18
interview below, one experienced temporary assesses the situation and repeats what he
said to Boss.
I said, ‘I don’t like trains.’ I said, ‘you get them boys out there that don’t know
how to drive them locos.’ I said, ‘I’d just end up switchin.’ I said, ‘I don’t like
that, you ain’t gonna kill me.’ I said, ‘you don’t give those guys that you put in
them locos enough training to turn them loose by themselves. You get them just
to the point where they know what to do and then you come put somebody else in
it and then you have them people train them.’ I said, ‘those people you got
training them ain’t got enough sense.’ (laugh) I said, ‘you’ll kill me, I ain’t
workin’ your trains. (laugh) That’s a crazy set up out there, God!’ (laugh)
This situation is a very dangerous one. During the train loading process it is very
common to hear an angry switchman screaming at a locomotive driver over a radio or to
hear the thunder of loaded railcars impacting one another at unusually high speed. On
each locomotive, the seats are broken from the drivers’ body weight being hurled against
the back and neither machine has the original rear view mirrors. Periodically, cars slip
between the rails from hitting other cars too hard or cars tear off the loadout spout
because drivers do not finesse the brakes. When notable accidents happen, MGC’s
managers immediately blame the lowest workers and the permanent crew shakes their
heads in disgust at the situation. Below is a field note of such a notable accident where I
could have easily been killed. I include the reaction from boss and his emotions.
I operated the door opener and since we had two inexperienced men driving, Curt
(an experienced temporary) was the switchman. I could hear Curt over the radio
talking to Albert (a new temporary) who was driving a locomotive and pulling
heavy cars, >>you’ve got six cars<< (“cars” refer to car lengths) (pause a few
seconds) >>You’ve got four cars, you’d better slow down<< (pause) >>You’ve
got two cars Albert stop!<< With each call, Curt was obviously holding the mic
close to his mouth and becoming frantic. We later found that Albert was not
holding the radio close enough to his ear in order to hear it. They did not wreck
into the string being unloaded, but they did hit hard. Curt told me later that he is
frustrated with setting new men out on their own too soon. Albert had 30 minutes
of training before he became able to wreck a train driving the locomotive alone.
Curt pointed out that it was not Albert’s fault. After that I could hear Curt remind
Convention