Another Pig Tale..

My friend Billy in Alabama says he loves a good pig story and so do I.

I worked on the old Railroad for 30 some years and one early morning at around 4am in the switch shanty the conversation went like this: Teddy C. my engineer says:

“Do any of you smart Rails know anything about castrating pigs?”

Another Railroad Tale: Bo Bo and the chickens

A real character on the Railroad was nicknamed Bo Bo or Bo. I made many trips with him and still appreciate what I learned from him. He was a tall, lanky, not an ounce of fat, 6 foot something when he straightened up cowboy who happened to be a “Rail”. He was a class A #1 engineer and a B.S. er. One morning when we were eating in the Greasy Spoon Bo was telling a Tale. We were all listening intently as well as 2 young waitresses who stood by the table. Beside being a “Rail” and a cowboy, he was a hunter, and an outfitter who took other hunters or Dudes into the...

Finding Friends

You never know when or where you will meet good friends. I went to Overland Park, Kansas years ago for the Railroad to be re-certified on my engineers license. I didn’t know anyone in my class because my two engineer friends from home were in a different class. The first day of class the instructor spent some time introducing himself and then went around the room to ask everyone to tell the class their name and a little about themselves. When he came to my classmate who soon became my friend the instructor asked him the general questions. My friend said he was on the Railroad for a...

Old Hogheads {Engineers to you Flatlanders}

I was always fascinated by the old Engineers when I was a young brakeman on the Railroad. There were some real characters. One in particular was very hard of hearing I’m the same way now. As I think about it I don’t know if he was that hard of hearing because if you dropped a 50 cent piece on the floor he sure as hell could hear that. Maybe just tired of talking to young brakemen, a real possibility. He was also very negative in all that you could bring up to talk about. One day we got on the train in Glasgow heading West. The wind was really howling, so just for something to say...

A Heady Railroad Tale

When I was a young brakeman on the Railroad I was with my good buddy Kenny C. the engineer. We were out of Glasgow, Montana heading West toward home when the Train Dispatcher called and said to stop the train and inspect the 4 Locomotives that we had on the train that day. He was very specific to look very carefully underneath the engines/locomotives. He did not explain why we were stopped out in the middle of nowhere looking for what we didn’t know. We did as we were told and called him back on the radio and told him we had inspected the locomotives and found nothing. He told us it...