No one likes his honesty and intelligence questioned but it is fair game when someone does not sign his name. And it is a legitimate question as to why I just didn’t go to management to voice my procedural exceptions, which I saw as possible hazards. What you have read so far are only potential problems to help the C&TS become trouble free, and were not where there is someone in immediate jeopardy. I had never intended to relate the follow long-past occurrence, but its details my study of a near death or major injury on the C&TS, to answer the question ‘Why didn’t you do…”
“I AMOST GOT KILLED” was the direct statement by the Track Car foreman at Sublette.
We arrived a Sublette long before any expected train, just railfaning and milling around the section house taking a few photos and admiring the section rebuilding work and artwork of the dogs in the windows. All of a sudden, a motor car came out of the trees to the west, the foreman running for the switch stand, running back and moving his trackcar onto the siding and then running back to normalize the switch just as a light engine arrived behind him. He stopped the locomotive and there was a long conversation and all looked like normal operation, other that the urgent running.
We stayed near the station to use it for a good photo prop as the light engine started and left town eastward, and the motorcar came up to the water-plug.
Somehow we wandered over and I made a small greeting about being really busy. Immediate reply was “They almost Killed me, just this side of Toltec Tunnel- I just barely heard a whistle the other side of the tunnel so I ran to get out of there as fast as I could. It could have drifted out of the tunnel and hit me without hearing it” I asked how did that happen? He replied “I called Chama in the morning for a “line-up” and the woman dispatcher told me that there was a hour advance special as well as the regular trains, and I told her I was going to work just east of Toltec Tunnel.” “I was not told that the helper engine on the special was going to deadhead to Antonito for a special there tomorrow. The helper always goes back to Chama. This engine was a whole hours before I expected anything”
I asked; “How are you going to keep this from happening again- will you tell your boss? He replied: “I can’t say anything to Mr. B. [Black Bart (Contract Operator)], because they will blame it on me and fire me – I need this job".
Now I got interested (having been in on many investigations in career) that I might be able to do something and not get him fired. I asked him if the dispatcher told you to expect Extra light engine #4xx East, or Special #4xx East along with the regular Antonito passenger train? He said: They don’t talk that way and just told me there was a special and the regular passenger trains. I was not told about the light engine expected at this time.” I asked who is his boss and that I knew the Superintendent, and he objected and said he just had a long discussion with the engine crew that just left and that they were going to “Raise Hell” when they got back to Chama and review it with the female dispatcher, and express the fear she created in the worker. I accepted that as the best in-house cure, and maybe the way things are regularly done here, but:
Now I was experienced as a manager (asst TS), by working with union railroad workers from October 19, 1966 to March 20, 1968 at Harrisburg and Enola, PA, and had 6 month of putting away up to 125 cars daily into Union Carbide plant, Institute, WV on a (some time 2 man) strike replacement crew, so I knew what I was up against. By this date I also had ten years experience as Trainmaster at various points in New England. Therefore, I knew the politics would be very touchy and entirely different when all these workers had no union representatives to aid their case. I now saw that there was a giant level of fear of the boss man we later called Black Bart, and going to him would only injure the job of the foreman, who just escaped possible death. He was not at fault, as it was the dispatcher's fault, as she had never been taught how to speak the railroad language, language that identifies trains by true engine numbers and directions. I don't think she even knew the helper would deadhead to Antonito, but that is my conjector. Regardless, I also felt that there was such a cast of fear among many of the employees that there was a major safety problem on the property. If an obvious safety problems were seen, the workers would never feel free to express safety problems questions. People could get hurt when defect were not reported. I was powerless at this time.
But when the heat was on Black Bart in attempt to remove him and cancel his contract before its time was up, I collected this above investigation that I made, and several others of how poorly he was handling his and state assets and sent it to the owners of the Railroad. I would judge that this might have helped corrected that safety problem for this track car foreman by the replacement of that management, at least on the top two levels.
There are probably some naysayer out there that don’t think we are better off with the removal of the “reign of terror from Black Bart”, but I do, and we still have an active fine railroad, which I helped to run in 1970. I don’t regret the higher blood pressure all these offences and defenses create. Hope this completes your doubts.
