|
 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] |
