Oral History Program Thomas Nelson Interviewed by Tom Herman 05 March 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Thomas Nelson Interviewed by Tom Herman 05 March 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: Nelson Thomas, an oral history by Tom Herman, 05 March 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 Thomas Nelson. The interview was conducted on March 5, 1973, by Tom Herman, in the location of 4169 College Drive in Ogden, Utah. Mr. Nelson discusses his personal knowledge, experiences, and career concerning the railroads throughout Utah. TH: Mr. Nelson, what do you first remember about the railroad in Utah when you lived there? TN: It was a narrow-gauged railroad with linking pins. TH: What is a linking pin? TN: It's what connected the cars. There were pins in each car and a bulkhead in each car, and they dropped down. The pins were about a foot long and about three inches wide. TH: Did you ever take the train anyplace from Logan? TN: Yes, I went to Preston and Salt Lake on the train. TH: About how long did it take to go to Salt Lake on the train? TN: Oh, it would take about four hours. TH: And do you remember how much it would cost to go on a train then? TN: It was about three cents a mile. TH: And how old were you when you first went on a train? TN: About eight years old. TH: When did you first start working for the railroad? 1 TN: In 1905. TH: What was your first job, and what kinds of things did you do on that job? TN: I worked on a bridge gang building bridges on the Malad Branch, and we worked all one summer on that job. TH: And that was in 1905? TN: 1905. TH: What kind of bridge was that, and what was it made of? TN: It was made out of wood, wood piling and wood. TH: Was it across a river, or what? TN: Most of it was across crossings. Where you had irrigation ditches and things like that, or a creek or something, you had to build a bridge and you used stringers. TH: What's a stringer? TN: It's a piece of wood about eight inches wide and 16 inches deep, and 12 feet long, when they were used on small places. On all crossings, they had to have them. TH: About how long did it take to build one of these bridges? TN: Oh, it would take about a couple of days, two or three days to build one, according to how big the bridge was. TH: About how many did you build on the Malad run? TN: Well, on every crossing we had to build these bridges for crossing so that cattle couldn't get in there. There weren't many crossings. A crossing would be about a mile apart. 2 TH: About how many men were on a gang? TN: Twelve men. TH: Did you have a foreman? TN: We had a foreman and a timekeeper. TH: What did the timekeeper do? TN: He kept time and checked up and made out distributions of what you were working on. TH: How much were you paid? TN: Thirty-five cents per hour. TH: Did you work an eight-hour day? TN: We worked a 10-hour day. TH: Five or six days a week? TN: Five or six days a week. TH: What kinds of problems did you come across when you were building a bridge? TN: We didn't have many problems there because they weren't running trains there when we were building these bridges. We were building these bridges before they opened the road, and so we didn't have any problems. TH: How long a run was that between Logan and Malad? TN: Well, it wasn't from Logan. It was from Brigham City to Malad. TH: And that was in what year? TN: 1905. 3 TH: You worked all year on that? TN: We worked all that winter and spent winter in Malad. TH: Where did you live during this time? TN: We lived in these cars, in these railroad cars which they furnished the men that worked. They had no place to live. They had to live in these cars. TH: What were they like? TN: Well, they were boxcars fixed up for bunks, what were called bunk cars. They have stoves in them and bunks. You could put six or eight men in a car. TH: Would they bring the boxcars out there and leave them? TN: We moved the boxcars with us all the time where the railroad was running. But when we were working there at the last, we boarded up a farmhouse up there. TH: In Malad? TN: No, between Malad and Brigham. TH: All 12 of you? TN: Yes, she boarded the whole bunch of us. TH: Did the railroad pay for that? TN: No, we paid for it: 25 cents a meal. TH: What kind of food did you have? TN: Very good food. TH: Like what? 4 TN: Oh we had bacon and eggs, and beef and lamb. She was a good cook. Potatoes and all kinds of vegetables. TH: Where did you eat when you were out on the road? TN: We had to go back there to eat. TH: If you didn't have a boarding house, what kind of place would you stay in? TN: We had to come back to the boarding house until we had to move, and we only made two moves before we got to Malad. TH: So, when you went to a new place, you moved into another boarding house? TN: Yes. TH: Were you in a union at that time? TN: No, there was no union. TH: Did you ever belong to a union? TN: Never belonged to a union. TH: There was no railroad union you were in? TN: No. TH: We were talking about the train ride from Logan to Salt Lake City. How long did that take? TN: I think that it took about five hours. TH: Could you eat on the train than? TN: Yes, they had a diner on there. 5 TH: What kind of food did they serve? TN: They served lunches, is all. TH: How often did the train travel from Logan to Salt Lake? TN: Well, it traveled down in the morning and back in the evening. TH: In those early years when you were working for the railroad, what other things besides bridges did you build? TN: Depots. TH: And where were those? TN: In Malad. TH: When was that? TN: 1905. TH: How big a crew worked on that? TN: It was the 12 men we had in the bridge gang. TH: How big was the depot in Malad? TN: Oh, it was a small depot. TH: What was on the inside? TN: There was a ticket office, a waiting room, and a baggage room. TH: Did it have any plumbing? TN: No, no plumbing. TH: How long did it take you to build that depot? 6 TN: Well, let me see. We were about two months building it. TH: Is that building still standing? TN: I think so, yes. TH: This was about 1905, the same year you built the overpasses? TN: We built the railroad into there. We got there in the fall of 1905, and we worked there until spring. TH: What did you do after you finished this run to Malad? TN: Then I went to Minidoka. TH: Is that in Utah? TN: No, that's in Idaho. TH: What did you do there? TN: We built a depot there. TH: When did you next come back to Utah to work? TN: I came back to Utah in 1918. TH: What were you doing then? What was your position then, and your title? TN: I was working as a bridge and building supervisor. TH: Here in Ogden? TN: In Ogden. TH: What were you building at that time? TN: We were building the viaduct. 7 TH: Where was that located? TN: On 24th Street. We weren't building it; we were repairing it. TH: Why did it need to be repaired? TN: Because it was built for just wagons and buggies, and then they started getting trucks in there. And the trucks started hauling from the packing house to Salt Lake, hauling beef and pork and things like that. And they started loading them down until they weighted 50 tons, and they started breaking the stringers. They had wooden stringers, and I went down there to change those wooden stringers and put in steel stringers. TH: Did you have to close the viaduct while you were doing this? TN: We had to close the viaduct while we were doing that. TH: How long did that take? TN: It took us about eight months. TH: That was in the fall? Summer? TN: That was in the spring of 1918. TH: Did you live in boxcars then? TN: No, I lived in a hotel there. TH: Where was the hotel? TN: I was on the Westside at the end of the viaduct. TH: Do you remember the name? 8 TN: No, I don't remember the name of the hotel. They rented rooms and apartments there. We took an apartment there. TH: What did you do when you weren't working during those eight months here in Ogden? TN: All we had was Sunday. We worked every day but Sunday. TH: And slept at night? TN: And slept at night. TH: Was it hard work? TN: Well, it was hard work to change those stringers. TH: Did you have to take down most of the viaduct? TN: We just took parts of it out and put the new stringers in; take out the wood stringers and put the steel stringers in. TH: Did you extend the viaduct? TN: We didn't extend it then. We did later on. TH: When was that? TN: I think it was 1922. We went back and extended the viaduct. TH: Why did you make it longer? TN: They wanted to take in five more tracks. TH: Is that the same size it is today? TN: No, it's been extended since then. TH: Did you work on any of those extensions? 9 TN: No. TH: Did you have anything to do with the building of the depot here in Ogden? TN: I built the passenger foot subway to the passenger trains. I extended that over four tracks, and we built platforms for those four tracks, concrete platforms. Then we put up umbrella shades there to keep the people out of the weather while they were going to and from the cars. TH: What year was that? TN: I think that was in 1924. TH: Prior to that time, before there was a passenger subway, did they just walk straight out? TN: No, they had a little subway. It just went over a few tracks. Then we extended it over four more tracks... TH: Did you ever see a train wreck any place? TN: Yes, I saw several train wrecks. TH: Any here in Utah that you can think of? TN: No, I can't think of any here in Utah. TH: What else did you build in Utah? TN: We built five new stalls in the roundhouse, and we built a turntable to run engines into the roundhouse, and we built a scale pit. TH: What's a scale pit? TN: It's where they weigh cars. 10 TH: Do you remember what year this was? TN: I think that was in 1922. TH: What turned the turntable? Was it steam engine? TN: No, it was a motor, an electric motor. It turned the turntable around. We had to drive pilings for that turntable because right down in the yard there it was so soft and muddy. We drove three 30-foot pilings down there to start before we got it to where it would hold anything. And then we drove pilings in there until we filled it up so it would hold these engines up. Then this scale pit over there, we had to drive pilings in that too, to hold up the pit and the cars being weighed on it. TH: Where were these located? TN: Just west of the depot. TH: Are they standing today? TN: Yes, and the turntable was down at the roundhouse. TH: Where's the roundhouse? TN: It was north of the depot. TH: Very far north? TN: Oh no, a couple of blocks. TH: Did you build any other bridges at this time in other parts of Utah outside of Ogden? TN: No, I didn't. We built a bridge out of Ogden across the Ogden River when they changed the line going from Ogden to Salt Lake. 11 TH: What do you mean, "Changed the line?" TN: Well, they changed the line down there. They had this bridge that was light. I had to drive pilings in the Ogden River and put a new bridge in there. And that was, I think in 1920 or 1922. TH: How did you drive the pilings? TN: With a pile driver, a railroad pile driver that ran on the tracks. TH: How was that powered? TN: It was powered by steam. TH: How long did it take you to drive those piles? TN: Well, it took you about an hour to drive in a pile. TH: How many piles did you drive out on the river? TN: We had two abutments and about 20 piles in each abutment. TH: So about how long did it take to build the bridge? TN: After we drove the pilings, we had to put concrete in there. We cut the pilings down there and poured concrete in there, and then built an abutment on it. Then we put steel girders in there to carry the trains. TH: By this time you weren't building bridges out of wood anymore? TN: No. TH: When did they start changing over from wood to steel? TN: That was around 1925. 12 TH: If you built this bridge out here in 1920 with steel, it was probably before that, wouldn't you say? TN: They must have started before that in other places. But that was when we built this bridge here, in 1924. TH: What did you like best working for the railroad? TN: I liked building bridges. TH: And you built most of your bridges where? In Idaho? TN: I built bridges in California, Southern Utah... TH: Tell me about those bridges in Southern Utah. TN: When they had that flood? TH: Yes. TN: When they had that flood down there in Southern Utah, I think that was in 1936. TH: It washed the bridges out completely? TN: It washed the bridges out completely. TH: About how many? TN: I think about three bridges. TH: Were they large bridges? TN: Pretty good sized bridges. They had to be rebuilt. They the flood J washed the pilings out from under them and washed the abutments out from under them, and they had to be rebuilt. 13 TH: This was the Union Pacific? TN: Yes, this was all the Union Pacific. TH: How long did it take you to rebuild those bridges? TN: Well, we were down there about two years. TH: Building those three bridges? TN: Yes. That was when I was supervisor in 1938. TH: Did it take two years to build three bridges or did you do other things while you were down there? TN: Well, we did a lot of different things there on branch lines out of there. We had to drive some piling. TH: Where did those branch lines go? TN: Oh, they were just out in the country down there. TH: Do you remember about where these three bridges were that washed out? TN: On the main line. TH: Near what cities? Can you remember? TN: West of Cedar City... I can't remember the names of those damn places down there. It was around in the area of that big flood. It was between L. A. and Cedar City. TH: How long was the train held up? TN: Oh it was closed there quite a long time - 18 or 20 days. TH: Did they reroute the trains? 14 TN: They just couldn't run them down there. There was nothing to run them on. TH: They didn't go over to San Francisco and down to LA? TN: I don't know. But that road to LA was closed for 18 or 20 days, I know. TH: How big of a crew did you have by this time down there? TN: Well, we had several crews down there. Crews from LA, from different places down there. TH: Were all of the crews from the Union Pacific? TN: Most of them were Union Pacific crews - from Omaha, and I had one from Pocatello down there. TH: Did those people who went down there for two years take their families? TN: I took my family with me. TH: Did some of the people not take their families? TN: Most of the people took their families down there. TH: Where did you live for those two years? TN: I lived in a hotel. TH: With your family? TN: It was an apartment house. We had an apartment down there. We didn't get in there very often, but that's where my wife stayed. TH: Were you ever involved in any train wrecks? 15 TN: Yes, we were involved in a train wreck up in Idaho, near Dillon. About 20 or 30 cars off the track, turned upside down, turned over. TH: Do you know what year that was? TN: That was in 1940, I think. TH: What did you have to do when there was a train wreck? TN: We had to get the wrecker up there and pick the cars up off the track and put them back on the track, and get them so they could be moved. TH: What did you do if a car went off the track and was really broken up? Did you just leave it, or did you salvage it? TN: We salvaged what we could of it, but when cars go off the track they just tip over, they don't bust up very much because they're pretty well made and steel-framed. You can get hold of them with a wrecker and pick them up and set them right on the track again on their wheels. TH: Were there any accidents here in Utah? TN: No that I remember. I didn't do much down in Utah when I was supervisor. TH: What kinds of provisions did you have building - financial or labor-wise? Did you have any labor problems? TN: We didn't have any labor problems. You could always get all the labor you needed. The financial problem would be the worst. When you worked on the track and had a wreck, you didn't pay much attention to what the financial problem was because you had to get it done anyhow. You didn't have time to get any engineers out there to give you figures 16 on it. I enjoyed working for the railroad very much. My whole life was working on the railroad. TH: When did you retire? TN: I retired in 1955. TH: So you worked for the railroad for 50 years. TN: For 50 years. 17