Re: Rio Grande Engineer Jim Pearce Time Book January, 1958 - July, 1958

The deal with bidding on the hostler job when you were a promoted man was that if they got short of engineers or fireman, you gave up your hostler job and went on the the road. That shows in a couple of places where Jim was hostling and then made a road trip to Chama or Farmington, then went back to hostling.

My first wife's grandfather, John Degani was an engineer out of Durango. Hired in the 1920's alongside Steve Connor, Bob Shock and Ben Greathouse. Problem was John didn't really want to be an engineer. He felt uncomfortable running, and preferred to fire or work as hostler. Whenever he could he bid on the Durango hostler job, a job he held until his death in 1957. When times got busy in Durango, he would get called out of the roundhouse and put on an engine either firing of running. I would not be suprised if Jim bid on the job when John died.

At the beginning of the list, Jim is shown working the Durango Switcher in early Jan. Undoubtedly, Jim got this job because the #1 guy on the board, which in 1958 would have been John Dieckman, laid off of the holidays.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2022 10:33PM by Earl.