That’s what a Los Angeles driver asked me when he followed me into a mall parking lot after reading my license plate frame that reads:

                              I’D RATHER BE ON A BACKUP MALLET. 

“I’m really into croquet but I’ve never heard of a backup mallet. Are you into Croquet?” 

He was dead serious and was disappointed when he learned that it referred to a very special group of unique and powerful steam locomotives used only by the Southern Pacific Railroad. These locomotives are commonly known as a Cab Forward by people who are interested in railroads. Mallet, pronounced Mal’ ee, refers to a French dude, Monsieur Anatole Mallet, whose locomotive design concept was used in the early Cab Forwards built in 1909 but not in the later versions built between 1928 and 1944.  

Cab forward engines were designed with the cab on the front and the smoke stack in the rear to put the engine crew ahead of the intense heat and smoke that blasted from the stack when they were confined inside the tunnels and snow sheds on the steep grade over Donner Pass. These engines were so successful that they were used on other heavy mountain grades, most especially over Tehachapi south of Bakersfield. Because they looked like a steam engine running backward and were a true Mallet compound engine, the early S.P. train and roundhouse crews called them a backup mallet or just plain mallet and that nickname stuck with all the cab forwards as far as the crews and shop people were concerned. Engine 4294, in the State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, is the final cab forward design and 144 were built between 1937 and 1944. The exhaust from the air pumps, above the monkey deck, gave these a distinctive “Pow–wheeze sound”  that added animation to the normal exhaust blasts from the twin stacks that let everybody know a mallet was in town. These are the ones that I fired.

S.P. engine crew locker rooms had two posters that got attention from new firemen. One informed us that, due to the Korean conflict, railroads were the essential supply line and we could not strike; if we did, we would be drafted into the Army and then be assigned to operate the trains. Signed Harry S. Truman, President.  We did not strike. The second poster pictured an S.P. engine with parts of its mangled boiler blown all over hell and a stern warning:  DON’T LET LOW BOILER WATER DO THIS TO YOU!  This was designed to put the fear of God into a new fireman—and it sure as shit did!

Since the mallet boilers are turned backward from an ordinary engine, there are many differences when it comes to working on them. Two differences were of special interest to me. The fireman’s controls and gauges are located beside the fireman instead of in front of us so it’s easier to fire a mallet with our back to the window; that places most of them in the same relative position as on a normal engine. It also makes it easy to look back toward the stack to see how well we are firing the engine. However, because of the engineer’s and fireman’s equipment racks being between us, we can’t see each other like we can on a conventional engine. Since it’s important for a fireman to know when the engineer changes the throttle or reverse gear settings so that he can readjust his firing controls, the engineer does a lot of yelling above the din of cab noise to the fireman when he makes changes. There are a few jerks who make sneaky changes without telling us and, on a mallet, these dudes are the shits to fire for because the water and steam is frequently out of sync with what the engine is actually using. 

By far the most important difference is that the levels in the mallet water glasses are the reverse of normal engines; they show more water than we actually have when we’re going downhill and less water than we actually have when we’re going uphill. Since Tehachapi is one of the steepest mainline grades on the S.P., this is extremely important to understand. Near the lower end of the fireman’s water glass is a metal plate with an arrow that warns, DO NOT LET WATER FALL BELOW THIS POINT. I put that in my memory bank.

I report to Bakersfield Crew Dispatcher’s Office for my first student trip on a mallet, a helper engine up the Tehachapi grade. Luckily, my engineer is Jimmy McCutcheon, a fine engineer whose sage comments were often recalled during my railroad career. Our train has eighty-five cars with a four unit diesel on the head end.  Our mallet engine, the 4194, will be shoving on the rear ten cars ahead of the caboose. After leaving Bakersfield, except for a short stretch of steeper grade near Ilmon siding, for the first 18 miles, the grade is only about half as steep as it will be after we get to Caliente. Since we’re not working the engine hard right now, Dale, the fireman, satisfied with my efforts so far, is across the cab discussing baseball with Jimmy. Near Ilmon as the head end of our train starts up the short section of steeper grade, Jimmy stands up and yells, “Hey kiddo. Gonna work it a little more,” and he gives it more throttle. I increase the fire and the Worthington water pump but I’m startled when everything suddenly turns dark and noisy; we are in the first of fifteen tunnels. Outside again, my eyes readjust to the light. I see that the water in the glass is falling.  I open the pump more hoping that it won’t cause me to lose steam which is right on 250 pounds. Our engine starts up the short section of steep grade, and the water drops just below the arrow on my water glass. My butt begins to pucker and a vision of the disemboweled engine poster flashes before my eyes. I increase the pump and adjust atomizer and fuel. Too much atomizer; the fire starts to drum. Damn! I cut the atomizer back a bit, but the water in the glass does begin to rise. Isolated behind my gauges and intent on watching the water level, I am unaware that the baseball bullshit has ceased and Jimmy is standing beside me. He’s smiling.  I relax— kind of. “You’re doing a good job kiddo” he assures. “But dammit kid—-this isn’t a submarine.” He points back to the water from our stack raining down on the cars behind us; the caboose windows are all closed to keep the crew dry. An engine working water is something that we can’t ignore. Jimmy leaves Dale to do the teaching.

Dale talks loud over the cab noise. “First, ignore this piece of shit;” he points to the plate with the arrow. “On this hill, as you just found out on that little stretch of 2% grade, a mallet will work water unless we carry it near the bottom of the glass.” We slow the pump down a bit and wait for the water to drop. Approaching Caliente, Jimmy stands up and yells, “OK kiddo, it’s time to go to work!” and he shoves the throttle wide open. I put in a big fire then reach for the water pump valve. Dale shakes his head. As our train starts around Horseshoe curve at Caliente; I see the diesel on the headend of our train going up the hill in the opposite direction from the way our engine is headed. Tehachapi is full of similar sharp curves. The water in my glass is getting lower.  I’m nervous as hell but Dale points across the cab to the engineer’s water glass. With the mallet leaning to the right on the super elevated curve, there is more than two inches of water in the engineer’s glass and it’s just “winking” in the bottom of my glass. Dale nods. Now, we increase the water pump. As the mallet levels out on a short straightaway, the water in both glasses is equal and mine is a bit below the arrow. All is copasetic.  By comparing the water level in both glasses, I’m learning to calculate the actual water level as the grade, curves, and speed causes the water in the two glasses to fluctuate.  

Passing through four short tunnels isn’t bad. Mainly it’s just dark with the deafening noise of our stack and the Pow–wheezing of our air pumps. The draft in tunnel 3 sucks the cap off my head. Crap! Tunnel 5, the longest, at 1175 feet; is hot from our firebox and gassy from our head end diesel exhaust but, thanks to the mallet design, the heat and gas from our own stack is behind us. We’re making 14 miles an hour so we don’t use the funnel-like breathing respirators; we just hold our breath as long as we can and soon we’re outside.  If our train had three mallets or was only going 8 miles an hour,  we’d probably use the respirators while going through tunnel 5.

After three more short tunnels we meet a Santa Fe freight and two mallet helpers returning to Bakersfield in the twin sidings at Rowen. By the time we stop at Woodford to take water, I’ve kept the steam pretty close to 250 pounds all the way and I haven’t had any more Old Faithful episodes erupting from the stack. We climb up to the monkey deck which covers the rear cylinders, past the “Pow—wheezing”  air pumps and on up to the top of the tender. Dale warns, “Swing the spout into position before you open the cover. When you have the spout in the hatch, brace yourself on top of it before you open the water valve.” I give him the sure, I’ll remember nod. (If you don’t remember what happened on another mallet trip, go back to the previous post). While I take about 19,000 gallons of water, the rear brakeman walks by below and comments, “Guess I don’t need my raincoat anymore; you’re doin’ better.” I throw him a forced, screw you smile. We finish taking water and, with us shoving as hard as we can, the train finally starts to move out of Woodford. After rounding a few more sharp curves and crossing a couple of bridges, we see the diesel on our head end again. This time it’s 77 feet above tunnel 9 and it’s crossing over us on the Tehachapi Loop at Walong. We pass through more tunnels, meet an S.P. freight at Cable and, as the grade begins to level out, we pass Tehachapi depot. The hard push is over; only a mile and a half to the Summit. Dale smiles at me and nods. I relax. I think my first mallet trip went OK. 

At the Summit, the brakeman cuts us loose from the train and we back the rear cars up so that we can head into the wye. I line the switches and we turn the engine while our diesel couples the train back together, makes a brake test and heads toward Mojave. We come out on the Main, run back to Tehachapi and tie the mallet down in track 2. We’ve been working for six hours; we’re hungry and we cross the street to the beanery.

With full bellies, we stroll toward our engine while Jimmy tells us a funny story. A three unit Santa Fe diesel is sitting on the Main beside our engine. The Santa Fe engineer tells Jimmy, “The Dispatcher wants you to couple on behind us and we will take you down with the dynamics so you won’t have to stop to cool the mallet wheels. He’s nervous; he wants us off the hill. He’s got some tonnage freights going east after 52 and 24 run.” We couple up behind the diesel and head off down the hill with the Santa Fe engineer having to do all the work. 

Jimmy says, “You did OK, kiddo. You won’t have a damn bit of trouble with the mallets.” He and Dale resume talking baseball. I lean back and prop my feet up. All I have to do is keep a small fire to hold the steam at 250 pounds; with the Santa Fe crew doing all the work, we’ll only use enough steam to keep our air pumps working. It has been a good day. As I roll off Tehachapi hill enjoying a valley sunset, I feel good inside.  “Pow—wheeze, Pow—wheeze”, all the way to Bakersfield.  

For more info about back-up mallets:

https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=4-8-8-2&railroad=sp#344

I was now a switchman, a professional railroader with my favorite railroad. I loved working there but it didn’t take long to find out that it’s a lot easier to railroad when you’re a high school kid doing fun things in the cab of the Elsie than it is having to deal with the reality of being a railroader. Fun crap like working with the grumpy guys who called the crews, having to learn the Book of Operating Rules—more importantly, understanding what all those damn rules meant—trying to understand the federal Hours of Service laws, but mostly, just trying to learn about working your new job.

Santa Fe’s Los Angeles yard had hundreds of tracks that stretched for ten miles. There were ninety switch engine assignments every day, each having its own specialized work to do. A new switchman learned the job by working with ten different crews in various parts of the yard. After those ten days, we were assigned to the Extra Board and we worked a different job with a different crew almost every day. During the first few weeks, we were frequently lost as we tried to lead our engine through the maze of tracks in the yard—much to the amusement or disgust of the old head switch crews and yardmasters.

Most of the men we worked with were lifetime railroaders; some just stayed for a while and faded away. A few were college guys working to pay their way through school. We made $12.75 for eight hours work which doesn’t seem like much now but that was good money in 1951. Some railroaders were pretty rough around the edges but most of the men were good guys to work with.  If you paid attention and really tried to learn, most of them were helpful or at least tolerant of your efforts. I soon felt comfortable with the way I was able to do the work and, after I had a little seniority and could bid on jobs that I liked, I thoroughly enjoyed working as a Santa Fe switchman for eight months.  

There was nothing like being a railroader, at least until the late 1980s. When I say “railroader” I’m not talking about the thousands of people who worked for the railroads. I’m talking about the train and engine crews, yardmasters, train dispatchers and officials who actually made the trains move. If a train was going to run, we were the folks who made it happen, 24 hours a day, rain or shine, in searing heat and freezing cold. It took a special breed of cat to do that day in and day out so let me talk a bit about those cats.

About 70 years before I arrived on the railroad scene, the expanding railroads were taking passengers and freight away from the stage coach and wagon companies. When those drivers,  shotgun messengers and hostlers started losing their jobs, they packed their grips, put a 1/2 pint of whisky in their back pocket and hired out on the railroad where there were lots of jobs and good pay. Like driving horses, railroading was a rough, hard job and those men were rough, hard dudes and they were very independent of spirit.  In other words, they didn’t take any bullshit off their fellow workers or their bosses. They had a hard job to do and they did it. Since they were no longer running horses down a lonesome, dusty trail in the wilderness but were now confined to interacting with other trains on a single track, the railroad companies soon put a big hammer on their 1/2 pint in the hip pocket shit but they did not try to do much about their independent spirit, not if they expected to move those steam powered trains across prairies and over mountain passes like Donner and Raton.

By 1952, the railroad was more civilized but I did fire steam engines for men who had hired out between 1905 and 1915. Although they had pretty much substituted a jug of coffee for the1/2 pint, many of them were relatively unchanged from the day they hired out on the railroad. I had the good fortune to work with these men as well as many fine and much younger engineers who showed me what railroading was all about. As strange as it sounds, this happened on the Southern Pacific Railroad and not on my favorite line, the Santa Fe.

Why did I switch to the S.P?  Love! I switched for Love, or at least what a boy thinks is love when he’s 18 years old. Her name was Carol and she lived in Porterville, 160 miles away, a five hour drive from Los Angeles, damn sure too many miles for a guy in love. In April, 1952, S.P. was hiring new firemen and most of them would work in Bakersfield and Fresno. Porterville is 50 miles, more or less, from those two cities, something that my ’41 Chevy could cover in either direction in less than an hour. Sure, I wouldn’t be working for Santa Fe but there are priorities in life and Carol was definitely the higher priority.

After taking a brief physical, a Book of Rules test and proving that I had a reliable railroad pocket watch, I was given seventeen letters of introduction to engineers authorizing me to make student trips on a yard engine and on sixteen mainline freight trains. Student firemen made a round trip Bakersfield to Fresno, six helper trips up Tehachapi grade, two round trips Los Angeles to Bakersfield and two round trips Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, a total of 480 miles of main line, over which a fireman was then expected to be able to fire a steam engine and to have some idea of how to keep the motors running if we got called for a diesel run out of Los Angeles. However, these letters of introduction did not require a student to go with a specific engineer nor did they require an engineer to take a student. It was up to us to talk one of the engineers making that run into taking us with him. 

The yard engine was easy but the Bakersfield to Fresno engineer that I asked, G. Ballard, snapped, “I don’t take students.” Coming to my rescue, his fireman said, “Aw, screw the old bastard. I’m Jesse. Come with me kid.” After going through the predeparture duties and getting the boiler pressure up to 200 psi, we were slowly pulling out of the yard to the main line and Ballard had the throttle open just enough to move the train. Over the noise in the cab, Jesse explained the basics of firing. 

“OK, Tommy, when the front of this engine gets to Chester Avenue and we see that the traffic is stopped, Ballard’s going to lay that throttle right out against the tank (railroad talk for pulling the throttle wide open). Don’t be timid. Stay with him. The instant that steam gauge drops one pound, put more fire in the box. Do it right now! Don’t hesitate! Keep as big a fire as you can. Don’t smoke it too much; you’ll waste fuel and screw up the flues; then you’ll have to sand the hell out of them to clean ‘em out or the engine won’t steam worth a crap. Keep ahead of Ballard because you’ll probably lose another five pounds before you get it back on the peg. Then start your water pump. But not too much. Watch your steam gauge. Watch your water glass. Don’t be putting more water in the boiler than you’re using. If you keep losing steam, you’ll be in deep shit for miles and Ballard can’t help you because he’s got 5300 tons of train to move as fast as this engine can roll. That’s what they’re paying him to do, right? It’s your job to give him a full head of steam, the power to do what he has to do. You get what I’m saying, kid? Even if you don’t like the ol’ son of a bitch, it’s a joint effort between the engineer and the fireman. Remember Tommy, always a joint effort. Your job is to make steam for him. That’s what you do. OK?”  

The whistle drowned out his words as Ballard gave a warning to the cars and, with the throttle out against the tank, we blasted across Chester Avenue. We were on our way. I held my breath. With coaching from Jesse, I held on to the steam and water. I finally started to breathe again. I smiled at Jesse. He smiled back. All in all, I did pretty well for most of the way and by the time we got to Fresno six hours later, I felt good about my first student trip on the road. As we left the engine tie-up track at New Yard, Ballard, other than writing did OK and signing his name to my letter, never acknowledged that I was in his cab.

Downtown at the Greek’s cafe on Fulton Street, Jesse introduced me to engineer, F. O. Wilson, known as Foo Wilson. After he ate his $1.25 steak dinner, he was to leave for Bakersfield.  He agreed to take me and asked me to join him for dinner. Our train returned on the alternate route through Exeter, longer and slower, winding through the orange groves. Although it was a good, easy trip, it took 14 hours to get to Bakersfield and I’d been up for almost 24 hours so I got a room at the Imperial, a hotel used by S.P. crews, and slept a while before I made the drive to Porterville, a straight shot road that I would drive many times. Later, between student trips on the Tehachapi helper engines, I plotted out the best route between Porterville and Fresno’s New Yard because I knew that, sooner or later, I’d have to work in Fresno and I wanted to be sure of the quickest way to get back to work after spending the day with Carol.

 At Bakersfield, Fresno and Santa Barbara, there were hotels and cafes that catered to S.P. crews who were laying over away from their home terminal. The simple rooms cost a dollar because we usually only spent 6 to 9 hours in these rooms. Each guy that we worked with had his preferred hotel and eating places and, as a student, we usually tagged along with our fireman and went to cafes where he ate and hotels where he slept. 

After making my first student trip to Santa Barbara, the crew wagon dropped us off at State Street near the passenger depot. I accompanied my fireman a short half block to a small building with a bar downstairs and a hotel upstairs. With the sounds of a jazz combo emanating from the bar, we paid the man for our rooms, went upstairs and down a dimly lit hall, passing a girl and guy leaning against the wall looking like they would soon be using one of the rooms. I found my room and crashed. Next morning, the callboy knocked on my door and gave me a one hour call for my train back to LA. Since it only took us five hours to get to LA, I grabbed a burger, then made my other student trip to Santa Barbara with a different crew. 

At Santa Barbara, the wagon dropped us off at State Street and I started immediately for the hotel to show them that I knew how things were done. 

One of the crew yelled, “Hey, Johnson, where are you going?”  

I proudly said, “To the hotel.”

There was a burst of laughter. “Well, we know which fireman you came with on your first trip. He’s the only one who stays at the whore house. The rest of us stay over here at the Southern.”  Sheepishly, I followed them across State Street to the hotel.

I entered the lobby of the Southern and was suddenly transported to 1930. A rather simple front desk was surrounded by several heavy rocking chairs and a couple of leather covered sofas; all were of Craftsman design, early 20^th Century. They faced the large plate glass window that looked out toward State Street and the S.P. tracks. Three gentlemen in bib overalls sat in them, waiting for the call for their next run to Los Angeles or San Luis Obispo. I went to my room feeling that I was part of something very historic, in a place that had looked like this for many years. But, that spell was broken in the early morning hours when the callboy woke me up for the return trip to LA; the engine would be one of the brand new diesels.

About ninety percent of the engines on the San Joaquin Division at that time were still steam engines. A steam engine on the mountain run from Bakersfield to LA would use over 50,000 gallons of water; in the valley, over 25,000 gallons to get from Bakersfield to Fresno. Student firemen learned a lot about water. First and foremost we learned how to maintain enough water in the boiler to keep the engine from blowing up.  As a reminder, S.P. had a large poster in every enginemen’s locker room that showed the mangled remains of a 5000 Class engine that blew up in Arizona. In large bold letters the poster warned: 

                                      DON’T LET LOW WATER DO THIS TO YOU!  

On freight and passenger trains, the fireman had to take water from the water columns along the mainline and that could become a bit precarious if you were careless. Some columns had been there a long time and were difficult to swing over the tender. The force of the water coming out of a ten inch water column is tremendous and it could change the angle of the spout and knock you off the tender if you weren’t properly braced. Suggestions from the firemen while we were students in training got pretty repetitious and we always nodded and said we’d remember what they had told us. 

Two warnings that were most often repeated were:

No. 1: Do not open the cover on the hatch before you wrestle with the big hook trying to swing the spout around over the tender. Always, swing the spout out over the hatch with the cover closed, then open the cover. To answer your questions:

YES, you can fall in. 

YES, most firemen will fit though that 28 inch hatch. 

  YES, more than one fireman has ended up getting a complementary S.P. bath when 

          he forgot about the open cover as he strained to swing the spout around.

YES STUPID, there is a ladder inside the tank to help you crawl out.

 No. 2: Before opening the valve on the water column, make sure that the spout is completely and properly placed in the open hatch and that you are standing on the spout and that you are securely braced to hold it in the hatch when the surge of water comes.

Open the valve slowly, then increase the flow. Very simple instructions but easily ignored by an eighteen year old in love. 

Question No. 1:  Did I do that when I was a fireman? YES.

Question No. 2:  Always?  Well—all but once!

Once upon a time, while taking water on the side of Tehachapi mountain, I was having trouble getting the spout to swing around over the tender. When it finally did move with a lurch, the hook slipped off the spout but I hugged the spout and didn’t fall off the tender. (So far, so good). Frustrated, I opened the hatch cover and slammed the spout down, not noticing that it wasn’t entirely inside the opening. (Not good to ignore). I had one foot on the spout but I wasn’t really bracing myself properly. (Another, not good). For good measure, I added another not good idea  (I opened the valve too fast). The sudden rush of high pressure water momentarily jerked the spout up out of the hatch, flooding the top of the tender and drenched me from head to toe. Besides feeling like an idiot I was pissed. After I gave up and did it right, for twenty minutes I felt and looked like a drowned rat while I stood on that tender and finished taking water. Down on the ground, the brakeman had a shit-eatin’ grin on his face every time he looked up at me. Back in the cab, I stood there sopping wet. I was not amused when I looked at my engineer; it was the only time I ever saw Steele laugh. My eyes telegraphed a “screw you old man” message across the cab. He quit laughing and turned to look out the window but I could tell by the way his body was quivering he was laughing again. 

Since we were soon going to stop for “beans” in Mojave, I had to dry out quick. I pulled off my clothes and draped them over pipes, valves and gauges; the cab looked like a Chinese laundry after an explosion. From Woodford, I fired the engine dressed only in my boots. Steele shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t laugh any more but I knew he was quietly chuckling inside and I was expecting him to erupt any minute. The heat from the boiler soon dried my clothes and I did manage to get dressed in time to go to dinner at Reno’s Cafe with the rest of the crew. Within two days everybody on the San Joaquin Division knew about The Naked Railroader on Tehachapi mountain.

Back in the 1940 and 50s, railroads often ran special passenger trains for railroad fan groups and Railway Club of Southern California, Railroad Boosters and other groups frequently chartered trains that ran over interesting railroad routes.  One of the favorite features of a railroad fan trip was having the train stop at interesting locations for a “photo run by.” Passengers who wanted to take action movies and photos of the train could get off, the train would back up half mile or so, then come charging back past the photographers so that action shots and movies could be taken. Once past the photographers, the train would stop, back up, pick up the photographers, and then continue on to another interesting place to stop.  The Railway Club of Southern California had chartered a special train on one of the railroads and, after they had sold all the tickets for the trip, the railroad cancelled the train with very little notice.  Desperate for a train to take them some place— any place—the club approached Santa Fe and said, “we have this much money, how far can we go on June 5, 1949? The ever-friendly Santa Fe said, “Los Angeles to Cadiz and return to LA.” and that’s how I, along with my buddy Art, ended up going to Cadiz, California (pronounced Kay-deez). 

Where the hell is Cadiz and why, in God’s name, would over 300 people pay money to ride a train into the wilds of the great Mojave with a destination that’s only a tiny speck on the map of that huge desert?  Well, if you’re on an eastbound train east of Barstow and you want to go back to Los Angeles, you’ve got to turn that train around some place. Now, turning a 700 foot passenger train around is not quite as simple as turning your car around in front of your house; it takes a bit more space than that. Cadiz, the lonely speck on the map about 90 miles past Barstow along old Route 66, is the only place out in that great desert that has a wye (pronounced “Y”) track arrangement that can do that. And, that’s why tiny Cadiz became the destination for this special train.

At Cadiz, Art and I managed to con the Engineer into letting us ride the engine while they turned the train on the wye, an operation that took about 30 minutes but, once we had done that, the Conductor gave the “highball” to leave Cadiz before we could get from the engine back to the train so we were stuck on the engine, which was, damn sure, just OK with us! Naturally, I had to mention to the fireman that I did know a little bit about firing because of my occasional experience on the Elsie Turn and he said, “OK, let’s see what you learned,” and I ended up on the fireman’s seat on the 3748, not the fastest passenger engine on the Santa Fe but it had no trouble at all sustaining a respectable 70 to 75 MPH. Now came the surprising part of this cab ride. Once the fireman and engineer saw that I did know enough about firing an engine that I could—with quite a bit of coaching from the two of them—keep the steam and water up, the fireman told Art to lean out of the window behind me in the fireman’s seat while he climbed out on the running board in front of the cab to take a picture of us. So, holding onto the hand rail with one hand and my Ansco Shur Shot box camera, with the other, he took the picture of a lifetime of these two boys at a speed that I don’t want to even guess at. But, if you look at the blurred ground in the picture, we were 

moving right along. That’s how Santa Fe Engine 3748, a little seven car passenger train and tiny Cadiz station out on the Great Mojave Desert, created a special memory for me.

As I wrote earlier, I did go to work for Santa Fe after I turned eighteen in September, 1951. It was a lot easier to walk with confidence into that Santa Fe office asking for a job because of the engineers, firemen and brakemen and one special Trainmaster who encouraged this sixteen year old kid to follow his dream of working for the Santa Fe Railroad. And so, my Santa Fe adventure started.

One day in 1949, I wormed my way into the nerve center of the locomotive—THE CAB—where the engineer controls the movement of the engine and train. After 1905, when Santa Fe took Death Valley Scotty on his chartered train from LA to Chicago in about forty-four hours at speeds that sometimes exceeded 100 MPH, they were always considered a high speed railroad.  However, the El Segundo Turn, “the Elsie,” the little local freight train where I had been invited into the cab, moved a bit slower—in the10 to 25MPH range— as it picked up and delivered cars to the various industries between Inglewood and El Segundo.  But, it was still exciting to be in the noisy cab;  the roaring fire in the firebox, the vibration of the pounding cross compound air pump, the dripping hot water and wisps of steam from the throttle packing. Engine 3133 was alive, even if it wasn’t one of Santa Fe’s speedsters.

Two days later, I was back at the depot and again I was invited into the cab. The fireman, Clyde Pace, after conferring with engineer Dan, decided that I was not going to freeload anymore and he motioned for me to put my little butt on his seat; I was in it almost before he could get out of the way. This started my unofficial training as a locomotive fireman. Later, when I seemed to be doing pretty well, Clyde went into the depot to fetch a cup of coffee while Dan, the brakemen and I, took several cars to the house track behind the depot. Of course, my being on the engine at all was against the railroad rules but the crew members watched over me and kept everything safe.

Now, since you’ve watched movies with railroads, especially The Polar Express with it’s wonderful scenes in the engine cab, you probably have visions of me covered head to toe with coal dust, heaving shovels of coal into the blazing firebox. No. NO!!  Not in the far west. When was the last time you saw a coal mine in California? Right!  BUT, we had a hell of a lot of lot of oil wells in California. So, Union Oil Company, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific put their heads together and perfected a way to burn oil in a steam locomotive. After about 1900, almost all railroads out west burned oil in their steam engines, not coal. Compared to a coal burner, the fireman’s job became a much cleaner and less strenuous job. It also required a lot of finesse with the blower, atomizer and firing valves to properly control the flow of oil to the firebox and a great deal more coordination with the engineer every time he readjusted the throttle and reverse gear.

One day on the “Elsie”, while we were spotting a car of beer and a car of lumber on the team track, the Trainmaster drove up. His Name was L. B. Freborg—kind of a Spencer Tracy like man. He was in charge of making sure things ran smoothly and he also kept an eye out for any rules violations on this part of the railroad. His first stop was to go into the depot to talk with the Agent about how things were going that day.

However, a little bit later, when he came out of the depot, he yelled up to the engineer, “Hey Dan, You don’t have that kid up there in the cab, do you?”  I started to sneak down the ladder on the opposite side. 

“No Lou, I wouldn’t let him up in the cab.”  

“You know, Dan, the rules forbid him being in the cab.”  

“Oh, sure Lou but I haven’t even seen him today.” 

Lou scratched his chin and shook his head, “Funny thing Dan; his bicycle’s been leanin’ against the depot ever since I got here.” Cracking a little smile, he got in his car and drove off.  I climbed back up the ladder of Engine 3154 and resumed firing.

I guess a bio is supposed to start at the beginning—so, I was born in 1933 in Los Angeles and raised in Inglewood a couple of miles east of where LAX is now. Having started life that long ago, I sometimes have a hard time understanding what my daughter Melissa is talking about; like, “this is for the landing page of our blog.”  To me, landing is something an airplane does and Blog was a scary science fiction movie character when I was a kid. 

Susi: Tom–mee, that science fiction character when you were a kid was 

THE BLOB!  Melissa is talking about something she’s doing on the internet 

called a BLOG!

Oh! Yeah, uh—whatever the damn thing is. Anyway, in spite of this, Melissa and I have communicated pretty well since she was born. So, I’ll give this a try. 

From the time I was five years old, my parents took me to the ballet, opera and stage shows, maybe trying to instill a bit of culture into my young life. I was fascinated by the beautiful dancing, elaborate painted stage sets, the wonderful effects created by the stage lighting and the excitement of live theatre. It wasn’t long before I decided that I wanted to be a theatrical set and lighting designer when I grew up.  

A few years after having made this momentous decision, a movie studio was filming scenes at the Santa Fe station in Inglewood. Being close to Hollywood, our 1880s depot was often used for movie shoots but, this time, the studio had covered the depot and grounds with fake snow in areas that would show in the movie.  This interested me because our depot had now become a “theatrical set.”  However, even more fascinating was the steam locomotive and train that sat a little ways away, quietly steaming while the movie crew set up camera and lights for the first shot. When everyone was ready, a blast of the engine whistle scared the shit out of me and I instantly backed up to where I felt safe, as this previously simmering engine suddenly came to life, making deafening noises and shooting smoke into the air as it charged into camera range. After it made its short trip to the depot and the actors were finished doing the scene, it backed up out of camera range and quiet time returned until it came time to do the next shot. Even though I was somewhat fearful of the steaming machine, I was fascinated by it and I decided I wanted to be a Santa Fe locomotive engineer when I grew up.   

Well, as you can see, by the time I was in grammar school, I had a big-time career conflict going on in my head. Which is it going to be when I grow up:  a designer for the theatre or a Santa Fe locomotive engineer??! 

 My family and I continued going to the theatre and I was pretty much in theatre mode until my history class took a field trip to our historic Santa Fe depot. There, we talked with the station employees and watched a freight train rumbling through town and I found out that, every day, right behind that train, was another freight train that stopped and switched cars into and out of various industries like the furniture factory, lumber yards and beer warehouse. So, once in a while, I would ride my bike to the depot to watch what they did and, after they got to know me, the brakemen sometimes let me do things that were safe, like uncoupling cars and bleeding air off the brake system. Eventually, one of the engineers asked if I would like to come up into the cab.  YES!  I climbed up the ladder and spent an hour riding around in this rather grimy but fascinating steam engine cab, filled with pipes and gauges and levers and a roaring fire in the firebox. Pretty exciting world in that steamy cab, especially when you’re not quite sixteen.  

Now, my parents had always encouraged me to do the things that I wanted to do but, by my junior and senior year in high school, they could see that, even though I was building stage sets and designing lighting on the high school stage and in community theatre, I was also becoming very interested in what was happening down at the railroad station. Working at any job with heavy equipment the size of boxcars and locomotives is not the safest job in the USA and certainly not as safe as being a designer for the theatre. I’m sure that the possibility of their only child loosing legs and arms under the wheels of a train did not thrill my parents and, during my senior year, my parents did seem to be buying more and more tickets to stage shows, after which we would have great discussions about how wonderful it would be  when I became old enough to work in professional theatre.

High School Graduation, June, 1951: I had always been more interested in creative classes than in academic classes, so attending college, even the offer to send me to the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse School of Theatre as a design student, didn’t turn me on. I was seventeen and wanted to be free of school for a while.  There were no job openings except something like a paper route or a market bag boy until I was eighteen. I decided to let my parents support me until I turned eighteen and I spent the summer on the beach. By the middle of September no theatre company had come pounding on my door begging me to design sets and lighting for them so, on my 18^th birthday, well tanned and ready to work, I entered the Santa Fe office in Los Angeles and they hired me as a switchman (which is the same as a brakeman who works in the switching yard). I was thrilled. I came home, told my parents the good news and went out to celebrate with my friends— Mom and Dad stayed home with the papers they would reluctantly sign in order for me to work for the Santa Fe; they had to give their permission since I was not yet 21.

Well….I did live to retire as a passenger train engineer in 1996 and I still have all my arms and legs.  After we retired, in 2004, my wife Susi and I moved to Sonora, CA, a small town in the gold country that had three wonderful live theatres that we could work with and they presented fine shows all year. Surprise! I also ended up being a Train Conductor at Railtown State Historic Park until I was 85 (if you happen to see Huell Howser’s California Gold trip to Jamestown and Railtown on PBS, I was the conductor).

But, don’t go away yet. I did get to do set and lighting designs for many theatres and, most of those shows included my actress wife, Susi. In 1966, I left the Santa Fe and for eleven years, I worked in theatre. It was an exciting time, especially the seven years Susi and I worked in the show room at Harrah’s at Lake Tahoe; we call that our Tahoe Adventure and, the most exciting thing that happened there was that Melissa came into our lives. In 1977, I returned to Santa Fe but I also continued to design for theatres. We look forward to sharing some railroad, theatre and other stories with you once Melissa gets us old folks tuned into what the hell a Blob—oops, a Blog— really is. 

Tommy Johnson