Re:Railroad Hospitals and doctors and contiued work

The Southern Pacific once had a hospital in San Francisco.

The railroads often had arrangements with local doctors and listed them in the employee timetables.

At Mina, Nevada, (north end of the narrow gauge after 1905 and interchange point with the Tonopah & Goldfield) the SP listed a doctor and according to notices in the local newspaper he had his office on the ground floor of the depot. The newspaper account of the derailment of two 4-4-0s in a cut near Montgomery Pass in 1923 reports that when word was received in Mina the Assistant Trainmaster based there gathered up the doctor and immediately proceeded by automobile to the wreck.

Continued work for a railroad --
The old C&C division point of Hawthorne, Nev., is the starting point for another story from a couple of decades earlier. A recently-hired, brakeman -- a local youth -- slipped from a tender step and had a foot crushed. and was sent off to the SP hospital in San Francisco; followed the next day on the regular train by his mother and step-dad (the county sheriff). The foot was amputated and he got an artificial limb; newspaper said to see him in town you would never know what happened.. He continued working for the C&C becoming a station agent and even vacation coverage for the train dispatcher. Got Married to a young woman from Hawthorne. Worked as an agent for the Tonopah & Goldfield. Worked for his step-father sheriff after the county seat moved to Goldfield. Worked mineral prospects (like so many in Nevada). Served at least one term as elected county sheriff. And then when war-time traffic picked up on the T&G went back to railroading -- reported as an engineer.

Brian Norden



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2020 12:21PM by Brian Norden.