Oral History Program Angus Hansen Interviewed by Mary Werner 06 July 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Angus Hansen Interviewed by Mary Werner 06 July 1973 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hansen, Angus, an oral history by Mary Werner, 06 July 1973, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Angus Hansen. The interview was conducted on July 6, 1973, by Mary Werner, in the home of the interviewee. Mr. Hansen discusses his life and experiences during his career on the railroad. MW: This is an interview of Angus Hansen by Mary Werner for the Oral History Project at Weber State College on July 6, 1973. We are at Mr. Hansen's home, 5100 S 1050 W, Ogden, Utah. The time is 10:00 AM. Mr. Hansen, could you tell me just a little bit about yourself, your early life, where you were born? AH: I was born about twelve miles west of Ogden out at Warren. I was born and raised on a farm until I was married and then we moved to town. It was about right after we moved to town a few years, I spent two years with the PFE (Pacific Fruit Express) Company as an iceman, and then I went to work for the Union Pacific and spent the rest of my working time there. MW: What exactly did you do while working for the railroad? AH: Well, I started actually as a laborer at the Union Pacific, and then from there I worked as a carman helper and then went up to a carman and welder. MW: What exactly did you do as a welder? AH: Well, nearly anything and everything that had to do with fastening cars or freight cars, anything between drawbar yolks to anything that weald break on a lot of things. Of course, some things on safety appliances we weren't allowed to weld, but on other things and on almost anything and everything on other than safety appliances we were allowed to weld, and I have welded these and besides a lot of other things we have built 1 there at the shops for the workmen to use at the shops. A few years before I got hurt, we built tanks for what they call the lubricating pads for the wheels. These were to lubricate the bearings on the wheels. Of course, now they have gone mostly to roller bearings which they don't use so much anymore. Before they always used what they called waste. It was more like strings that were soaked in oil to keep the bearings lubricated. Well, there are some things I shouldn't have done because against the safety appliances, but I was told to do them by the foreman and so you did them. I remember one time years ago during the war we couldn't get the materials for what we used to call spring pipes in the outside frames of the trucks. We would have them break a lot of times and had them come in with broken spring pipes and couldn't get them replaced so we would just have to weld them and patch them. One welding instructor came and he caught me doing one of these and asked me who told me to do it. I said, "Well, what do you do when you haven't got anything to replace it? The foreman told me to do it, and you've got nothing to replace it." We had to move the car so it had to be done and this happens sometimes and we have had to actually build something for the car to get it to move and to get it on to its destination. MW: About how many years were you employed in Ogden? AH: Well, I spent two summers, I should say, with the Pacific Fruit Express, and then 32 years with the Union Pacific Railroad. MW: That's quite a while. AH: Yes, that's quite a while. MW: Did you work on steam engines? 2 AH: No, I wasn't around in the roundhouse. Most of my work was on freight cars and passenger cars. The differential in what you worked, a machinist or oil maker, things like that, worked on the steam engines and of course carmen that were classified worked on the cars, the freight cars and the passenger cars, and anything of this type. I was on the wrecking outfit for a number of years, in fact I was on the wrecking outfit when the two streamliners where one ran into the back end of the other up on the Wyoming-Utah border. MW: When was that? AH: That was in, I can't remember the date now, what year it was… It was about 1951. Yeah, I believe it was 1951 because we were up there for ten days and they sent part of us home. We had the week pretty well cleaned up, so that traffic was running good then anyway, and we came home Thanksgiving Eve. Yeah, that was one of the nastiest wrecks I have ever been working on. There was so many people killed, and they were having a real bad snow storm that morning and those trains were running about 10 minutes apart out of Ogden going East, the City of Los Angles and the City of San Francisco, and they came from Los Angeles. They had a doctor’s convention at Los Angeles and there were a lot of doctors and doctor’s wives on this streamliner. They had to stop up here because the freight train had a hot box and they had to stop and couldn't get into the siding where the first streamliner stopped, and the other one was coming too fast. It was traveling about between 75 and 80 miles an hour and when they saw the other one stopped in the snow storm, they didn't slow down and went right through the first two back cars of the head streamliner, and I forget how many got killed in that wreck. I know when we got up there it was one mess, I'll tell you. In fact a time or 3 two it made you sick at the things that you would see, because of the fact that people were pretty well busted up. It took us a good 10 days to clean it up, and we were working around the clock, 24 hours a day. MW: Then they don't allow you to come home when you're working like that? AH: No, we were right there for 10 days, although the wrecker has some sleeping cars, and we were allowed a few hours’ sleep, what we could get and of course they fed us, and we stayed right there until things were cleaned up. In fact after we got up there, we moved some of the cars. There was one doctor that they couldn't find and so we finally got one of the cars, in fact it was derailed, and then we started with the bulldozer and cut a narrow strip along the dirt, we piled the dirt up until the cars were hitting the dirt, you know along a side of the tracks. About the third cut we made; it fell away from this doctors back. He was completely buried under the dirt and train somehow, and out of the car, and he was completely buried in the dirt. There were more pleasant things. A lot of times that some wrecks went along and nobody was killed or anything, and this was mostly freight wrecks. It was more or less all kinds of breaks to get away from our regular work here from the shops. It gave us a chance to get away from that, and it was a break and naturally it made a little more money for us. I remember we went up to McCammon, Idaho and on the way up there the wrecker itself, it is a huge crane, had a hot box on one of the wheels and bearings. We had a heck of a time jacking that up and changing the brass bearing on it. We had to change that out and put a new one on it, and then take it slow for about 20 miles to get it running and oiling like should. These things have always been sometimes some funny sights. There was one time that up to Wasatch, or just this side of Wasatch, they derailed three cars. We went up and picked 4 one up and got it on the track. The man in charge wanted to move it so we could get the others. He was going to take it down and strip the brake ring off so it would have no brakes at all and so you couldn't stop it, just had to hold it with a wrecker or block the wheels or something, and work on it. I asked the man in charge, "Why don't you take that uphill instead of taking it down, and then you have got a hold of it." "Oh,” he says, “We'll just take it a little ways and get it out of the way." The men were using some pieces of wood, some heavy pretty good sized pieces of wood to block the wheels. They got going too fast and they couldn't stop from going down the grade for about 1/4 mile and it derailed. We had one track below us and it derailed again and the freight train was coming up that. We had to get in the clear for it, and if you don't think there was hurried men to get that car moved over so that it would be clear of the track after it had derailed again and went over on its side. Then we had to move it over further and then clear the trucks off the track to get it clear for the freight train coming up. I was afraid it was going to go right down and smack into the diesel that was coming up. MW: About how many do you think that you cleared off during your wrecking experience? AH: Oh gosh, I don't know. We were on maybe some one car and anywheres from there to fifteen or twenty. MW: Was there more of freight? AH: Yes, more for freight. In fact, there was only the one passenger train that derailed and that was the streamliner wreck. MW: I was wondering why the truckers play up the passenger wrecks so much. When I was doing my research for this topic, I noticed that a lot of the anti-railroad stuff was written 5 by the Truckers Association, and they talked about the crossings and how dangerous they were and how many derailments there are all the time. They used statistics and stuff like that all the time. AH: Well, of course, there are a lot of crossings that should have been improved a long time ago. But the truckers, I think that there is a selfish motive there myself, because actually if the truckers got the freight business of the railroad you wouldn't be able to move on the highway. There would be so many trucks on the highway to move all the freight. MW: You know, I often see trucks piggy backing, I think they call it. How many trucks would it take exactly to put them on the road? AH: You just couldn't get enough drivers to move them. Then again you get so much heavy, actually the railroad handles so much of the heavy freight. The big articles that would be too heavy to handle on the highway. It would tear up the highways so fast they couldn't keep them repaired. MW: Then you think this propaganda is part of the competition? AH: It is, and if the truckers were after the lighter, what should I say, the lighter loads that weren't so bulky and lighter so that they could move them faster because of the fact that there is a load limit on a lot of highways. Of course, there is a load limit that the trucks can haul, and so the railroad takes a lot of this Stuff now. Huge transformers and lots of things like this, these trucks couldn't begin to handle. You take coal, trucks would have an awful time. A few years back you couldn't have moved the goal to the north into Idaho and Montana, I think, it was a matter of the truckers trying to get business and to take it away from the railroad, actually. There again, I think, that right now this pollution 6 problem, that they are talking so much about, the air pollution they say that automobiles pollute the air. If they would put in a good travel and passenger service, they could move people so much less pollution and a lot of less fuel. If you take these diesels on a passenger train and figure the people that would ride in the cars, and you could get so many more miles per gallon of fuel used that there is just no comparison. You take just the highway trucks riding down the highway they take the outside lane and go slow, of course above the minimum speed limit on the freeway. Notice how many cars have just one or two people in them, and I think this is the thing the government is stressing because of the fact that they should push this. I think they should subsidize more of the Amtrak that is now passenger service and get more people to ride it. I would ride that train more if I was going from here to Los Angeles. I'd sooner ride a train than to drive my own car, because I could sit back and relax and when I get there I am rested. It takes that freeway driving strain off of yourself. MW: Then why are so many trains being discontinued? AH: Well, I think this again is that the passenger business got to the point where it wasn't actually paying for the railroad for what they were moving. I think now that, like I say with the fuel crises and fuel shortage and the pollution and all this environmental deal, that it has got the people more conscious. I think, that more people would ride the train than they would otherwise if it wasn't for the shortage, I talked to a lot of people and they tell me they wish they had the train again, and I know they would much rather ride the train. They will not ride a plane, they just will not ride a plane or a bus. They say they would like to have the train so they could ride the train if possible and a lot of people that won't drive and don't have automobiles have to go by bus. I think, there's a 7 lot to be said, not because of the fact that I'm a former railroader, but because I think there is a lot to be said for the passenger train service. If there was passenger train service and keep it like it used to be, they were courteous and they kept the cars in good condition and men on there would make it their business to be courteous to the travelers, I think we could get the modern passenger service back. I can't help but feel, that is my feelings anyway. MW: Do you think that Amtrak will have a future? AH: Yes I do. I think so. In fact, I was reading an article the other day where Amtrak, if I remember correctly, in the Eastern part of the United States it has picked up 8 or 10% of the passenger service since over a year ago at this time. So I think that Amtrak has got a future. There again, another thing that enters my mind, if we got into another war, of course it is a lot different now I admit with the atomic field and everything else, but if we were in a war and if they had to move a lot of personnel from one course to the other or something else, do they realize how many planes it would take to move the personnel in comparison to it being faster to do it by plane. Trains would be, in my way of thinking, necessary. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong on this, but it looks to me that they have got to do something because the railroad, or a lot of them, is in trouble. Of course, a lot of them have brought the trouble on themselves, but I think that they should do something to protect the railroad and keep them operating so that they can have a good form of transportation that not only moves personnel, but the products and manufacturing and factory goods. There is a lot of stuff that the planes are just not big enough to handle, and they can't move them on the highways, but the railroad can't just operate on the great huge stuff, they have got to move other things too to make it 8 profitable for them. I think the government should think about some of these things. Sometimes I read the articles and I think the senators and congressmen, the whole works back there in Washington, don't realize what the situation is with the railroads and how necessary they are to the country. If they had to move fresh produce from the West Coast to the Florida area from in the early spring, of course, they move a lot of that stuff I'll admit, like strawberries and real high perishable stuff, but say lettuce and carrots and this kind of stuff, they couldn't get it loaded and unloaded fast enough if they used anything else besides the trains. MW: It seems like the only time the government is really concerned about the trains is when they go on strike. AH: Yea, that's right. There again it seems like it's the workers they're after. Of course, I think sometimes they are a little uneasy about some other things, I really do, I think the congressmen and senators should take a long hard look at this railroad situation. I do believe that Amtrak has a future if they will upgrade it and show them good travel service and good cars so that people enjoy riding on them. I always have enjoyed riding a train. I have taken my family to the West Coast several times, and also clear to the East. The three girls, the boy wouldn't go, he was a little older and he didn't think he wanted to go off with dad and mother. We took them and went up by Niagara Falls and on down the coast to Virginia Beach and all through that country. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed traveling by train in that day and age. The persons on the train, the conductor and all, were real courteous and real nice. I can think of other places where they weren't though. We were going from here to Los Angeles. Riding on the train one day we got in Las Vegas and not too many years before they cut off the passenger train to Los Angeles, 9 and a lady got on at Las Vegas. She was going to Los Angeles and the conductor came to pick up our tickets and he was absolutely rude to that poor lady. He said, "You've got no business on this train." "You should have taken the such and such train." "Well, she said, They let me get on and told me this was the one to take," She was from England, and by the way, she said, "If they ran as filthy a car there as you've got here, they’d shut you down." The cars were filthy and dirty and weren't kept up. Things like this, and where the cars were getting run down and dirty and filthy discouraged people who traveled in trains. I thought the conductor was very rude, in fact I know he was, and that lady was really upset. What difference would it make whether she rode that train or the one later? That was the one she wanted to ride, there was room on it, so why should he make such a fuss about her riding it? On the other hand, on this trip we went back to the East Coast by way of Niagara Falls, and we took the old Michigan and Central line and that belonged to the New York Central Railroad. We went on this trip to Chicago, and went under the river there in Chicago and into Canada and over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, We had to take a bus from there across to Buffalo and New York, That train was one of the nicest trains I believe I ever rode in. It was just like sitting in our front room. The coach was beautiful, and the road bed was just as smooth as anything you would ever want to ride on. A person would have to ride that train to realize how well they took care of the road bed to keep it so smooth, and how immaculate it was. The conductors and everyone was so nice. They couldn't do enough for you. This is what makes a train ride so enjoyable, MW: So you think it was just that certain railroad? 10 AH: Well, this is one of the best ones, I have ridden others that have been real nice. Then on the other hand, we started down the coast from Baltimore and took the Baltimore and the Ohio or one of them anyway. But again you've got some poor trains, some poor service, and real poor cars and there's nothing nice about them at all. Of course, I've traveled Union Pacific an awful lot, they always had if you wanted to smoke you went to the lounge, the ladies or men’s lounge. This was always nice because I don't smoke and my wife can't stand cigarette smoke. It just cuts her right down until she can't breathe. Those trains back in the East, I believe you could just smoke anywheres, that didn't matter. I think the environmental groups should have gotten on those trains. That train was just the exact opposite to what we had ridden on across the country. It was one of the nicest. I still think that Amtrak has got a future if they will handle it properly. The rest of the railroad, I agree, they weren't making their money off from the passenger travel, because of the fact that they had downgraded their passenger service. Of course, people just didn't want to ride then. They were also making more money, and they could use the power on their freight cars and freight trains and make more money than they did on their passenger service, and I think that this is what they were after. Naturally anybody knows that big business is only after money. MW: They probably would require less personnel too, wouldn't it? AH: That's right. There would be less personnel. The conductor and brakeman, all they would have to do is sit there and see if things were running right. If there was a hot box or anything like this on the freight train, why naturally they would have to get out. One of the brakemen would have to go along with him to help him get tickets and check them 11 off and then call the stations so that they would know where he was at, and where they had to get off. MW: Then you have to feed and take care of the people too. AH: Uh Huh. We had quite a unique experience in World War II. My middle daughter, I believe it was the middle one. She was about three or four, I guess. Anyway we took the Southern Pacific train and went down to San Francisco and then on down the coast to Los Angeles. The porter we had on this car to Los Angeles was, well he was just exceptionally good. He took a liking to these kids of ours, especially this baby of ours, this girl, well she wasn't a baby; she was young. Well anyway, he took a liking to her, and so we told him where we were going. We stopped over in San Francisco for 4 or 5 days because I had a sister there, and then we went down to Los Angeles. We stopped there and she lived at Palmdale. They kept the train there and we had to go to Lancaster. We went on the train up to Lancaster) and we got on the train and went in and got a seat and sat down, and I'll be doggone, it was the same porter that we had coming from San Francisco, Well, the girl was asleep, it was late at night and when he saw who it was he wouldn't give up until he woke that girl up. We had him all the way back to San Francisco, He was real good, and it was real nice to have that kind of a person there to help. He was just an exceptional fellow. We usually had good porters on the trains. This was quite an experience though to catch the same porter out of Lancaster that we had from Ogden. He said when he left here that he was going clear to Chicago. He had quite a ride. MW: I wonder if you could tell me a little about the changes that you have noticed in the Ogden life and when you were there. 12 AH: Oh gosh, well of course when I started there, it had a real good business. There were trains in and out of there all the time. We had an awful lot of repair work on the cars and on the track. Any time you would go down to the depot you would always see people down there buying tickets or waiting for trains. There was always a crowd in the depot. Always there would be just one train after another, and especially during the war. You couldn't go down to the depot without either passing a train leaving or a train coming, passenger or troop. They were in and out continually. Of course, then too, this was a Class I inspection, I mean they inspect the train for any defects in the cars or anything that is going bad or anything. They would cut them out and do repair work. But now, the SP has made a direct connection with the D and RG, and a lot of other trains pull right around and they just have a roll by inspection. They just roll them by and take them right on through, in fact, they don't even holler anymore. Cabooses go right on through, their engines go right on through and the same with the Union Pacific. What they do is, the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, run the whole lot of it right on through and all they do is maybe fuel some of them here. Of course, if anything goes wrong with it, they cut them out here, and work on them here and make repairs here. In Ogden here, well maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think the Ogden Chamber of Commerce a number of years ago was very much asleep, because they had a place all surveyed here in Ogden for this diesel shop. They were going to build it here. This would have been a big Union Pacific diesel shop, instead of that it went to Salt Lake City. I think Mr. Werner would back me up on that. I think one of the big faults was the Ogden Chamber of Commerce right here behind this. Now there are no major repairs done here, and the braker car repairs are getting the same way. There is no repair work done here anymore, like it 13 used to be, we would have anywheres from 100 to 150 men on the repair track, and now we have about 35. And that is the thing that they let get away from here and go to Salt Lake, where to my way of looking at it, Ogden would have been a much better point than in Salt Lake. But Salt Lake was on the ball with the Union Pacific and got them to bring their shops down there. The overall railroad, as far as Ogden is concerned, I think as a railroad center anymore is just about nill, because there are very few people that work for the railroad here. All they get is switch engines and they have two or three switch engines to local switches, like the flour mills and grain mills and a lumber yard or two, and things of this kind is about all they cut out here anymore. They built that big place there and cemented it and black topped it for unloading their automobiles, passenger car automobiles, and trucks. They have their spur line running there so that they could have two places where they could unload the cars and now they never do, they unload them in Salt Lake City. This is something else they have let slip away. I don't know all of the inside stuff, but I think that they have let a lot of this get away from them. They haven't been on the ball enough to keep it here. The same with the piggy back service; the ones we were talking about with the big trucks that they back onto the flat cars and back them down and just take them right on through. This has been a big help to the railroad, this piggy back deal, because they can load a truck out there on the West Coast, or a refrigerator truck and take it right through to Chicago, then they could unload it off of there and hook it onto a tractor and take it ' right to the produce plant that they were supposed to go to and put some of it right there. They would not have to unload it down to the freight yard, from the freight car into a truck and then into a warehouse to distribute it to the people. So it was much faster this way and it's a great 14 help for it to come a long way. There again, it's faster transportation; the same as the containerized shipments and the overseas shipments from Japan. A lot of the stuff is in huge boxes and they pick up and load right there on the flat car brought right through and then put them on a flatbed truck. This was much faster than both loading you might say into a ship and then have to move it or reload it, and there has been a lot of business like that. I really believe that Ogden is just about lost its railroads, I think, perhaps for a long while yet there will only be a minor force working here, the three of them; the D and RG, UP and SP. But I don't think it will ever be a big thing again. MW: What do you think they will do with all those tracks and all those buildings I recently went down to the railroad and several buildings had been torn down including Mr. Werner's shop? AH: Yep, of course, the roundhouse is gone and the department is closed up. They have a small department there, but they do not even have a store keeper now. The general shop foreman handles all that, as well as the big car inspection out in the yard and the repair and all that. They used to have a general foreman out in the yards and a general foreman on the repair track, and they had a foreman for each shift out in the yard and also the repair track. Well, they do have one foreman on the repair track, and I think there is only about one foreman on each shift out in the yard, but I'm not sure of this. That's what they cut down on. They cut down, or tore down the freight yard. I mean the buildings over here, the buildings that held the freight on Wall Avenue right along between 23rd Street and the depot. They gave the mail to the trucks, and took it away from the railroads, that was always shipped on the passenger trains. The government went wrong because of the fact of giving it to the truckers and taking it away from the 15 railroad. It cut down the passenger train service because it was some revenue that would help the passenger service. Of course, down where the bare track is, they still have their same building and they still have their overhead crane. There were rumors of pulling their overhead crane down and shipping it somewhere else, but as yet it hasn't been done, I don't know, I haven't heard anything lately, I haven't been down there for quite a long time, but that was a rumor here a year or two back, MW: Now, we have talked about what the railroad is now, can we talk about what the railroad used to be when it was at its peak, when you were there? AH: At the time I worked there it was actually the peak during World War II. Well, they had freight and passenger train service. I don't think you could go down to the depot anytime, night or day, that you didn't find that depot full of people wanting to ride the trains. Of course, during the war there was a restriction put on travel to a certain extent, because they didn't have enough passenger trains to handle the service or military personnel. We wanted to go down to San Francisco, and I had quite a time getting on the train. Going down to San Francisco, it was a great deal the same way. We went down the coast) and with me working on the railroad I knew a few of the people, I got ahold of a redcap there at the Thompson Station and told him I wanted to go and for him to try and get us on the train. Of course, there again money talks, so I had a silver dollar in my pocket, and I just picked that out and flipped it to him and he caught it and said, "You wait right here I'll be just a few minutes with your luggage and then I'll get you on the train," So about in ten minutes he came back and he said, "Come on and follow me." But he didn't take us through the depot. We went clear down to the other end and through the gate and on out into the yard, and then we went clear down out and around 16 and he put us on a car just as they had made the train up. They hadn't opened the gate to the other passengers at all. Well, we had our seats and there were no questions. Like I say, a lot of people had to stand up because there wasn't seats. They had to either stand up or else not ride on the train. MW: There's quite a lot of difference now, huh? AH: It was an awful difference and even during then in the peak time, of course the freight was real heavy and our freight trains had an awful lot of repair work. Well, there wasn't a time when there wasn't four or five tracks, well four mostly, that we used for repair work. You would never find any time that there wasn't three out of those four that were full of bad ordered cars that needed repair. Of course, then again there was what they call coupling cars, cleaning and getting them ready for loading. Like high class loading for sugar and flour and things of this kind, the car had to be really clean and we had a wash track there and a clean out track. It would clean out any debris that was in the car, paper and anything else that was in there. Then the inside of the cars would be all washed, cleaned, and dried before they were sent over to be loaded with flour or sugar or high commodity stuff. Then we had about 150 men working on repair track. They were working three shifts around the clock. But, when it got real heavy there, they cut two shifts and made two shifts out of it, two ten hour shifts. If you worked then, it was for twelve to sixteen hours, because you never would get away with eight or ten hours. It was always overtime. You could work all the overtime you could stand. Even with the men they had, you were always working overtime, seven days a week, to try to keep food and stuff prepared and things a going. But I remember one time down to the track the general foreman came out to me and a partner I was-working with, and told us, "I 17 got an engine just bringing it in." "They got it hooked on and it's a car with medical supplies and it has got to make this train." He said he wanted it right now. I asked him “What's the matter with it?” He said, "It's a pair of wheels, you've got to change a pair of wheels." So he said “Get your stuff right here and as soon as we bring it in, you guys get it done.” And of course, we had an air jack to jack one end of the car up, change the pair of wheels, and put it all back together and get it right exactly where we wanted it. We jacked that car up and we changed the pair of wheels and put everything back together. Another guy was there on the air. We always had to treat the air brakes after we had changed the pair of wheels or anything like this. Well, in fact, all the cars that came on the repair tracks were supposed to have the air tested on them to see if the air brakes were working properly. We had the air charts which were against the safety rules. So we changed the pair of wheels anyway, and he checked for 10 pounds to see if it worked all right, and yes it worked all right. The general foreman stood right there and when we got through he said, "Do you guys know how long you've been on that car?" We said, "No, we didn't." He said, "Would you believe 16 minutes?" MW: You really were motivated, AH: I and a partner worked together, and we knew exactly what everyone was going to do and we did work and work fast when he told us, "We've got to make this train, we're holding the train for it, and it's got to go. It is full of medical supplies and we've got to have them," So we did, we went back to work, we didn't lose any time. I don't think anybody has ever changed a pair any faster, not on that type of track. He said it was just 16 minutes from the time it had been cut off until we wheeled it back into the other cars. He was a pretty good guy. He told us after we got through, this was just at noon, 18 that we didn't even have our lunch. He said, "You guys can eat your lunch over there on the six rail." "There' a refrigerator car over there and there's some repair work on the inside of that car to be done. This was in the summer time and it was hot. He said, "You guys go over there after you eat your lunch and see what you can do inside there. So after we ate our lunch, we went over there and opened the car and went inside. There wasn't a thing in there that needed to be done. There wasn't an ounce of repair work. But this was his way of giving us a little break for us working and getting a car off for him, which was real good. He was wonderful, and if you did him a job like this, then he would show his appreciation some way, somehow. So I will say even then it was an awful lot of work, but he did give us a break that afternoon for a couple of hours. It was nice and cool in that refrigerator car, and it was a break to get out of that hot sun. It was really a change to go down there now, in fact, I would hate to be working down there now, to tell you the truth, because of the way," and well I got so even before I got my back broke, MW: What happened on that? AH: Well, nearly all of them were out there to the east yards, what they call the east yards. They had taken an old baggage car, now this is a baggage car with a rounding roof. They still had the running board through the top but they had stripped everything off of it, the running board and the side ladders and everything of this kind, and taken the tracks out from under it. They had loaded it on one of these piggy back cars that they haul trucks on, you know, like a used parking lot. But they had loaded it on that, and the day before this we had gone out with the wrecker crane to take it off out there at the east yard. I don't know where it is now. We were all hooked on to it. I had. taken the 19 cables, of course they had cables down so it wouldn't shift moving, and the general foreman said, "No, let's take it back to the shop and unload it with the overhead crane and put it on a pair of tracks and bring it out and then we will jack it off of the tracks." Well, this I thought was a little bit stupid because we were right there with the train ready to move it. So the next morning, on the 10th of October, and it was real cold that night and the next morning there was about a quarter of an inch of frost on that old metal car. It was all metal and in order to get the hooks off the overhead crane, I went up on top of this and kicked the hooks off. As the hooks dropped, I guess they hit the side of the car and shook it or rocked it or something. Anyway, my feet came out from under me and I went over the top of that car and. went right down to the concrete, I didn't have a chance, there wasn't a thing to grab, I tried to grab the one cable with my fingers, but as I reached for it, I was just too far away. One other fellow went up with me to help me and he grabbed me, but it was a good thing he didn't catch me because I would have taken him with me too. He missed me and it was about a 25 foot fall to the concrete, MW: Boy, you are lucky! AH: Yeah, that's true, but I did spend 18 days in the hospital and that was in intensive care. In fact, a nurse told me after I started coming out of it the day before they took me back out of intensive care to take me back down to the other ward, she said, "When they brought you up here, I wouldn't have given $.05 for you." So that was how close they figured I was gone. But I think I am real fortunate to be able to come out of it like I had. That was the end of my railroading there. But there was an awful change, I think, even in the foremen down there, the attitude of the foremen, and the attitude of the workers. It 20 used to be that, well for years when I worked down there, I rather enjoyed going to work. I didn't mind working down there, and of course, you have your off days and sometimes you get in little disputes or arguments with the foremen. Sometimes you don't like what you do and sometimes you don't like what he does. But even at that, I didn't mind going to work. However, the last number of years that I worked down there, I got to the point where I hated to get up and go to work because of the change in the feelings between the management and the workers. They got so that it didn't matter how you did the job just so you got the car out and got it going. Before that they wanted the job done and it had to be done and done right. But it seemed like that the last little while they didn't care if it was a job, a good job, sloppy job, or done right. And this kind of got under my skin because I had always been taught to do a job and do a job right. Well, I don't know, but it’s been an awful big change or transition from when I first started down there. The railroad has just deteriorated down there. Well, I'll tell you even when I was down there, it's been a few months ago and I was told then. I had a foreman, he said, "Think yourself lucky." "You're out of it." "I just wish I could get out." "I am looking forward for the day when I can get away from here." MW: Do you think it's that way down in Salt Lake, too? AH: I don't know, I've often wondered. I put in about three months in Salt Lake and I've wondered if it is that way in Salt Lake. I haven't ever gone back there to the shops to talk to any of the guys that I knew to see if they are still down there or not. I often wonder if it's the same way there as it is here or whether it's just here in Ogden, MW: You kind of wonder if it's just local, don't you? 21 AH: You do, yes. I've wondered that and I've thought about it and I’ve wondered if perhaps maybe it's just local. Maybe it isn't, I don't know. But the general foreman told me himself, "I just can't wait." "It's not good, this feeling, and I think a person should have a little sense of responsibility to the company he is working for and should feel good about his job." But very few, if any here that I have talked to have this feeling anymore. It used to be, a friend of mine, he retired, in fact he retired before I did, he got hurt. It didn't seem too much at the time. He was up at Coalville, there was a 'wreck on the cable, the hook broke picking up some car loads of ore, and it had a terrific strain on it. When the hook broke, it threw him back against the boiler. It did hurt him, but we didn't think too much of it at the time. Instead of him reporting it, he didn't do it, and this has been causing him some trouble, and I'm sure this is what is causing all his trouble now. There is nothing he can do about it because he thought, "Ah, it's nothing." Well, he went right back to work, sure which was all right at the time, but it showed up later. MW: So the railroad won't give him any compensation now? AH: No, he didn't report anything and he's got nothing to back up his statement, about how he got hurt. The foreman there at the job at the time, he's dead and gone now. He was on the job and actually none of the rest of us were up in the cab to see it, only one other and he evidently won't say anything. We talked to him, and he wouldn't; he felt a responsibility to the company, and he felt that he was all right, and it didn't amount to anything so he didn't even report it and then it came up later, I don't know, anymore, seems like the people, most of the men that I talk to just don't have the feeling for their company like they should have for a company and put out good work. But it has been an awful change, oh, the last 15 years. The way I think the company, the railroad is, 22 well, the controllers and the board of directors and the rest are more concerned, it seems like to me, in the almighty dollar than in keeping a good business running. That's the way it appears to me. The higher-ups are more concerned about this dollar, rather than in keeping a good business and keeping it operating. They feel like that type of job they will put out better work, if they are satisfied. If they feel that they have a responsibility and if they feel a little of the devil, I don't give a damn if it runs or not, just so I get rid of it. That is what I could never see, but... MW: Is Ogden suffering as a city because of the decline of the railroad? AH: Well, it is to a certain extent, yes. I don't think it is severe, I really don't, employment wise. I think Ogden will see suffering to a certain extent, the way they have let the railroad get away from them. I think Ogden could have been a much better place, and have a lot more people working if they went to work after this diesel shop in Salt Lake. If they had the diesel shop here, then there would have been a big car shop here, because that would have been the natural thing to do. Just last summer they built a car shop down there. Well, I haven't seen it, but I have talked to those who have worked on it, and they have quite a building down there. They can work inside where we just had to work outside no matter what kind of weather or anything else, we were out in it. If they had this diesel shop here to start with, well, like I say, they had the ground all surveyed for it and. ready too, you know. But they let it slip away and I'm sure that the car shop would have been a benefit to Ogden, In fact, quite a few people have left Ogden, because they have had to move in order to stay with the railroad. Quite a few went to Salt Lake, some went to Green River, some to Laramie, but they could have had it 23 eventually here, if they had worked on it to make a lot' more jobs. It would have made much more business for Ogden. MW: What exactly do you think the future of the railroad will be? AH: Well, I really believe that, as far as the railroad here in the West, this part of the country, I think the railroads here are going to be quite heavy. Yet, I think that some of the Eastern railroads from what I can read and understand, some of them back there are in trouble. But here, I think, that the hauls are so poor and most of it is lumber and the heavier, bulkier product, which is hard to haul by truck. I think the railroad here had got a good future yet in the Western part of the United States. MW: Do you think this for freight or passenger trains? AH: Freight. I really believe myself, that if Congress can see the thing clear, that passenger train service will grow, I think there is a good potential for passenger trains if they will give good service, have good equipment for the people to ride in, and will make it a most enjoyable, pleasant trip. I think it is very possible that passenger service will increase too, I might be too optimistic on this, but I don't think it will be too awful long until they put the Ogden-Los Angeles run back on, or at least the Salt Lake to Los Angeles run. They might just start out with maybe a few trains a week, I think it will improve and they will be able to make it pay, I might be too optimistic on this, but they can try, MW: Thank you so much for your time. 24