The Rip Track

An engineer on the Riverside & Great Northern Railway in Wisconsin Dells, WI.

It's Labor Day weekend here in the United States, so in this episode we'll look at some railroad labor unions and discuss some of the jobs in model railroad operations.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen history

• Founded on May 8, 1863, in Detroit as the Brotherhood of the Footboard
• First action was to strike against wage cuts and additional duties
• Reorganized in 1868 as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
• A strike against CB&Q in 1888 led other railroads to reach concessions preventing wage classification schedules
• Reached an agreement with New York subway lines and the city to centralize subway management and an 8-hour workday for motormen
• Merged with the Teamsters on January 1, 2004.

 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters history

• Pullman hired black men as porters because they were black, perpetuating racial discrimination
• Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George" founded in 1916
• Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters founded by A. Philip Randolph in 1925
• First collective bargaining agreement between a union comprised of black members and a major corporation established in 1937
• Led to the Fair Employment Practices Committee in 1941
• Strong connections with the civil rights movement in the 1960s
• Merged with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks in 1978 to form the organization now known as the Transportation Communications International Union.

Modeler's Moment: model railroad operating session jobs

• Dispatcher authorizes train movements
• Engineer operates a train
• Yardmaster controls a classification yard and assembles/disassembles trains
• Engine hostler assigns motive power to trains
• Local switching crews work industrial areas
• Towermen operate single blocks or interlocking plants
• Fiddle yard dispatchers move cars between the layout and off-layout storage
• Passenger train crews operate passenger trains
• Wreck train crews operate wreck trains
• Conductors keep track of train handling paperwork

Podcast housecleaning and end notes

• Help support the podcast by starting online shopping through the Amazon links on this website
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• There may be a contest to find the best listener-supplied segment in future episodes
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Sources for historical information in this episode

• The American Labor Year Book: 1927; volume VIII. New York: Rand School of Social Science, Labor Research Department (1927).
• Armour, Stephanie (March 29, 2007). "Circuit City's plan to fire 3,400 will have ripple effects." USA Today.
• Arneson, Eric (2006). Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History, Volume 1. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0415968263.
• "Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Remembered During its 60th Anniversary." Jet (September 15, 1997).
• "Demand 8-Hour Day for New Subways." New York Times (March 31, 1913).
• Depew, Chauncey M (1910). Orations, Addresses and Speeches of Chauncey M. Depew, Volume 8: Miscellaneous speeches. Harvard University
• Harris, William H. (1977 and 1991). Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925-1937. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252061288
• Holder, Arthur E. (1912). "Railroad Strikes Since 1877: Part III." American Federationist, Volume 19, pp 614-617. American Federation of Labor
• "Names make news." Time Magazine (December 7, 1936).
• Whitaker, Matthew C. (2007). Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West. University of Nebraska Press.

Listen to Episode 9