Never having seen the Union working agreements for the engineers and fireman, what my understanding is that the
old third division men had rights Salida to Grand Jct including the branches. Within that division, there were the Salida
men and the Gunnison men and each group had those parts of the railroad for which they held ‘prior rights’. So, an old
head Gunnison man could run (any) passenger job (in most cases was always a preferred job because of regular on/off duty
times) from Grand Jct to Montrose as his seniority allowed. How or if the jobs in Grand Jct were split up I don’t know.
The Salida men had the old 3rd div main, Monarch and the Valley line and possibly west to Minturn. So if a Salida man worked
into Gunnison and a CB turn was short a fireman, the Salida man could be used in an emergency if, a Gunnison man was not available.
But if a job opened up and a Salida and a Gunnison man both bid the job, if the Salida men had higher seniority, the Gunnison man
would get the job because of prior rights. It sounds that in later years when the jobs were scarce, most of the old heads worked out of
Grand Jct and in the fall or spring stock movements, a turn would be ordered and the oldest qualified man would be called
as was stated in previous posts and (maybe dead head?) bussed to Gunnison for the job. If the job was going to be on for awhile, then he
could bid the job and hold It until bumped or the job was annulled. It’s possible that there were enough jobs in Grand Jct that the
men could hold the switch engines in Grand Jct. That reads as though that and the Montrose turn or to Ridgway provided work for the
older men.
Prior rights also worked in later years on the Golden (Coors) turn as any qualified C&S man could hold the job but a South Park man
(or Clear Creek) could bump the other man because prior rights. This happened quite a bid even into the early 1960s until the
last So Park man retired.
Look, this isn’t a perfect understanding. Because agreements change over time. And my understanding is based on working
in road service on other districts of BN, but it may clarify some the where things worked the way they did. Anybody got a copy
of the Agreements?
Chris
