW brought cars over from Proviso. Sometimes the cuts were pretty sizeable — up to 90 cars. Intermingled throughout the train would be “shorts” — cars for our local, destined for Wheeling or Mundelein or the industries in Franklin Park. Either the road train that picked up would have to set out the shorts, or they would go up to Fond du Lac, get switched out, crossyarded, then come back down — incurring three days’ delay and a 300-mile, out-of-route trip. The agreement with C&NW did not require them to segregate the shorts, nor allow their crew to kick them out. But eventually ingenuity won out.
It was a regular crew that delivered. We were the same bunch of trainmasters. Over time, we got to know one another. Also over time, the C&NW crew heard about our dilemma on getting the shorts out. And we heard of their desire to “hide out” for awhile after delivering and not head right back to Proviso, where another move might await them. A compromise morphed into being. They would switch out the short cars, and in return we let them sit off to the side. Our only stipulation was they could not die [under hours of service] — they had to regulate themselves to make it back to Proviso on their hours, which they always did. It got to the point they were even asking us as they pulled in where we wanted the shorts set out ... and we were covering for them when Proviso would call over to ask how they were doing.
Necessity is the mother of invention.