Oral History Program James Murdock Interviewed by John Thompson 26 June 1974 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah James Murdock Interviewed by John Thompson 26 June 1974 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: Murdock, James, an oral history by John Thompson, 26 June 1974, 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 James Murdock. The interview was conducted on June 26, 1974, by John Thompson. Mr. Murdock discusses his knowledge and personal experience with the railroad system and various trains in Utah during his career. JT: Sir, you started working at the railroad when you were eight or nine years old? JM: About eight or nine years old as a call boy in Evanston. JT: What did a call boy do? JM: Called the engine crews, train crews, deliver messages, and carry the mail. JT: Was this actually on the train, or were you in the station? JM: No, you were in the station there. JT: You weren't on the train? JM: Yes. See, they have call boys here. They got call boys every place. But then, when we went to Granger, when Ma went to Granger to take over the hotel, I carried water in the Granger gravel pit and flag for a necktree gang. Well then when we left... JT: What year was this, sir? About 1890? JM: No, I'd say it was around, oh, in there somewhere. I can't just remember the date. But then we went to Omaha. Pa sold, or Ma sold, the hotel, and we moved to Omaha. And then we, I went to work there in south Omaha for Swifts and Company. JT: Omaha, Nebraska. 1 JM: Yes. Didn't like that, so I had an uncle, was head hog buyer for Swifts, and he got me a job driving cattle from the yards to the plant. They would make about four drives day. Five or six drivers. JT: How far was this? JM: Oh, you'd go down maybe a couple of miles from the yard down the chutes. They'd have to have them down there, you know, for a day or two. Swifts would. I went from that to working for the Holmes and Atkins Transfer Company, just a young punk kid. They did all the Hauling for Armors and Swifts and Cudahy. Then I was driving one of the meat trucks. Of course I didn't do no loading. They'd load. You'd go to Omaha, maybe, to a freight house depot and they'd unload it. All I'd do is just drive, you might say. Well, then a... JT: Excuse me. When you started working at eight or nine years old - was that fairly common? JM: Oh yes, I'll say it was. It was a common practice for the kids to call boy. They only paid $25 a month when you called the crews. And there wasn't no telephones to get them. You had to go to their house. JT: How did you get to their houses? JM: Well, I had a good saddle horse that I... JT: Was it your horse? Or was it a company horse? JM: Yes, mine. I had a good outfit and good saddle horse. Call the crews, I'd deliver the mail to post office, deliver Western Union messages, I don't know what all. Twenty-five dollars a month. 2 JT: Did you like the job? JM: Well, for a kid. That there was big money for then. JT: When did you go to school? JM: I went to school there in Evanston, what schooling we got. Hellfire, they only had about the eighth grade there then. That was about as far as they went. That there was about 70, 80 years ago. That ain't like it is today. A big bus or something picking you up, and hauling you, and giving you your dinner. If you didn't go home for a little bite, you didn't get it. That's the difference that day and age. Well, from that, see, I was driving for Holmes and Atkins. Well, then I went to work for the Pacific Express Company, driving one of the wagons in south Omaha. Well, the Pacific Express is the same as down here, the American Railway Express. All their stuff was handled in one passenger train. Then they sent me from there to Columbus, after this here Christmas rush was over on that. Columbus, I worked on what they called a cream car. Didn't do no work. Get on the local and distribute empty cans going up. Then we'd load. JT: Milk cans? JM: Yes, them big 20-gallon milk cans, creamed. Then, hell, you'd load a carload of that in nothing. And so then where did I go from there? - Oh, back to Omaha. I gathered jobs in the Omaha general shops as a valve setter helper. From there, I went to this general yardmaster about a job tending switches. JT: What year was this? JM: Oh that was about 1904 because I was there in the latter part of 1905. I come to Cheyenne to wait on passengers. Well in the latter part of 1904, Pa got me a job 3 braking on passengers between Cheyenne and Green River. And there wasn't such a thing as seniority at that day and age. If the conductor likes you, you stayed on his crew. So they put me on with an old fellow named Mells, old Billy Mells. And I guess he was 70, 75 years old. And there I am, just a kid about 15 or 16 years old. He liked me, wanted to know how I'd like to stay on there. I said, "Gee, I'd sure love that." He used to come west on #5 and did local work from Cheyenne to Green River on this passenger train, you know. And then we'd go east on #10 the mail express. Green River, Wyoming. There wasn't any other transportation for this money at that day and age. It all went by train. And this train that we'd go east on would be loaded with it. JT: Money from what? - For what? Was it from mining, or the gold, or what? JM: No, transferring from one place to another. All the other gold that was transferred here and there. Money. Everything. There wasn't no airplanes, automobiles, this and that. It all went by train. All this money to these different big banks and everything. And we generally have about four to six guards on that train because if they stopped, everybody was right on the job. That day and age, they was a holding-up such trains as that. They held them up in the Jackson Hole country. JT: Hole-in-the-rock gang? JM: Yes, Jackson. Then everything was on horses. We'd have all these guards with us. Well, I stayed on that until I said, "I'm going back to Grand Island." So I went back to Grand Island, and I went switching there. And then they were short of brakeman and dispatcher, wanted to know if I wouldn't make a trip or two to North Platte. I said, "Sure." So I kind of liked that, and I stayed on it. And then I said, "Why don't I go to Omaha." My old stomping grounds. So I went to Omaha. Then I just go back there and tell them I 4 been working at Grand Island, they'd put you on the board there, see. Then I stayed there until latter 1908. Then I came to Evanston in 1909. My date there was December 8, 1909 as a brakeman. Then they promoted me to a conductor in 1910. JT: That was a promotion from brakeman to conductor? JM: Oh, I'll say it was a promotion. My hellfire. He's a big shot. JT: A brakeman, that's a dangerous job, isn't it? JM: Well, it used to be. No more. JT: Well, when you had it.... JM: Boy, they used to run over these trains like monkeys with a big pick handle. They didn't have the braking power they got today. And they didn't have the equipment they got today. JT: How were conditions? JM: Terrible. JT: For the time, they were terrible? JM: Oh yes. JT: Were there any efforts to make the conditions safer? JM: Sure. The railroad was always after the safety move, the best they could. JT: Did they ever get it? JM: Yes, they've got it down, I'm telling you now, to where they've probably eliminated accidents. Today but then, back there in 1910, we'd pull out a draw bar -that's what 5 couples the cars together, you know - and there'd be end still from here to that truck come out with it, laying in the middle of the track. And you'd have to get down and chain it up. You didn't set it out on the sidetrack. You chained it up and brought it in. JT: Were you ever hurt? Were you ever in an accident? JM: No, I worked for 53 years in the transportation department, and I never had a personal injury. And I'll tell you another thing. I never had one of my men have a personal injury. The president of this railroad, I had about two more weeks to work and I had this car on. I was on the City of Los Angeles then for about, possibly 12-15 years. I had his car on, and I went on back to talk to him and tell him I was quitting in a short time, and he told me, "You know Jim, there ain't a man on this railroad that's got the record that you've got." I never had a major accident pileup. And he said to me, "What I contribute sic that to is, you was always on the job." And I was. When I left this place, there wasn't no brakeman going to get up in the caboose and go to sleep. Then they'd come around this curve, and these train masters and them would be parked on their car maybe and they'd have a flashlight. And if you didn't answer them, they'd have you down to the office. They figured you was asleep. That's the kind of stuff there was then. These brakemen then made $2.30 a hundred... JT: This is about 1911, 1910? JM: Yes, in there. And they make $2.30 a hundred and the conductor made $3.17. Now then, you leave Evanston, he comes to Ogden and he goes back to Evanston - he's made $4.60. They make that much now before they leave the yard, terminal delay. Did you know these here guys make $100 a round trip from here to Green River and back? That's more than a brakeman used to make in a month and a half. Across the street, 6 this kid went out, and we'd say he got called about noon. He was back in about ten o'clock the next morning and had $100 in. JT: What did you do during World War I? Did you stay on with the railroad? JM: Oh yes. I was traveling conductor, and what else did I do? JT: Was the railroad very busy at that time out here? JM: Oh yes. They didn't have the equipment. They didn't have the power like they got todaythe engines. Made me the traveling conductor, that was from Rawlings to Ogden. We was on the road all the time, trying to keep things going, and crews were tied up with 16-hour laws and no power, and no coal at these terminals, and such stuff as that. You know, it was really tough going, I'm telling you. They kept building it up - safety, safety. Building up, more now today. They've eliminated accidents. You take for instance today - now they got hot boxes, hot box detectors now, along the track in different places. And this train with a hundred cars, let's say, goes by that hot box detector, and if there's one of those journals that don't make an imprint on one side or the other, starts to warming up and smokes a little, the hot box detector gets it and Cheyenne's the dispatcher. And he'll tell the operator, the engineer, and the conductor. They both have to stop to get a hot box on so-and -so. Now think of that. Our hot box detector was our nose. And if you happened to burn a journal off, it was about a six month vacation for you. JT: Is that right? JM: That's right. They didn't fool with you at all then. You had to be on the job. Then you had to take a passenger turn, as you worked up to it. So, I got up to it, and I took a 7 passenger job. I was entitled to 21, and 20, 1421. Well then I got on what they called the Challenger. And they had stewardesses on there, trained nurses they were. JT: That was the engine? JM: No, the Union Pacific. There wasn't no business, so Jeffers put this train on, and they named it the Challenger. And they had cheap meals, and breakfast was ham and eggs, all the coffee, toast, 25 cents. And your lunch would be 35 cents. And it wasn't a cheese sandwich. And your dinner would be prime rib of beef, or roast turkey, or fried chicken, 50 cents. I stayed on with that until I could get over on the City of Los Angeles. That was the train. Well, the Challenger was a good train. I was on there about 12 years, I guess. And I've been retired now, let's see, in 1958. So I had been retired better than 16 years. And then I was on that 12 years, 12 years prior to 1958. JT: You got on the City of Los Angeles? JM: Yes, that was the movie queen special. JT: When did you move to Ogden? JM: Oh, after I came here, no Ma. Ma came out long before that. They moved out here then. And me? I stayed there to work, and then I came out in 1908, and hired out in Evanston in... JT: In February of 1923, the depot down there on 24th and 25th Streets burned. Were you here then? What do you remember about that? JM: Oh I remember the place when it burned down. JT: Were you down there by any chance? 8 JM: Well, I might have been in Evanston. But I was always working on this between Evanston and Ogden. JT: What was your reaction when you heard it? JM: Oh, I thought that was terrible because they had a nice cafe in there and a nice dining room. Half of Ogden would go down there for meals on Sundays. They had nice rooms and all that stuff in that depot. Well, that all went up in the air. Then they went on to build a new one. Old Bell, was this old superintendent's name, and he was a proud old rooster over the new depot. Was a nice depot in that day and age. And it's a nice depot right today, too. There's some wonderful work on that. But I'm afraid they're going to give it away. They are every other place. They give away the nicest depot there ever was in the United States, I believe, there in Omaha. They give it to the City of Omaha. That was a beautiful place. JT: You said you've never had an accident, you or your crew. Were you ever involved in another accident, like a train? JM: No, I've never had a personal injury, and I've never had an accident, and I never had a major pile-up. Sometimes I think there was somebody else with me - you know. Besides just my ability to watch that train. Then we'd take on a blinding snowstorm. You might smell something didn't smell just right. Well, you might pull the air on them. See, you got a valve in the caboose. Pull the air on them, and that would get him to stop and go look that train over. You know, and they went so far years ago to detect these hot boxes. When we stopped, you had to go and they had five inspection points on this and between Evanston and Ogden. We had to touch every box to see if it was warm. 9 JT: Five times during the run you had to do this? JM: You had to inspect your train five times. You'd go clear over to the engine. You didn't shortchange them because they'd check on you. And we inspected them at Wasatch, Castle Rock, we stopped there to cool the wheels, Echo, Gateway, Uintah. During the Prohibition days, Evanston was wet - Wyoming. And Utah was dry. And we lived down on 28th Street and Childs. And the old king of the bootlegger's parents lived next door to us. And he used to go down and visit quite a bit, and he wanted to give me 75 cents a trip. He said, "When you're inspecting your train at Wasatch, we'll load it in the caboose, and when you're inspecting the train at Uintah, we'll take it off. You'll never know when it went in and come out. I'll give you 75 cents." And I said, "I don't want it." But there's a lot of other experience in that bootlegging stuff, I'm telling you. It was really terrible in those days. I don't believe there was a man that cleaned up the dough in that bootlegging who's got a dime today. It didn't do them no good, a lot of these conductors. JT: Were you still with the railroad during the Depression in 1930? Were there a lot of layoffs by the railroad then? Could you tell us something about that, please? How were the conditions? What did you do? Were you still the conductor? JM: Oh yes, I was the conductor all the time. And we had to cut our mileage down to 3,200 miles a month. Well, it didn't pay nothing. JT: Who made you cut it down, the railroad? JM: Well, the organization got together to let these men who weren't working a chance to get a trip or two. Then maybe put on two or three more crews or something. And they cut that down. Then we cut it down below that to 2,800 miles. 10 JT: A month? JM: Yes, that's a month. That's be 100 miles a day. And it only paid $6 and something for 100 for a conductor. Well, now another Depression... when I was working out of Omaha, they paid us in script. JT: The oil company paid you in script? JM: Yes, and then in order to get money, you take that script to the bank or some saloon or someplace to cash it, and they charge you 10 percent for cashing the script. See, money was tight then. There wasn't no money. That's the way it was. That's when I was working out of Omaha. That was in 1907. I worked out of Omaha when they built the Lane Cutoff. And we used to talk about that and on the Big Pappy, what we called the Pappy old fill was about a hundred and something feet high, and had a bridge on it. It kept settling. JT: The bridge did? JM: The fill. See, this fill was a hundred and something feet high. Sometimes that'll settle four to six inches onto that big bridge. And that big bridge was a hundred and some feet high. But he was telling me, Killpatrick's had this contract to build that land, and he suggested to the Killpatrick brothers a certain condition, and they took it, and that eliminated that fill from settling. JT: What did he suggest? JM: Oh, he had a way, or something to do with it. Outside of the fill they built some more of whatever it was. But it eliminated that fill from keeping settling. See, when they build a fill with what they call little dinky engines and little cars, they run them out on a trestle 11 and dump them with nothing to pack it, it just has to settle itself. Went from there out here. Been here ever since, 49 years as a conductor out of Evanston. JT: Can you tell us some of the interesting things that happened to you while you were a conductor? What did you do? What was your main job? JM: My main job was this. They'd call you for 2:30, and you had to report at 2:00, 30 minutes ahead. JT: Now, is a conductor just for passenger lines mainly? JM: No, it's for freight service. JT: You were in freight service? JM: Oh hell yes. I was in freight service for about 30 years, I guess. But they call you. You go down there. It may be a blizzard, it may be a rain or high wind or any kind. You go down there, it doesn't make any difference if it's cold or warm, and you check about 100 cars. Well, after you got done checking them, you get the initial, number, the light weight - the light weight means the weight of the car - then you go, and when you get to 28th Street, they send the bills over. JT: The weigh bills? JM: Yes, the weigh bills for every one of them cars, where it's going, everything, what it's loaded with, the weight of the contents. Then when you leave here, you got to get them bills so there station order when your make is checking them in your books, see, to what they are. Well, then they start in. Maybe here's a lumber for Council Bluffs and it weighted 45,000. That's the way you keep it. Then maybe a billion of this and that, and different things. And after you get all your train books, then you make out what they call 12 a wheel report. You put down the initial, number, what kind of a car it is, a box car, coal car, flat car. And the content, destination, weight of the car, and the weight of the contents. JT: You have to do all this? JM: Yes, hellfire, a conductor had more work to do than half of these secretaries have to do today. JT: How many conductors were there per train? JM: One. And then you had to make out a board copy switch list. And that'd go to, well, first to the dispatcher. What your train is, how many loads, how many empties, what tonnage, and this and that. And sent that over. That was wired to Green River. Then when you get to Green River, you had a switch list with four copies so they can switch the train. And if they'd, like I was telling you, these kids make more money now before they leave Ogden than we'd make going to Green River and doing all that work. They go down there and report to the yard office and a taxi cab gets them and takes them to Riverdale. Lets one off at the caboose. The conductor and the head brakeman up to Riverdale. When they get all ready to go, they get on. And that's the last stop they make until they get to Green River. And if they're asleep, they take them through, but if they're awake, they get off. JT: When you were on it, how long was the trip to Green River? JM: Sometimes it would be 14-16 hours. These kids today don't know what a job they got. They tore the clubhouse down, the old one. It was a good building, and they built a new one, and they got individual cooling, individual heating, fully carpeted, a swell cafe, and 13 a clubhouse, and they don't charge them anything for their room or nothing. Talk about that. We always stayed in the caboose. You had to cook on the caboose or starve to death. It wasn't like today - you go over the road in four or five hours. We'd probably be eight to 10 hours going to Evanston. JT: What was your favorite route? The Los Angeles run? JM: On the passenger train, yes. The Challenger was a mighty good job. See, that was the fastest one of the bunch, the Challenger. We used to have six coaches and fiver sleepers on the Challenger. You had nurses. One for the sleepers, one for the kid car, woman car, and four mixed. See, one of them was nothing but just the woman with her babies and that. Then the next would be of solid women, then the next would be mixed. That would be four coaches, then the others were sleepers. JT: Were there many women that worked for the railroad then? JM: No, not like there is today. There were a few, bill clerks or something like that, but no like it is today. JT: Were there any blacks or Mexicans or Indians or Chinamen? JM: They generally worked on the section. JT: They weren't on the train itself? JM: Of course when you go on the passenger trains, you had your porters - chair car porters and you had your Pullman porters. The Pullman porters, they'd run clear through to Chicago. But your chair car porters would run, maybe, Salt Lake to Cheyenne. That's the chair car porters, you know. They took care of the coaches...Keep them nice and clean, you know, do little odd things for the passengers. They had a lot of work to do, 14 mopping, keeping the dang cars clean, this and that. But that was a long old drag, I'm telling you, 53 years in that service. JT: How would you get to be an engineer on the train? To drive the train and that? Was that a good job? JM: Oh, I'll tell you how it used to be. You'd get it. You shoveled about 40 tons of coal between here and Evanston on the old coal burners. Then you keeping working on that until you finally worked up, until they'd call you in maybe, and in six to eight, ten years, they promote you to engineer. JT: What was the better job, the conductor or the engineer? JM: Everything was on the conductor, but you know, I thought an engineer, he just takes on a passenger train. He might have 250, 300 passengers behind him, and they're all right in his hands. He's got to live right to the everything. And I've often thought, he deserves more credit than they give him. JT: Were they paid the same as a conductor? JM: No, an engineer gets more money than a conductor. But I've often thought about them; they deserve more credit than they give them. And here's what I always said: if I leave Ogden here, and I deliver it to Green River without an accident or anything, I did everything I possibly could to get that train to Green River and then you don't get no credit. They check you on these curves and lots of times they'd be on the train and come back over. They'd figure you might be asleep in the caboose, you know. They'd come back over the train and maybe shine a flashlight, or come around the back end of the caboose where they could look in there and see if you were asleep. That's the way 15 they checked them. Now, I think all they do is get on and go to sleep. These kids have really got a position, it isn't really a job, it's a position. This young fellow just hired out this summer as a student. And he's been working practically every day, making that big money. They sent him to Green River first to switch, to kind of get a little more experience, you know, and I was talking to him. And I says to him, "What do you make on that job down at Green River switching, about $35 for about eight hours?" And he says, "No Jim, we make $70 for eight hours." And they don't do anything. They got to stop for them to get on, and there ain't no cars for them to switch. There ain't no trains pull in. And they get $70 for a shift. Think of that. JT: It's a lot of money. JM: For eight hours, yes. For a kid about 19, 20 years old. JT: Did you ever ride the Bamberger line? JM: Oh, I have, yes. I've went to Salt Lake on it. JT: What did you think of that line? JM: It's okay for an electric line. They did big business, the Bamberger did. Do you know, with my family, the Murdock’s, I'm just going to start to name some of them. My father was an engineer for a long time with them. And his brother, Billy, was an engineer a long time. And my oldest brother was the oldest conductor on the Oregon Short Line. These are all Murdock’s. And then the next brother, Frank, he was a fireman out of Omaha, and they had a wreck up south Omaha, and he lost a leg. Well, then I cut in next. I got two nephews here that's conductors now. One's on this Park City branch. And the other one is on the Salt Lake runs. And on these conductor's boys, he's a 16 brakeman. And then, my sister May, during World War I, she was an operator. They didn't have nobody, you know. And she hired out as an operator before they had the telephones then. JT: A big railroad family. JM: Yes, I'd say so. And then the father had a brother in Laramie, and he had four boys, and I've got to check on them. One of the boys went to Pocatello, was a master mechanic up there. And I think he had a boy that was an engineer. Belongs with Salt Lake. When I got down, I might have to call him up and ask him if Henry Murdock was his grandfather. The original four kids would be somewhere around my age - 80 years. Some of the kids from them four, one was in Pocatello, they're scattered around in there. Old Murdock’s. JT: What did you do during World War II? What was the job of the railroad out here? JM: Well, to start with, they appointed me trainmaster of the night district. JT: That's above a conductor? JM: Oh cripe - in charge of everything. That's the whole railroad. JT: Is that where you go from a conductor? JM: No, no, they pick these. The trainmasters and dispatchers or something like that. This administrator, a fellow by the name of Calvin, he wouldn't stand for them to split the district between Cheyenne and Ogden. A trainmaster between Evanston and Green River, and a trainmaster here. But anyway, this fellow that's taking an interest in me, this general superintendent, Hammel was his name. He wanted to know if I'd go down to 17 North Platte and take that yard. Well, I didn't want to turn him down. I said, "Yes, I'll go down." JT: You were road master at this time? JM: That was general yardmaster there. Then that was World War II. I had 38 girls working. Bill clerks, desk clerks, call girls, and such as that. Then I don't know how many engines I had working. There was a big stock feeding outfit. Two or three hundred cars or something to feed overnight. And they had to unload in 36 hours, that was the law. And then these passenger trains was coming in, and you'd have to break them up for the Colorado and the main line. And they'd come in single from Colorado and the main line, and you'd have to consolidate them to Omaha. It was a big job, this North Platte, and break up every train that come in here. To get the Kansas City and that stuff south and the east. It was a big job. I was down there about two years, I guess, when I finally, this superintendent, he got after me because I hadn't loaded up a 35-care shipment of cattle. I talked to the owner of this stuff, and he said, "I absolutely refuse to load for that. It's the heat of the day, and I won't load." This superintendent came to North Platte and called me up there to the office and wanted to know. And this owner of the stock, and the stockyard manager, and the old trainmaster there wanted to know why I didn't load this cattle. I said he absolutely refused to load on account of the heat of the day. So he turned to the owner of this stuff, and he said, "I'll tell you something. You might tell me when you'll take your stock to the market, and I'll tell you when you're going to load out of this feeding point." Had that been me that owned stock, I'd say, "Say, brother, you don't tell me nothing. You got 35 cars of cattle. Now you can do what the hell you want with them." And then he said to me, "Here's a car of lumber been here for 10 days." I 18 said, "Who sent that message to you, the trainmaster?" And I said, "If he'd find out what the hell that car was a doing, he wouldn't have to send it. We're holding that car for an automobile car." I had the number of it and that, too. Then he ties in the old Shelbert, the trainmaster. So I said, "I've taken enough of your stuff." So I got up and I said, "Say, Hammel sent me down here to run North Platte, and if you don't like the way I run it, shove it up your ass." And I got up and walked out and went to Omaha. JT: You left right then? JM: Yes, I went to Omaha, and Hammel had me come up to the office. He come whaling up the street and said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I can't get along with that man Woodruff." I said, "I think he was all drunked up anyway." So he said, "Let's go up to the office." So we went up, and we talked about this. So he said, "You better go on back to North Platte, Jim." I said, "No, not under him. I don't want anything more to do with that dude. He's absolutely no good." So he said, "Go out to Evanston and I'll be out there in a few days." Then he give me a real job between Rawlings and Ogden, and I used the superintendent's name for anything I wanted done. He said, "Make any damn change you want out there on the district, but clean the railroad up." Anyway, in the investigation at Cheyenne, he was a holding, I told him that Mr. Hammel sent me to North Platte to run North Platte. And if you don't like the way I'm running it..." And Woodruff said, "Oh to hell with Mr. Hummel." And I told Mr. Hummel that when I was talking to him in Omaha in his office. And he pressed his button and he told his secretary to put the car on Number 9 for Cheyenne, he'd go out and take care of Mr. Woodruff. JT: Is there anything else while you were brakeman? 19 JM: Well, yes. When we used to have a private car on Number 5, it wouldn't have to be an official, even a private car with a party. JT: You had private cars for parties and stuff? JM: Oh yes. They'd come anywhere from New York and Chicago and go right through. But anyway, at Dalecreek, there was a pumping station down at the bottom of the hill. And this pumper was on duty 24 hours a day. There was quite a lake there, and the company had stocked it with nice trout where Dalecreek emptied into this lake. They'd get a hold of him and tell him they'd want a nice bunch of trout for Number 5, and he'd have them. And when we'd get to Dalecreek, he'd be there and give them to us, and they went to the private car. This old conductor, in particular, that I was working for or braking for, he was, I'd say, between 70 and 75 years of age. JT: What year did you know him? JM: Oh that was in 1905. When this old man started for the railroad, he was what they would call now a seven district man. But he was a brakeman on the work train when the Union Pacific was the end of the railroad at Bittercreek. And I think I'm the only man living today that can say I broke for a man that was working on the train when Bittercreek was the end of the railroad. JT: What about the tunnels you mentioned in Wyoming? JM: Well, the old Afton tunnel was built to cut down the grade coming up. They used to run up by the way of Peidmont. Then there was quite a history there. They went through a little town by the name of Hillard. They had 14 coke ovens there, and they used to float this timber down to make the coke. Then the coke was shipped to Salt Lake. And I think 20 that's where they made their artificial gas, from out of that coke that come from old Hillard. The later years, the traffic got so heavy they had to build another tunnel to go over a different route. So they decided to build a tunnel about two miles north of the old Afton tunnel. JT: This is just outside of Evanston? JM: Yes, about 16 miles. And that was built in 1951. At that particular time, I was on the City of Los Angeles. When they opened the new Atamont tunnel up for traffic, I was due by Spring Valley, and then we had to go through the new tunnel on account of they had opened it up for traffic and Hunterton Tree was the westbound train. So we went through the new Altamont tunnel. That was in 1959. And I've got a newspaper clipping of my father, as he was an engineer out of Evanston. He pulled the first train through the old Aspen tunnel in 1901, and his son took the first train through the new Altamont tunnel 50 years later in 1951. And if that isn't a coincidence, I don't know where you'd get it. In case you want some more information in regards to the coke ovens at old Hillard, in order to get the information, I believe it is the library that has books of Uintah County, and that's got it in. It gives you the history of those old coke ovens. And it's quite interesting. Anyway, there's about two or three left of them in old Hillard today, but they're not in use. It's history to go back into that there. JT: Do you have any last statements about your career on the railroad? JM: That North Platte branch, for North Platte to Tourlington is quite a sugar beet. There's about seven sugar beet factories up there. They raise more sugar beets up there and they raise more sugar beets up there in one season than they'll raise in Utah in 25 years. They sent me down there as an assistant trainmaster on this branch, and now 21 they work 14 crews up there. A passenger train each way a day. They had to restrict these dumps on account of they could bury them with sugar beets, but they'd first let these locals pick up all they wanted. But these sugar beet factories maybe would restrict them to five cars, 10 cars. And then these locals would pick them up and send them out, some at Gearing, and the balance would go through to south Tourlington. Now they've built a new factory at South Tourlington - the Amalgamated Sugar Company. And that was a big refinery and that there was my experience on the North Platte branch. And I don't care if I ever see another sugar beet because they had them piled back there half a mile long and as high as they could put them up. They were stacked there and waiting for later so they could take them to the factory and then contract to have them taken to the factories and them big outfits. JT: Mr. Murdock, thank you very much for your time and the information you gave us. 22