Career railroad employee recalls passenger conductor experiences as most unforgettable

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[July 21, 2018]   LINCOLN - Dale Jenkins related his encounter with the old adage “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” Jenkins was speaking to members of the Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society attending the monthly meeting last Monday evening.

Jenkins spent his working career in the railroad industry, and he has some stories to tell. While his career involved working as a railroad detective for forty years, for one brief shining moment he was able to fulfill a wish he had nurtured for years.

Dale Jenkins grew up in Springfield next to the old Illinois Terminal Railroad tracks, a railroad that at one time was also the roadbed of the famous traction system called the Interurban. From a very early age he was fascinated with trains and decided that working in the railroad industry would be his life’s work.

His first job was as a railroad detective for the IT railroad, the very system that had passed by his house. But that was not what he really wanted to do. He wanted to ride trains, not patrol trains and rail yards. And that is where his talk to the LCGHS that he calls “The mis-adventures of an OBSD (On Board Service Director)” ran smack into “Be careful what you wish for.”

Until the early 1970’s, the railroads in the U.S. ran freight and passenger service, but passenger service was a money loser and the railroads wanted out from under it. They convinced the United States government to take over passenger rail service and Amtrak was formed.

Amtrak began service in 1971, and started advertising for On Board Service Directors, another name for the position of conductor. The OBSD was in charge of everything that happened on the passenger train. Jenkins gave into his desire to ride trains, gave up his badge as a railroad detective, and applied for an onboard job with Amtrak in 1973.

After a one month training class with thirty-two people, only two of whom had any railroad experience, Jenkins was given a red vest and put on a passenger train as an On Board Service Director in May of 1974. That is when the true reality of the national passenger railroad system became apparent.

As the railroads got out of the passenger business, they gave all of their poorly maintained and worn out passenger coaches and locomotives to Amtrak.

“The railroads had let their passenger service deteriorate for years, and when they gave their equipment to Amtrak it was junk, and we had to deal with it,” Jenkins said.

The list of problems that came up were numerous, and the newly minted twenty-six year old conductor had to deal with them. He was based in Chicago, a huge hub for the new national passenger rail system.

“One of my first jobs was on the Chicago to Laredo, Texas line that was known as the train from hell,” he said with a laugh. “No one wanted to work that train and it left from absolutely the worst train yard in Chicago, the 14th Street Yard,” he added. What happened on the Chicago to Laredo was typical of the problems that arose all over the Amtrak system.

The train left Chicago and traveled to one of the hottest parts of the country, and the air conditioning on most of the cars did not work. “If it was 100 degrees outside, it was 100 degrees in the coaches,” Jenkins said. The trains were typically overbooked by a reservations system that was unworkable. “How can you accommodate more people booked on the train than there is room for,” he said. It required some serious shuffling of bodies to get everyone accommodated. To make matters worse, the train was supposed to have a dining car. The kitchen equipment frequently broke down and no onboard meals were available. Jenkins developed a system to help out by calling ahead and having 500 boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered to the next station, and just gave the food away. “No AC and no food made for some very unhappy passengers, and my red conductor vest seemed to have a big bull’s eye on the back of it. I was the focal point of every complaint constantly,” he said.

One persistent problem was the interaction between the old-time passenger railroad staff and the new Amtrak staff. “They just did not get along and the poor attitude problems were a headache,” Jenkins said. There just was no cooperation between the two generations, always a serious culture clash.

All of these problems caused some creative solutions for Dale Jenkins. “I had one instance where the dining car batteries in the kitchen quit working, and we tried to use a small kitchen in an ancient dormitory car to cook food. The problem was that the stove was wood fired and the car where meals were to be served filled with wood smoke,” he said.

The romance of riding the rails as a conductor was quickly going away for this young railroad romantic. “I faced four college kids smoking marijuana in the restroom of a car, getting high and having a great time. I used my best railroad detective voice to tell them to knock it off and get back to their seats,” he said.

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What else could go wrong?

Plenty as it turned out. “I once had a sleeping car that vibrated so badly at speed that no one could remain in the car,” he said.

“One time the train was so hot with lack of AC traveling from Texas to St. Louis that I called ahead and had Greyhound buses follow the train route and pick up passengers in the stations ahead so that no more passengers would be put onboard,” he said.

Another creative solution from Dale Jenkins: When the worn-out train finally got to St. Louis very late after being held up by a derailment with a full complement of unhappy hot and hungry riders, the only solution was to rent buses to take the passengers the rest of the way to Chicago because of missed connections.

“When I got on the bus wearing my Amtrak uniform the glares I got from the passengers were terrible. And to add insult to injury, there were no seats left on the bus, so I had to ride standing up all the way to Chicago,” he said.

Needless to say, everyone missed their connections in Chicago. “There were some heated exchanges in St. Louis about how Amtrak was going to get some of the passengers to their final destination of New York City. I turned around and walked away from that mess, wanted no part” Jenkins said with a laugh.

“Every trip on Amtrak in the early days was an adventure for me, sometimes not in a good way,” Jenkins said.

You get the idea that his job was a living nightmare at times.

“I found that I could occasionally fix the AC problems by poking a long stick in the electrical box that controlled the system, create a huge electrical arc, and sometimes the AC would start working,” he said.

Dale Jenkins’ experience as an On Board Service Director was not unique in the early days of Amtrak. He and his fellow OBSD’s faced similar situations traveling from Chicago to New Orleans (nicknamed the Chicken Bone for the many boxes of KFC left under the seats at the destination), Chicago to Seattle (the Empire Builder), and from Los Angeles back to Chicago (the Super Chief, one of the premier passenger trains in its day) trying to make the best of a very bad situation. Yes, Dale Jenkins has some stories to tell.

In October of 1974, Jenkins was offered a promotion from OBSD to head of the 14th Street Yard in Chicago, the worst one in the city. It did not take him long to decline, resign from Amtrak and resume his job as a railroad detective for the Illinois Terminal and its follow on companies.

“I spent forty years working on the railroad as a detective and enjoyed every one of them, but that time with Amtrak was something else,” he said with a laugh.

Dale Jenkins has a great sense of humor, but his time with Amtrak may have pushed that to the limit. It must be said that in his time with Amtrak, he tried his best to make his passengers safe and comfortable, but the odds seemed to be stacked against him. He wanted to ride the rails, but “be careful what you wish for” was hanging over his head the entire time.

This story has a happy ending, though. Dale Jenkins wanted to ride the rails as a passenger train conductor. He finally got his wish after retiring from his job as a railroad detective. He now serves as a conductor on the passenger trains at the Monticello Railroad Museum. “I am having a really fun time and my passengers are always a happy bunch,” he said.
Jenkins has found good rail passenger karma in the end.

The Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society has a monthly meeting on the third Monday at their research facility at 114 Chicago Street in Lincoln at 6:30 p.m. They always have an interesting speaker and the public is invited to attend.


[Curtis Fox]

 

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