Respect And Appreciation

In 1972 the glorious Santa Fe Railroad was apparently getting pretty hard up for Foremen in their engineering department so they reached out and offered me the position as Student Foreman. Knowing that the job paid a couple of hundred more dollars a month than I was making as a Machine Operator, I accepted the position even though, at the time, I had no intentions of making a career out of the railroad. It was a training position and your time as well as your soul belonged to the Roadmaster.

          

In a period of a couple of months my Roadmaster had moved me from one type of gang to another letting me get a taste of several types of supervisory skills and responsibilities. Then something special happened to an unsuspecting young Student Foremen, the Roadmaster assigned me to the Mechanized Tie Gang to be an understudy on the most prestigious gang on the Division. All other gang Foremen on the Division bid on and were awarded the Foreman's job by seniority but the Tie Gang Foreman was appointed By Division officers.

          

At the time the Tie Gang was made up of fourteen or so large machines and operators, fifteen Trackmen, two or three truck drivers, a Foreman and his Student Foreman. As the name would suggest the Tie Gang was charged with the renewal of crossties, the backbone of the railroad. At the time this Tie Gang was renewing 500 to 750 ties a day. The System record for ties inserted in one day was around 1000 ties accomplished by a hot shot gang in California.

          

The Foreman was a big man with a big voice as well as a big ego. He was a driving force as a boss. As the Student Foreman on the gang I was supposed to hone my supervisory skills by observing and assisting the Foreman. My philosophy may have been a little different or perhaps a little strange to some. My thoughts were that I needed to know the operation of the gang, it's machines and it's men before I could begin developing supervisory skills. I spent the first few weeks going from machine to machine, work station to work station observing, helping and when time permitted actually operating the equipment.

         

In the beginning the Machine Operators were a little leery of me and my habits, but I continued my methods. I would climb up on a machine and tell the operator to take a break and get a drink while I ran his machine for a few minutes. I would fall in with the Trackmen when they would get behind and help them with their responsibilities. When the Foreman would catch me doing my thing, he would voice his displeasure and point out that I was never going to make it as a Foreman or a Supervisor if I didn't change my ways and get to the business of supervising.

          

Early one morning at the depot I was taking care of some of my assigned paper work before the on duty time of the gang, when the Roadmaster called me. He advised that the Foreman was not going to be at work because of a sickness in his family and that there was no other Foreman available. He said that he was going to be in a staff meeting all day and would not be available. He asked if I thought I could handle the gang for the day. I told him that I could even though I hadn't quite convinced myself of that fact. The Roadmaster said to just concentrate on safety and not to worry about productivity, that the gang could get back on track the next day when the Foreman was back.

          

I gathered all the men together and told them of the Roadmaster's call. We had our morning safety discussion and I told the men that our main objective on that day was to work safely, watch out for each other and go home after work for the weekend to be with family and loved ones. I told them that despite the normal push for production and numbers, that was not my main concern nor should it be theirs. I told them that they were the best at what they do, for them to take care of their jobs and I would deal with the dispatchers, trains and the other day to day distractions.

          

As we prepared to go to work one of the senior machine operators walked by me and said, "We're going to get you a thousand ties today." Before I could respond he was off and mounting his machine. Normally at this point the Foreman would begin popping the figurative whip, hollering and yelling as if herding cattle out of the stock pins onto the range. However, this morning, as soon as I told the lead machines that we had authority from the dispatcher to enter the track and go to work, black smoke bellowed from the exhaust stacks and the roar of the diesel engines could be heard for miles as they headed out to the work location.

          

By the time I made it to the head end of the gang, they had already started pulling spikes and pushing the old ties from under the track. As I walked by the lead machine, another fellow worker walked by and said, "We are going to get you a thousand ties today!" I responded by saying that we didn't need to worry about numbers, we just needed to put in a good and safe day of work. Things were moving faster than I could ever remember seeing before .A little over an hour into the workday the gang had already inserted 250 ties.

          

As I was walking toward the rear of the gang I noted that one of the machines was shut down. The machine operator advised that he had broken down. I told the operator that I would call for a mechanic on the radio, as was customary, and that he could take a break until the mechanic arrived. The operator replied that he thought he could make the repairs by the time the mechanic arrived. I told him that I appreciated the offer but I would go ahead and call the mechanic. About twenty minutes later the mechanic called me and said that the machine was up and running. I told him that I appreciated his help. He told me that the machine was running when he arrived. The machine operator had made the repairs.

          

At lunchtime we had 750 ties inserted. It was the usual procedure to shut down the gang in sections and allow them to eat. I walked to the front end and told them to break for lunch. I was told that they had already eaten and the dust continued to fly. As I walked through the gang it was amazing how well everything was going. It really didn't seem that anyone was over exerting themselves, but things seemed to happening faster. Everyone seemed to be working in unison with pride and the unusual thing was that most were smiling.

          

With about two hours left to work we had inserted over 900 ties. That was about the time I received a call on the radio from the Foreman. He had managed to take care of his family matters and was approaching the gang to finish the day. When he reached my location and he found out the tie count he was ecstatic. He began to walk the gang hollering orders and instructions and yelling, "We're going to put one in the record books today!" The more he yelled, the slower the tie count climbed.

          

Everyone appeared to working as hard as they had earlier in the day, but the smiles were gone and productivity continued to drop. Then a machine broke down, then another. The machine operators called the Foreman on the radio and told him they were going to need a mechanic for repairs. The Foreman called the Train Dispatcher and asked for an extension on our work time. The dispatcher asked, "What happened to Beck?"

          

The Foreman told him not to worry about Beck that he was now running the show. With that the dispatcher told him, "Well you and your show are going to have to clear the track. I've got trains to run."

          

With that being said, we cleared the track for the day. The gang had inserted 975 ties. As the Foreman continued to throw a fit about how close he had come to a record day, I walked down through the gang telling them how much I appreciated their help and what a fantastic job they had done. A dozen or more of the men responded quietly, "We could have gotten you over a thousand ties today."

          

Born on that day was my philosophy, not only involving management style, but in day to day interactions with my fellow railroaders. On that day was born the thought that respect and appreciation along with the need to be firm but fair could be the cornerstone of a successful career. I think I also decided on that day that the railroad was what I wanted to be a part of for the rest of my working days.