Try this on for Cy's

By Cy Martin

For suggestion or comments contact Cy Martin via E-Mail

Dennis Hogan, President of the North Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, lives in Frisco, Texas and says: The town council chose by a tie-breaking vote by the mayor to paint the old municipal water tower in red with two Frisco coonskin heralds. It's an attempt to recall the town's RR heritage.

------------------ The question is ... "How long we will allow the Supreme Court to say that political influence buying equals free speech." -- Source Unknown. ------------------ Conductor Jennifer Mack is doing Income Tax work again this year. She started doing tax work back when she was driving a van for Brown Limo. She was going to college back then. When she wasn't driving, she usually had her face buried in accounting books studying for an exam. Jennifer's business is called "Mach's Tax". Her telephone number is 817-282-2054. ------------------ "A successful executive is one who can delegate all the responsibility, shift all the blame and appropriate all the credit." VFW Magazine. ------------------ Ben Franklin is supposed to have said "There is no truth, just power. Power can create its own truth". ------------------ Ennis, Texas was named for Cornelius Ennis, a director of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. He was also a son-in-law of A.H. Belo, owner of the Dallas Morning News. ------------------ "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us." -- Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 (Walden 1854) ------------------ We hear all this fuss about lawsuit abuse and "bad" jury awards. Funny thing is, we only hear it from the losers. To this, one acquaintance of mine answers with the old Right Wing cliche, "If you don't like it here, go live in Russia." ------------------ Speaking of abuse ... Something is wrong with the system when a business such as North East Mall or Texas Motor Speedway can get a governmental body such as the city of Fort Worth or Hurst to condemn property they want for a parking lot when its owner doesn't want to sell for the price they want to pay. If the owner doesn't want to sell his property, let them simply build around it. In about a year, when he can't get to his house without fighting traffic, he will probably be glad to sell. The actions of the Fort Worth Sports Authority in dealing with the residents of Country Lane Estates are what one would expect from the government of a Communist country. They offered these people $20,000 to give up their homes and move out. That's damn little money to pay for a person's home regardless of its size or condition. They should be ashamed of themselves. ------------------ Personally, I don't think deadheading on trailing locomotives is particularly healthy or safe. If locomotive cabs were meant for passengers, we would be selling tickets for the vacant seats on the trailing units, and having the conductor punch them. In my opinion, deadheading by train should be done ONLY in emergencies, that is when, fire, earthquake, flood, hurricane, etc. has made all other routes impracticable. ------------------ Ben Franklin also said, "Stay close to your friends -- but keep your enemies even closer." ------------------ "25 years ago - Lancaster Yard in Fort Worth was renamed Centennial Yard to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Texas and Pacific Railroad" -From The Clearance Card ------------------ We have heard at least one complaint from a conductor about not having microphones on the locomotive radios. He says it is unsafe since without one, he has to crowd the engineer's work space in order to use the radio. We were led to believe that replacement radios would have a jack that a microphone could be plugged into. A jack is a useless item and an unnecessary expense if there are no microphones issued to crew members. ------------------ Employees wishing to avail themselves of the Lockeed Recreation Center should call Rickey Howard at 878-4565. ------------------ We have a thing called the "Service Delivery Index." From what I can gather, this is an indicator of how well we deliver our customers' loads. What confuses me is on a recent date, we had an Actual SDI of 72.2. It showed the Goal SDI was 76.2, based on what we promised the customer. Why isn't the goal 100% of what we promise the customer? ------------------ An old timer once said every railroad division needed at least one train a day that ran on schedule and that anyone who delayed it should get called on the carpet to explain why. ------------------ "Duct Tape is like "THE FORCE". It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the Universe together." -- From the Critter's List. ------------------ Union Pacific handled nearly 440,000 shipments of Hazardous Material last year and had only five releases. That is quite remarkable. ------------------ Part of our Operation Lifesaver project will be the clearing of vegetation at crossings to improve the visual field of motorist. ------------------ We want to welcome the Southern Pacific and Cotton Belt folks to the Union Pacific. None of us know at this time how the seniority and assignments are eventually going to work out, but regardless of the outcome, "they" didn't do it to us and "we" didn't do it to them. If after all the dust and smoke settles you can hold a better job, it wasn't because of anything you did, except be born at the right place or time, Heck, if we had had any control over that, we'd all been born rich and a damn sight better looking.

Cy is a locomotive engineer in the Bowl Yard in Fort Worth 2-97