Long before I worked for Union Pacific (UP) and the Black Hills Central, when I was growing up in Blackfoot, Idaho, I spent countless hours pouring over employee timetables, yard summaries and Z-T-S (Zone-Track-Spot) books. I took the money I earned from building corral fences for my father and invested it in a Uniden scanner. I had it permanently set on 160.515 Mhz (AAR Channel 2727) and listened to it night and day. By the time I turned 18, I had the operations of the UP's Montana Subdivision (Pocatello, ID to Silver Bow, MT) committed to memory. I knew every train symbol, siding, engineer and conductor. I also became a semi-permanent fixture in the depot (by then reduced to small office trailer) and was on friendly terms with the crew of the Aberdeen Local.
My regular visits, however, came to an abrupt end in my senior year when a long-in-the-tooth engineer threw down the gauntlet. On an ordinary day, just like the hundreds of others I had spent in the depot listening to the crews shoot the breeze and chew the fat, he looked over at me and told me that I was no longer welcome. Perhaps he did it out of concern for his job or my safety. I'll never know. I was stunned and it took me a few seconds to register what had happened before I slowly shuffled out the door never to return. The other members of the crew were just as surprised as I was but they offered no argument. In the short term, I was dejected and distraught. My portal into the world of railroading had been unceremoniously shut and bolted from the inside. In the long term, however, it bolstered my decision to enter the railroad industry after I graduated from high school. I wasn't going to let anyone stop me from working for UP.
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| UP #9300 (Blue Mountain DPU Class Unit) and Hinkle Shop Personnel (2003). I'm standing in front of the 'N'. |
