My dad was Lee W. Pike. He started out as a section-hand, and with only a 3rd grade education, advanced to section foreman, Building and Bridge outfit foreman, foreman of the B&B shop in Denison, and retired as Superintendent of Maintenance of Way for the North Texas Division.
Needless to say, I am very proud of him. He broke a leg building the triple overpass in downtown Dallas; he TOLD the college-engineers where and how to build a trestle across Muddy-Boggy in Oklahoma. (at the request of Fraser [then President] who was angry because they were washed-out every other year).
I still have the old envelope on the back of which he had sketched how they should do it so that the pilings would not be as abused by the flood-currents. He also did the design, and supervised the construction of the great mahogany doors of the San Antonio Depot -- All with a third grade education!
It all comes back in pleasant bits and pieces, as remembering when three or four of us would be walking the T&NO's or KO&G's track, and a freight train would approach. Without a word being spoken, we'd split up and squat down on opposite sides to look at the journals of every car for the tell-tale whisp of smoke. If we saw none, we ignored the caboose crew, or merely returned their wave. If we gave the "fin gers-to-the-nose" sign, they took it seriously -- they all knew us.
Once, a brake-shoe dropped off of a tank-car on the afternoon T&NO local, and I ducked down, crawled close to the track and retrieved it. I held it up for the rear-crew to see, and found out later they'd set out the car at Sherman because of o ur action.
It was an era when people trusted people, even teenagers. I didn't know whether it was "critical" or not, but figured they could evaluate it for themselves.
My teen-age peer group was always riding switchers (cab and footboard), passing up orders to passing trains at Leigh Tower, getting a ride home from school in the coach of the Wichita- Falls passenger Wye movement, etc.
Hot and sweaty after bicycling out to Ray Yards, we could usually count on a free milk shake at the counter in the beanery before we took "lessons" in lining up the turntable at the roundhouse.
In later years I often wondered why all this never got back to the Trainmaster or the Divisional Superintendent, resulting in deep trouble for every kid and every parent involved. I now realize it was because their sons and nephews were a part of the adolescent railroad family too.
Many of our stunts were ones I'd have severely punished my own kids for doing, but I wouldn't take a million dollars for the memories. At least we didn't do drugs, alcohol, or form malicious "gangs."
But, not all we did was "safe" or "desirable" by adult standards! - During the summer of '48, just after I'd turned 16, I was "ejected" from Katy's #2, the Texas Special, at Greenville, Texas for attempting to sneak home to Denison from Dallas on a pass.
Normally, this was not a problem as dad and I knew all the trainmen. But on this particular evening there was a "trainee" conductor collecting tickets on this restricted train.
Knowing that to make waves would make problems for my dad, I quietly went along with his demand that I leave the train at the only station stop between Highland Park (Dallas) and Denison. I walked around to the blind side of the train and climbed into the cab of Number 396, and said (in my best plaintive voice) to the engineer, "Uncle Tom, I've been booted off --- can I ride home with you?" I sat on a built-in tool-chest on the front end of the tender.
After we had gone through Celeste, Uncle Tom (Nelson) motioned to me, and when I got within earshot, asked (yelled) if I wanted to "run" the engine.
He told me we were about eight minutes late and could make that up before we hit Leigh Interlocker at Denison, if I was smarter than I looked. He grabbed the orders at Trenton as I blew for the crossing - - and "prayed." I was scared stiff.
How many of today's railroaders understand not only the noise, but the multitude of complicated actions constantly occuring when a steam locomotive is in motion. An engineer in this era heard all, and felt everything through the seat of his ove ralls; and it all (by some miracle) sorted out as "intelligent feedback" from his locomotive -- and train. To me, it was just overwhelming noise and violent motion.
There was a 50 mile per hour slow order through Whitewright, but he told me I could take it at 55 to 58 without a problem. I roared thru at 62.
He pointed out that the cars behind me were not as heavy as the locomotive, and very probably I'd spilled someone's coffee in the dining car, and startled some woman trying to negotiate the vestibule between the lounge car and her Pullman.
Later, I recalled he didn't slow me down a bit; but he had a hand on top of mine on the brake-lever, and his other hand was never far from the throttle or Johnson-bar.
He INSISTED that the T&P diamond at Bells must be taken no faster than 40 miles per hour, and when I got confused and was "jerking" the train slack with alternate brake and throttle movements to slow down, he "took over" and smoothly, calmly, easily, brought it under control.
That was about the time he suggested that I should probably let him "have it," and I retired to my seat on the tender-box for the last 13 miles to home.
The one time I felt I could jerk my eyes away long enough to glance at the speedometer we were doing 63 miles per hour. We pulled into Denison Depot at 8:35pm, right on the advertised. I was drained and exhausted, but elated.
From then on, I always held Engineers in the highest of worshipful-awe; to think they did this all the time. The fireman had laughed at me every darn mile of the way, but he was quick to jump over and hit the whistle when I was about to miss a meet-acknowledgement -- but -- I was busy dimming the headlight for it!
"Uncle Tom" Nelson wasn't a relative; but a close friend of my dad, and was just always "Uncle Tom". He's not to be confused with my real Uncle Tom Lilly (my "mother's brother-in-law), who finished his Katy career as building superintendent o f the Katy Building in Dallas, after being injured in a wash-out reconstruction while working for my dad.
Does anyone out there have a scan or a picture of MKT No. 396, a rather unpretentious member of the Katy's passenger-stable in the early half of this century? It has a particularly "warm spot" in my railroad memories. I would dearly love to have a photo of this locomotive; and if anyone out there has a GIF or JPG scan of it, please either send it to me E-Mail or post it on the railroad binary/picture NewsGroup.
I kept the family tradition intact by working the summer after my high school graduation on a Signal gang installing ABS between Taylor and Smithville. Alas, neither of my sons carried on the family tradition of working on the Katy, and that tradition shall die when I'm laid in my casket. I would be foolish to say that this does not depress me.
My mother's father, was scalded to death (sometime in the 1920's) when his engine plowed into the rear end of a freight that had not cleared the cutoff to Ray Yards from the main north of Denison, south of the Red River. He was engineer on a " north end" passenger train. It was a "Casey Jones" scenario in that he told the fireman to "jump" -- and he went down trying to stop the train.
One member of our teen-age group in Denison was Harry Ray Brown, who is now retired from government service and lives in Denton. He is the current President of the Katy Railroad Historical Society. His father, Ray Brown, was a road-freight hogger for the Katy (south end) out of Denison when we were growing up together.
I've been told that Pat Tobin, engineer of the first train to enter Texas from the north, was somewhere in the family; but I can't confirm it.
It is really difficult to explain to an "outsider" how one can have a real, honest-to-goodness, deep love of Railroading --- isn't it?
Joe Pike is a retired from a corporate finance career and lives in Irving, Texas. 4-97