Oral History Program LaMar Belnap Interviewed by Mary Werner 26 July 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah LaMar Belnap Interviewed by Mary Werner 26 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: Belnap, LaMar, an oral history by Mary Werner, 26 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 LaMar Belnap. The interview was conducted on July 26, 1973, by Mary Werner in Mr. Belnap’s home. Mr. Belnap discusses his knowledge and experiences during his career on the railroad. MW: This is an interview of LaMar Belnap by Mary Werner for the Oral History Project at Weber State College. We are at Mr. Belnap's home, 757 Birch Street in Clearfield, Utah. The time is ten minutes to seven p. m. and it is July 26, 1973. Mr. Belnap, let's begin this interview by telling me just a little bit about your early life. LB: Well, I was born in Ogden, Utah on October 14, 1926 in a little house on Ogden Avenue. I am one of two children of Gilbert and Rosetta Belnap. I have a brother six years younger than I. I lived in Ogden for 12 years. Then we moved out to Wilson Lane, approximately 7 or 8 miles outside of Ogden, on a small farm where I spent the remainder of my younger days. MW: When did you start working for the railroad? LB: I started working for the railroad in 1951 in August. MW: What exactly did you do on the railroad? LB: I started working there as a fireman. I worked as a fireman for about 7 years and then I was promoted to an engineer. MW: When you were working as a fireman, what exactly did you do? 1 LB: Then I first started working for the railroad, they still had steam engines. The duties of the fireman was to shovel coal into the engine. If it happened to be an oil burner, we would release the oil in the engine so it would provide locomotion for the engine. MW: When you started in Ogden, exactly what was the railroad like? LB: When I first started working for the railroad in Ogden, the railroad was one of the biggest industries in Ogden. It consisted of quite a few engines. I worked in the engine service in the Ogden Yards performing switch engine duties. At that time, all the trains coming from the West and all the trains coming from the East would meet in the terminal—the Ogden terminal. Ogden was also the end of the line for the Southern Pacific going east and for the Union Pacific coming down through Weber Canyon. All the trains coming from both directions were switched at Ogden by the O.U.R. & D. personnel. MW: Now this is just passenger? LB: Freight also. MW: Can you tell me a little bit of what the depot was like? LB: At that time, the depot was a pretty bustling type affair. They used to have between 15 to 20 passenger trains coming in every night. The same amount in the morning. In the morning it would be odd numbers, and going out in the evening would be even numbers. At that time they had three streamliners coming in the morning and three at night. MW: Quite a busy place. LB: It was then. 2 MW: Could you tell me a little bit about your duties as a switchman? LB: I was an engineer—not a switchman. MW: What do you call it—a switchman engineer? LB: A switching engineer. MW: Tell me what your duties are there. LB: The duties of an engineer working on a switch engine consists of, we're talking about freight trains now, when the trains come in, we have cars within the train—some go south, some go east, and some go west. Ogden, being a terminal station, we'd have to switch out the various cars so they could be made up with trains going to these various destinations. My duties as an engineer, in operating a switch engine, is to go in and get ahold of the cars and switch them out to the various tracks. In turn these cars would be made up to trains to go to these various destinations. You're working in conjunction with the switchmen who are working on the ground. They pull pins and break the train up. All I do is operate the engine and take the signs from the switchman. MW: That still sounds like quite a job. LB: There is a lot of work. The thing is, that nowadays the trains are so long. They used to run between 40 to 50 cars in a train and now it isn't unusual to see a train of 150 cars. Therefore, they build a train so they are more together. On other words, more cars together that go to one destination instead of the 1 and 2 type switching that was done in the olden days. MW: So it's easier now? LB: It's easier now. 3 MW: Is that why there are less men down there now? LB: That's part of the reason. That and the fact that back in the days of steam you could only pull maybe 6-7 cars at a time. Now you can take from 50 to 60 on a diesel engine. Therefore, you don't have to make as many cuts on a train. By cuts, I mean removing the various cars out of the trains and switching them to their destination. MW: What exactly is different in Ogden now? LB: The main thing that is different, they don't have any passenger trains going through Ogden except Amtrak. I think the main reason the passenger business was cut oat of Ogden is that years back they had mail cars on almost all the passenger trains. They got government assistance. When they pulled that out, they didn't have any need for the mail trains. They took the mail trains off the passenger trains, this in turn helped cut down the trains and eventually right out. The government at that time was paying for hauling the mail and in turn for paying to haul the mail, it helped to pay for the operating expenses of the passenger trains. That's the main reason they were taken out of Ogden, because Ogden didn't put too many passengers on and off. The big reason for pulling the passenger trains was the mail. The mail was paying mostly for the passenger trains. The freight trains now, come in they are bigger and longer. Even some of the freight cars are bigger and larger. They can load more freight in them. They specialize in various freight cars, for instance, they used to haul new automobiles inside box cars. They could carry four in a car. Now they have specialized cars that haul new automobiles that carry 12 on them. They are easier to load and unload than the old box cars. With all this added, it cut down personnel in Ogden. Much as I hate to admit it, it did increase the efficiency of the railroad. 4 MW: Any other changes? LB: Also, I think other changes were the method of trackage they used. It got so now that they build a train and one certain track. Through all shifts, they switch these cars on a track and they can build a car lots faster than they used to. They used to switch them out and they wouldn't build a train until it was ready to leave. Maybe they'd switch it 2-3 times before then. Now they have a certain designated track where a train is built up, whether it is going south, east, or west or whatever direction it happens to be going. MW: Why are there so many buildings being torn down there? LB: The main reason for the buildings disappearing is that they have lost the use of them. For instance, the old steam plant that they tore down used to furnish the passenger yard or the terminal building with steam heat. Another thing, they have taken the freight house down, because new methods have been proved for keeping track of tonage that goes on the cars. By keeping these old buildings, you pay taxes on them and don't get any use out of them. There are no more personnel working in them, they just stood there as monuments. By tearing them down, it cut the taxes. MW: What1s the old depot like now? LB: The depot is pretty much the same as it was 20 years ago as far as I know. They have taken about one-half the benches out and they turn the lights off at a certain time. They still have to have the depot for Amtrak. There used to be a restaurant and telegraph office. There used to be red caps running all over the place. There was a beauty shop there. It was a hub of activity at passenger train time. Now that there are no passenger trains, it’s almost deserted, with the exception of maybe ½ hour when the Amtrak comes 5 in. There is no restaurant now, no beauty shop, no red caps. It's kinda a sad looking place in the evening when the train comes in, because there are only one or two people there. I think the depot itself will probably serve as a museum or something like that in the near future. They will probably build a smaller building to take care of the Amtrak passengers. There used to be 16 tracks through the depot. They have torn them all out, with the exception of 3 tracks. There again, for all the tracks that run down through it, you have to pay taxes on it. If they aren't there, you don't have to pay taxes on it. That's why most have been torn out, MW: You said 16 tracks? LB: Yes, 16 tracks. MW: What do you mean by within the depot? LB: Within the depot confines. In other words, the Ogden years is built into various yards, the East yards, the 21st Street yards, 33d Street yards, and the Depot yards. At that time, the depot yard had 16 tracks running through it accommodating all these passenger trains running through it. Now that the passenger trains aren't there, they don't need the tracks so they've torn them all out with the exception of the three tracks. MW: Did you work in the Depot Yards? LB: With the job I had, you could work in any yard you wanted according to how much seniority you had. Maybe one week I'd work in the depot and the next week I would work at the 21st yard. You could choose the job you wanted according to the seniority you had. Most guys would take the job they liked, mainly for days off it had or maybe the personnel they were working with. As a rule, the passenger jobs had the higher 6 priority, because they were the better jobs. About the only time some of us younger ones got over there was on a relief job or off the extra board. I've worked in the passenger yards quite a bit. MW: Why would they call that a better job? LB: Mainly because they used to have so much work to do and it would be done immediately when the passenger trains would come in. Other than that they got a lot of free time sitting around waiting for the trains to come in. They had to be right on the spot when the passenger trains arrived in the depot. That is why it was a better job, because they would work like heck when the passenger trains were in. Until that time, there was free time and after the passenger trains were gone, they'd have more free time than the fellows working in the freight yards. MW: Did you ever utilize your pass? LB: Yes, at that time, the railroader could use the pass either for himself or his family. Sometimes it was free and sometimes it was a reduced fare type, I sent my boys to California a couple times to visit their aunt during the summer. They'd stay down there for a while. We used to go to Las Vegas once in a while. With a pass it would save you between 35 to 40 dollars a trip. It was beneficial at that time. Now, that there are no passenger trains, there is no use for a pass. MW: What was it like riding on a train then? LB: Well, riding a passenger train at that time compared to an airplane was quite a bit of difference because the passenger trains were noisy. You could hear them run over the joints in the rail, they'd sway. Most of them were hot and stuffy. They didn't have air 7 conditioning in them then. The seats were uncomfortable and not exactly clean, because cinders would go through the windows. There was a lot to be desired in the passenger trains at that time compared to the modern airplane. MW: Then you would rather ride in the airplane? LB: Very definitely. MW: Have you ridden on the Amtrak train at all? LB: No, I've never ridden on Amtrak. I understand there is quite a bit of improvement on them. I haven't had the opportunity to ride in one yet. What they've done with Amtrak to start with is that each of the railroads donated so many passenger cars that were taken out of their home road fleet. They were improved and updated. This is what the Amtrak passengers are today. Some of the later passenger cars were updated to match the standards of the Amtrak line. MW: Have you ever seen an Amtrak train? LB: Yes, we see Amtrak come through every night. It is quite distinctive, because they are painted red, white, and blue, with a red stripe down through the middle of it and on the outside of the train. It says Amtrak on the engine and rear car. On the cars between it is not unusual to see various railroad names from all over the United States that have contributed to Amtrak. The Amtrak system goes from coast to coast. Through Ogden, it comes through every night, from here it goes to San Francisco. Going east, it comes out of Ogden and goes to Denver, Chicago, and New York. There are various feeder lines in the South, and North that feed into it. They are also Amtrak, there are very few passenger lines that are owned, they have all gone out of the business. 8 MW: Why is this so? LB: Like I said, because they took the mail away from them. That meant the assistance the government gave the railroad was taken away also. In my opinion, part of the railroad passenger business downfall was the fact that they didn't have it modernized—both equipment and building as the airlines do. Therefore, the airlines take a lot of the passenger business away too. MW: Could you tell me what Ogden was like when you started working on the railroad? LB: Well, Ogden was about ½ the population it is now. Hill Field was the biggest employer in the state and still is. When I started working for the railroad, Hill Field was in between wars and people didn't know whether they would have jobs there or not, so the next thing was the railroad. Ogden always has been a railroad town. In the old days when my dad worked for the railroad, he spent 50 years on the railroad, I have uncles that have worked for the railroad also, so it seemed like the most logical thing to do was to work for the railroad. At that time, Ogden pretty much depended on the railroad. I'd say approximately 35%-40% of the people who lived in Ogden at that time were working for the railroad. A lot of the railroad work at that time was in a big shop that they had here. They used to remodel different interior work in the passenger cars and the work on the engine. All that has been taken away and sent to various places. All the minor work on engines has gone to Salt Lake and Omaha. With the passenger trains being gone, we don't have any passenger work at all or no work on the passenger cars. Those people either have other jobs or have gone somewhere else. Talk to the older people who were born in this town, most of them started out with the railroad. That's about all that was 9 here 30 to 40 years ago. That was before my time, but my dad worked for the railroad 50 years, I came from a railroad family so it just came natural that I work for them. MW: Tell me a bit about 25th Street? LB: Well, 25th Street, as I remember it, came up right straight from the railroad depot to the center of Ogden. For some reason it gained a reputation, especially during the war years, for having a lot of sleazy and second rate hotels on 25th Street on both sides. There were quite a few bars on both sides. The lower part of 25th Street, in my younger days was occupied by the colored people. It ended up more or less as a slummy part of town. As you went east, it was a better part of town. Twenty-Fifth Street used to have a lot of derelicts and drunks on it. There was a lot of gambling, knifings, and murders, and everything else. It seemed that everybody who came to Ogden, especially by the railroad, would come out of the depot into 25th Street, and they'd see the worst part of Ogden. That was on the west side. It seemed like when you'd leave town, everybody would say, "Have you heard about 25th Street?” or “What do you know about 25th Street?" They had just barely seen it from the depot side of the house or had heard someone talk about it. Like I say, there were a lot of drunks and derelicts, especially on the lower part of it. If it was thriving today, I imagine it would be about the same thing. Only difference would be instead of drunks, it would be a bunch of dopes or hot heads because it's still the sleazy end of town. Now that the railroad is closed, or rather the depot is closed, a lot of the street itself is closed. You drive up and down it now and get to the lower part of it, you see a lot of the old, sleazy hotels, second-rate hotels that are torn down or closed and boarded up. They have closed a lot of the bars too, because of lack of patrons. I think that tied in quite a bit with the railroad itself, because during the 10 war years, there were a lot of troop trains coming in. A lot of the soldiers would want a bottle or a fast drink or something. They would get off the train and came out the depot. Twenty-Fifth Street was right there where all the bars were on both sides. That kept them going. When the passengers fell of course, the bars fell off too. MW: How come it wasn't a nicer part of town? You'd think when the people would come in, there would be a nice hotel, restaurant and everything. How come the railroad didn't make it a nicer part of town? LB: I think that goes back to the olden times. You can go to any city in the United States, it seems like the railroad depot is in the worst part of town, unless it was remodeled afterwards. If you go to Salt Lake, it is the worst part of town. You go to Saint Louis, it is the worst part of town, Los Angeles it is the worst part of town, Why? I really can't tell unless some of the workers in the olden days were not the most wealthy. They used to build as close to their work as they could get, I think this pretty well follows through in any major city in the United States where the railroads are in the worst part of town. MW: I know you mentioned the troop trains when they came in. I am kinda interested in that. What was it like? Were you ever down there when the troop trains came in? LB: Yes, before I started working for the railroad as an engineer, I was going to school and also working on the railroad in the telegraph office, I used to go down there right after school and go to work as a messenger. I carried telegrams around to the various offices in the depot. I was down there when the war first started. These troop trains would come in, the soldiers had been confined to the trains and were anxious to get out of it. They'd head up 25th Street and find a bottle or drink. They used to come in 11 unscheduled, so you didn't know for sure when one would come in. There were a lot of troop trains going through Ogden to the West Coast. MW: What was it like when the Hospital trains would come in? LB: When a hospital train came in, they were marked with red crosses on the cars. The soldiers that could walk would get off the train and walk around. It was a sad deal seeing a lot of the fellows would be on crutches and bandaged up. But still in all, they'd still be looking for a bottle and a drink. If they could get to a bar, they'd go this way. As a rule, most of the hospital trains had more supervision than just a regular train. There weren't too many going through. A few came through, because at the time we had a big hospital in Brigham City called Bushnell. There were quite a few patients coming through to go to that hospital. Another thing I remember that was kind of a mess, is that we used to have circus trains come through. They would have all kinds of animals on them. I remember one incident that happened one time. This circus train coming through had about five cars of elephants. It came through in the morning. The handlers had been drinking all day and gotten drunk and were passed out in the car. This one particular car had a big bull elephant in it and although it was tied with one leg in the car, somehow it got out of the car. Only it's leg was in the car—it was down in between, I got a little ahead of my story, but while this train was sitting here, a streamliner came in, the City of Los Angeles, right on the track next to the circus train. This big elephant got out between the circus train and the streamliner. It was pulling on its leg that was tied to the car. The yardmaster got a little worried because he thought he was going to tip the streamliner over. They unhitched the circus train and took it over to a ramp they had a couple of blocks away. They led the elephant over there by hand and reloaded it 12 back into the car. It delayed the streamliner from leaving Ogden and when the yardmaster finally got the streamliner out of Ogden, course he has to explain all kinds of delays that happen, so on his report he said the streamliner was delayed because of an elephant almost tipping it over. Imagine that kinda made the head office in Omaha scratch their head and wonder what was going on. Other different types of trains going through Ogden since I've been working, are gas trains loaded with gas. As soon as they'd stop, they had all kinds of armed guards jump out and surround the train to make sure nobody starts fooling around with them. Another time we had a train come in that was full of gold bullion. We had a soldier get right up on the engine and hold a machine gun to our backs while we were switching it. Guards were all around it. Actually, you couldn't hardly name anything that hasn't been shipped on the railroad at one time or another. MW: What did one of the gold bullion cars look like? LB: The gold bullion cars were special made cars that had U.S. Army written on them. They were a short car with an extra set of trucks under them to help support the weight. They were a kinda square car, but only ½ the size of a regular box car. They had a little platform on the sides so the armed guards could sit on the outside and guard them, especially when they stopped. I don't think they rode on them when they were moving, just when they stopped they'd get on these platforms and sit there and guard them. Other than that, they were very noticeable with the U.S. Army signs and warning signs all over to stay away from them. When the guard climbed down to the engine he told us that it was a gold shipment. You knew it was a pretty important car. MW: Did it ever get robbed? 13 LB: I don't think so. MW: When the troop trains and the hospital trains came in, what happened to the rest of the passengers? LB: When a troop train came in, generally the whole train would be a troop train. As a rule, a troop train wouldn't come in during regular passenger train time, they'd come in between. Sometimes real early in the morning or late at night or prior to the passenger trains. A lot of times, a troop train would come in on a special track and they'd hold it. In other words, they wouldn't let anybody get off. They'd just change the engines or refuel an engine. It was pretty well the same thing with the hospital trains also, unless they were going to take off some of the patients to send to Bushnell. Course, they'd have ambulances standing by to take them off. As a rule, most of them went through. In other words, they'd go to these larger cities east to Denver or west to San Francisco or Los Angeles. MW: When you were working in the telegraph office, did you ever talk to any interesting passengers? LB: I can't recall any. Most of the time in the telegraph office, my telegrams were all railroad type people. They were railroad telegrams, not personal telegrams. Not the Western Union type, the train orders type like that. MW: What do they do now that they don't have them? LB: They still have that, but it’s a different deal now. The way they work it now is there are lesser telegraph offices to start with because the train engineers and conductors can 14 receive their train orders by radio. Back in those days, the trains didn't have radios on them and they do now. MW: Exactly what orders do they give? LB: They tell them what time they are expected in a certain station, if the track is clear and what other trains are coming. If he's using the track, he has to pull into a siding, the time he's expected to pull into the siding and these type of things. MW: Do you know exactly what the little color code things are for on the cars? LB: Yes, this is something new too. On freight cars, you have color coded plaques. Each color signals to an electronic read-out. In other words, you have a plaque with one bar red and one green and one blue, depending on the length of the color or what it is, it tells the number of that particular car and who the home railroad is. From that a checker can read what car number it is and what commodities are inside the car; also where the car came from and its destination to where it’s going. The way this works, they have cameras located in certain places throughout the yards, either at the beginning or the end. As the train goes by, the camera photographs all the cars. Due to this sensitivitized tape on these plaques, it signals to the read-out or electronic device that is inside the camera and in turn relays it to a central place where they can tell what cars are on this particular train, what its destination is, what's loaded inside and things like that. It used to be that the checker would have to stand beside and write every number down and relay the information to a yard office. The yard clerk then would have to check it all out by hand. This is how they make up their switching lists. They can tell by the number that is on the car what destination it is and what material is in it. That is how they make up the switching lists. The switchman can break up a train and send a car to its destination. 15 MW: Do you have a listing of the cars too? LB: No, as an engineer, we don't have to follow that. A switchman does all that. All the engineer does is to receive hand signals from the switchman, when to back up, when to go forward and this kind of thing. As far as knowing where the cars are corning from or where they are going, he has no idea. MW: How in the world do you hold down two jobs, one at Hill Field and one at the railroad? LB: When I first started working at the railroad, I only worked about 3-4 times a week and then I got cut off. So I went to work at Hill Field. For about the first 10 years on the railroad, I only worked during the summer months and got cut off every winter, due to the influx of business on the railroad. In other words, the greatest amount of business on the railroad happens in the spring when the fruit and vegetables are going back and forth. Also building materials for building houses and types of things like that. So in the winter, I'd always get cut off. It just happened that most the time I could hold an afternoon job, I'd get off work at 3:30 at Hill Air Force Base and start work at 4:00 p.m. at the railroad. I always had intentions of quitting, but it always seemed to work out, so I stayed with it. I've been out at Hill Field for 25 years and on the railroad for 22 years. MW: Do you put in an 8 hour shift at the railroad? LB: Yes. Eight hours at both places, I have 2 days off a week at the railroad and 2 days off at Hill Field. It isn't as bad as it sounds because I have Saturday and Sunday off at Hill Field and would try to choose a job on the railroad with Tuesday and Wednesday or Thursday and Friday off. Therefore, I only work a double shift for 3 days. It isn't too bad that way. 16 MW: It still sounds bad to me. LB: It takes a lot of time and a lot of cooperation from your family. I've always wanted, well not wanted to, I felt I'd rather do it that way than have my wife work. It has always worked out, so I've just kept on doing it. MW: Do you like working for the railroad? LB: Yes, in a way, it is a challenging type of job. I can feel something being accomplished by making up trains and seeing them going and where they are going. I can see something accomplished by it. MW: Do you think there is any future in Ogden as far as the railroad is concerned? LB: I don't think they'll ever close Ogden down as a railroad center, because it’s about the only place you can come through the Rockies—here or in Salt Lake City. Ogden has always been a terminal. It's the end of the Southern Pacific and the beginning for the Union Pacific, going east. For these reasons, I don't think in my lifetime, there won't be a time when there won’t be a railroad here. I think without a doubt that it will be more modernized. As they modernize and improve the methods, they cut out the people. A lot of your old railroaders are having to find other work or retiring—one or the other. That's the reason the railroad has cut down in Ogden because it has become more mechanized. They need less employees. MW: How come they moved all the repair work to Salt Lake, why didn't they keep it in Ogden? LB: Well, I don't really know why, but I think the trend is that in days gone, they used to have a repair shop in every little town for the trains, cars, and engines. They broke down 17 more often and they couldn't transport them as far. With the trains now not breaking dorm as much, they run them more and have centralized the repair shops. In other words, instead of having ½ dozen repair shops with 100 or 200 miles, they only have one. They took all the repair shops and moved them to one place. Modernization of the railroad, in days past, take the ice cars, the refrigeration cars. They used to stop at an ice stop and they had to push ice into them. They'd break the ice up and put salt in them. That took a lot of guys to do that. Now you don't hardly see any of those kind of cars. They don't have them, they have mechanized refrigerated cars. In other words, the cars now have a little motor built in the end, just like a refrigerator. It refrigerates the car through mechanized motor. All they have to do is stop once in a while for some gas to keep the motor going. They don't have to dump the ice into them anymore. MW: Are they going to discontinue the ice cars? LB: I think eventually, in the very near future, you won't see any of those ice cars at all. In Ogden, they have an ice dock that runs from Riverdale to 33rd Street, it is destined to be torn down this spring. Therefore, the employment will be out down even more, because the guys that work on the ice docks won't have a job. They will either have to find a new type of job or leave the railroad. MW: What are they going to do—just keep tearing down more and more buildings in Ogden? LB: That's the way it looks, as things get more modernized, they tear more of the old type buildings out. It seems like a lot of times, when they tear old buildings down they replace it with something else. But the railroad, they don't seem to be doing that. They just tear them down and I can't see where they are building anything new. 18 MW: That looks like there isn't much of a future for Ogden then? LB: It doesn't look like it. I really wouldn't recommend for a young guy who is just starting out to go to work on the railroad, at least not in Ogden. MW: Do you think that's going to hurt the city of Ogden at all? LB: It is bound to hurt them a little bit, because I don't know what the percentage of the people who work on the railroad live in Ogden now, but it used to be one of the major employers. It isn't now, I don't suppose there are 15$ or even less than that, that work on the railroad or are employed as a subsidiary to the railroad, I think it is being accepted that it is going down. How long it will take, I don't think anybody really knows. It’s a dying profession around here. MW: In the last few minutes we have, could you summarize and tell me what the future of the railroad is in the United States? LB: I don't think it is going to drop by the wayside the way a lot of people think. First of all, the passenger business is almost dormant. Whether it will ever be revived, I really don't know what would make it revive. As far as the freight business goes, I don't think it will die out completely because it has been improving. Whenever a major railroad strike happens, it is only one or two days and we're back to work because all the trains that carry commodities to the big cities, they have to depend on them. You take a train, an average train that carries between 100-150 cars. Each car would carry enough commodities to fill 4 or 5 big diesel trucks. You can imagine, how many diesel trucks they would have to have on the road to take the place of just one train. In Ogden alone, in an 8 hour shift, there are about 10-14 trains go through that terminal. 19 MW: That's freight trains? LB: Yes, that's freight trains. You figure an average of 100 cars on them and figure out what they car carrying. A lot of the perishables have been lost to the airlines and trucks. Your big material, your big building material, like lumber, steel, heavy equipment and this type of thing are still being hauled by the railroad and I think they always will unless they find another method. I don't see anything in the near future that will take the place of it. Also, I think rail transportation is about the cheapest way of transporting goods across country with the exception of water transportation. As far as the future goes, I think they'll make bigger trains and will use bigger engines to pull these trains. In the very near future, in the next 20-30 years, we will never see the end of any railroad anywhere. I think they will eventually get more modern equipment and get more modern engines and more modern cars to pull them. They are getting heavier rails. I think the future of the railroads in the United States, is pretty well assured. The railroad profession will be around for a long time, but it will be cut down as they become more mechanized. MW: This is as far as employment goes? LB: Yes, this is as far as employment is concerned because whenever they mechanize, it cuts out somebody that was doing something by hand. I think the main reason they are a little slower than some other industries is because they have a lot of money tied up in the equipment they have. You just can't change overnight to new equipment. As the older equipment wears out, they pick up the more modern type of equipment, and in doing so, that will cut out more employees because as the trains get bigger, there will be less crews that will have to run the trains. You take a train with 100-120 cars, it is being operated by an engineer and maybe a fireman and 2 or 3 trainmen. In days past 20 an engine couldn't pull that many cars, you'd have them broke down to maybe 35-40 cars. Right there would be the difference of 2 trains and twice as many personnel operating them as now. As they get more equipment, become more modern, have bigger trains and pull heavier loads, the personnel will be cut down more so than it is now. MW: So you think the railroad is here to stay? LB: I think it is here to stay, at least it will be here as long as long as I am and most of the people that are around today. It is quite an investment, the cost of a road engine is in the neighborhood of one to a half a million dollars. Look around and see how many engines there are in just this community. There is a lot of money tied up in there, it is a big investment. There are a lot of people that are part of that investment, not just the major stock holders, but a lot of the little people have stock in the railroads. I think it is here to stay for at least as long as we are. MW: Then why are so many railroads going bankrupt? LB: The main reason that a lot of the railroads have gone bankrupt is for tax purposes. I think it is just on paper only. What they've done, they've combined and merged together to come out in bigger roads. In other words, a lot of the little roads sold out and have taken losses and merged together with the bigger railroads. MW: So in essence, they haven't lost anything? LB: No, in essence I don't think they've really lost anything. Not the railroad themselves, they've cut out a lot of little towns they use to go through. Summing it all up they still hit the major cities. The major cities still depend on the railroad for the biggest share of all 21 their commodities. In fact, I think the railroad in the bigger cities, is their life-line, I think it has been proven in the past, because I remember about three years ago they had a railroad strike back east. Within 2 or 3 days, a city like New York City was almost starving to death. There was no food coming in to put on the shelves in the stores. There just aren't that many trucks to haul it. On top of that, about 50% of the trucks you see on the roads are owned by the railroads anyway. By cutting out some of these smaller towns, notice trains have piggy backs on. In other words, truck trailers on. Notice U.P., S.P. and Burlington and have some of the other railroad names on these. What they do, they go to a major city and put a trailer, which is a truck, cab and engine on these trailers and transport them to these smaller cities that ring around bigger cities which used to be serviced by the railroads and aren't served by them anymore. They have cut out those little spurs. They serve them with trucks that are owned by the railroads now. MW: So the little cities aren't hurting? LB: No, their service may be a little bit slow, but still in all, they are still getting the service. The only thing they've really cut out is the passenger service. If a person wants to go from here to New York, they can ride Amtrak. It's not real convenient for them because you have to wait for a certain night to go. In days past, you could call and make reservations, go down that night and a couple days later you'd be at your destination. If you wanted to go to a smaller city in between a passenger train, it's just about impossible. You go to the closest large city, get on a bus or walk. That's the biggest change in the railroads today is the loss of the passenger business or really the service. The people in the smaller cities have no way of getting to another city, other than by 22 their own auto or bus. This makes it inconvenient, because maybe someone who lives in the West and is originally from the East, they may get bad news, like a death in the family and they want to get there as fast as they can. The only way to do it nowadays is to fly. Flying is pretty expensive where in days past, they could get on a passenger train and the fare is probably ½ as much. It may have taken longer, but the difference between the savings and time, was worth going on the train. MW: Do you think passenger service will ever be revived on Amtrak? LB: No, I don't think it will ever be revived, not to the extent it used to be. I think it could be if the right people were running it. If they would modernize the trains and depots, I think a lot of people would ride the train rather than airplanes, especially people who aren't in that big of a hurry, those who like to see the country. There are a lot of people who used to ride the trains and a lot who are still afraid of flying who would ride the train. I don't think it will ever be revived like it was. I think it will improve from what it is now. The public will demand better service. They don't want to depend on airplanes alone. You get two to three air crashes and people just won't fly. It scares them. There has been train wrecks, in both passenger and freight, but I don't think there has been as many people killed riding trains as there has riding airplanes. I think, if they would improve the equipment, depot, and service, they'd gain a lot of business back. As for the future, it depends on the public a lot. If they wanted it to come back, they can demand better service and then I think it would come back to a certain extent, but never like it used to be. MW: Well, Mr. Belnap, I really enjoyed listening to you and I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. 23