djvu Monon Man: The life of a railroader

In 1956 at about ten years old I began hanging around the Monon Railroad and visiting with the local station agent in Clay City, Indiana. Shortly thereafter, the agent, Claude Tatum, began teaching me the morse code telegraphy and station agents reports. I continued in this vein until March, 1962, when my Mother drove me to Lafayette to officially apply to work as an extra agent/telegraph operator during my summer high school break. Later that month, before I turned 16, the chief dispatcher called and asked if I could work at McDoel yards in Bloomington on weekends. While I was still a few days short of 16 years I began my career, working weekends. After the schools summer break began I worked several agent/operator jobs while they were on vacation or, in some cases, on sick leave. This continued. Including working some holidays until after I graduated in 1964. At that time I began bidding on any regular jobs that might open, but being low man on the seniority list, those opportunities were slim. Late in 1964, the position of third trick operator in AD office in Lafayette became open and I bid on it, knowing my chances of being the highest bidder were slim and none. However, after the period of placing bids closed, I received a call from the chief dispatchers assistant telling me I had been awarded the position based upon me training as a train dispatcher. The railroad had a special agreement with the union stating the second and third positions did not have to be awarded the highest seniority bidder, but the applicant had to train to become a dispatcher who was located in the adjoining room to the AD office. I worked my first shift as a dispatcher on June 17, 1966.
In April, 1976, five years after the merger with the L&N, the dispatchers jobs were moved to Louisville, Ky. However, at that same time I moved to Louisville, to work in the L&N's expanded Operations Center. This was a management position with an impressive sounding name-Manager Train Operations. In short this job was locomotive power utilization.
In 1980, after four years of working six or seven days per week, except in winter when the snow was flying, I decided to give up my management position and return to dispatching. This I did until the dispatchers were moved to Jacksonville, Fla. In July, 1988.
I was prepared to returning to being a clerk, a position I had never worked, but had gained seniority since the merger of two unions, the telegraphers union and the clerks union several years previously. However, the railroad, in moving the dispatchers to Jacksonville, were moving the several offices in a piecemeal fashion. Dispatcher offices in Dayton and Deschler, Ohio were not ready to be moved yet, but they needed extra dispatchers to man the offices while some of their force were in Jacksonville for training. I chose Dayton, knowing it was closer to home than Deschler. I worked at Dayton from August 1st until Oct. 26th, 1988.
After Dayton, I returned back to Louisville to work as yard dispatcher, a clerical position. In 1990, the superintendent asked if wished to become a yardmaster in their hump yard so I jumped at that chance. I worked as yardmaster from 1990 until my retirement March 31, 2006. Forty-four years were injury free and fortunately no one under my watch was seriously injured. It was time to enjoy life without the aid of an alarm clock!