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03/26/01 20:56 |
Bob Montbriand |
All this talk of the extravagant salaries being laid out by the
RR in the "early days" has
stirred me to relate my personal tale of the high income days. After some months of instruction at
the hand of Nixon and others at Gale
Institute I signed on in 1949 as an Apprentice Telegrapher at the princely sum of 30 cents per hour. After
a short time on the job I was
informed that my salary was going to be more than doubled!!! No, it
was not my superior performance that
led to this startling pay raise, it was rather,the enactment of the federal
minimum wage act (75 cents per hour).
wages, minimum wage, Telegrapher , Gale Institute, Ron Nixon, 1949
Compiler C Frissell |
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06/10/03 17:24 |
Bill Kuebler |
NP engine and train crews
were paid on a mileage basis, but the
mileage figure used for pay purposes had nothing to do with mileposts. It had everything to do
with the actual mileage across the
relevant district, and that figure was
kept up to date in Company documents. The Employee's Timetable was usually up to date, for
example. Whenever there were line
changes, changes in station location, etc.,
that resulted in a change in mileage across a district, the ETT would be updated very soon after, if
not on the date of the change. The
mileage across a district as shown in the
ETT was usually very close to the figure used for pay purposes. There could still be some minor
discrepancies in mileage, however,
account using the distance between
switches rather than between stations. ETT showed mileage between stations. The examples of Dickinson and Mandan
terminals illustrate these kinds of
details. According the ETT of 4/26/64,
distance between Dickinson and Glendive was 105.6, but at that time, a trip across that district was
actually worth 105 miles. Pay was
figured according to the distance between
the west switch DX and the east switch GI. Terminal delays incurred by the crews could result in
additional mileage pay. (There were
formulas for this--every so many minutes
worth of terminal delay was worth so many miles of pay. There were other similar provisions in the
labor agreements, as well.) Mileposts
DX to GI, however, would yield a
slightly different result, thus:
215.6 - 110.3 = 105.3 That
0.3 mile per trip may seem like an insignificant difference, but when it came to pay, both the crews and
the management kept their pencils
plenty sharp. Management didn't want
to pay one nickel more than necessary, and crews wanted every nickel their labor agreement said they had coming to them, just as it should be. The Mandan-Dickinson district is an even
better example of the difference
between MPs and mileage. In 1964, mileage
(and pay) was 100 miles. Incidentally, 100 miles was generally the minimum mileage for a main
line trip across a district. (E.g.,
Missoula - Paradise via the High Line was
only about 71 miles, but it paid 100 miles. Dilworth to Jamestown was 96 miles, but it paid 100.)
Mileposts between Mandan and
Dickinson would yield: 109.0 - 0 =
109.0 The nine miles difference was
caused by the 1947 line change
between New Salem and Glen Ullin. There is about a 9.5-mile gap at MP 44. That is, MP 54 is located
about a half-mile west of MP 44. The
NP did not change the MPs "downstream" of the line change. As for pay calculations, railroads back then were just like today's railroads (and
airlines). You can bet your entire
paycheck that the most up-to-date
mileage figure was used, and actual pay calculations took into account the new mileage immediately
upon it going into effect. On
December 3, 1947, for example, the engineer of the last Extra freight over the old line (X6011W) was paid about nine miles more pay than the engineer
of the first Extra over the new line
(X6010E), which was only a few hours
later. To show you just how
sharp the Company's pencils could be
when figuring costs (and the examples are probably endless), here's an interesting story from June 1961: In those days, the NP was running trains
3 and 4 with two units between St.
Paul and Jamestown, but with only one unit
between Jamestown and Mandan. Train 3 often (but not always) had a car switched out of the train at JY
and train 4 had it switched back in
there, so the train sometimes had five or
six cars east of JY and one car less west of there. In later years, NP consistently ran two units on
trains 1 and 2 when they were five
cars, so running two units on a five-car
train was nothing unusual. Running only one unit on a five-car train was much less common. (A
second unit also afforded protection
against on-road failures of a unit.)
In 1961, trains 3 and 4 turned at Mandan. The second unit was taken off No. 3 at JY and stored in
the roundhouse for several hours,
then added to No. 4 (same equipment as on No. 3) for the run east to St. Paul. Why? Well...the only conceivable reason would have been to save
a few dollars in crew, fuel, and
perhaps maintenance costs. It is interesting
that the NP did this, because the hassle of switching the lone unit out of train 3 and then running
it over to the roundhouse, and the
reverse procedure for train 4, seems
hardly worth it. They could have just as well left it on the train and run the two units to Mandan.
But...they could save a few
nickels--literally. Here are some real numbers from the fireman, Glenn Hove, who worked train No. 4 out of JY on June 2, 1961 with Engineer Emil
Stumm--these are taken from Glenn's
time book: Basic trip pay for his
trip east on No. 4 on 6/2/61 was
$18.01 (He logged a five-minute terminal delay, which didn't amount to much). That figure was based on
two F-7/3s (6509C and 6506A--the
6509C came off train 3 that morning and was
added to train 4 at JY early that evening). Pay is based on mileage as well as on total weight on
drivers of the locomotive. I.e., all
units in the consist count toward
this. F-9s paid a little more than F-3/5/7s account being slightly heavier. The F-9 difference is a
few cents per hundred miles. Freight
pay schedules were similar in this
regard. Well, two mornings
later, on June 4, 1961, Glenn Hove and
Emil Stumm made a trip from Jamestown to Dilworth on No. 26, which had three units. All three were
F-7s/3s, so the only difference in
pay as compared with his trip on No. 4 two
days earlier would have been based on the third unit, versus two units. Mileage would have been the
same for the two trips. His trip pay
on No. 26 was $19.01. That's $0.20
difference. For his engineer, the difference would have been something on the order of perhaps double
that amount, maybe a little less.
That's a total of no more than $0.60
difference in engine crew pay for having one more unit on a trip, all other factors being equal. As for fuel, I don't have exact figures
on hand for what the NP was paying
for diesel fuel in June 1961, but an educated guess would put it at about $0.10 per gallon. Average fuel burn in a two-unit F- locomotive in that
territory, assuming summer time (minimal
steam generation required) and a four
or five car train, works out to about 1.3 gallons per mile per unit, and about 1.75 times that
per-unit figure for one unit, account
having to use higher throttle settings more
often to handle the same train with a single unit. Using round figures, total fuel savings by
dropping a unit was probably no more
than about $9 for the trip from Jamestown
to Mandan. So, total savings works out to less than $10. (To convert 1961 dollars to 2003 dollars,
multiply by about 6.3, according to
an inflation calculator.) That's
not a big figure in the overall scheme of things, and it's not like there were dozens of runs of
trains 3 and 4 in a day across the
engine district. Granted, the NP's bottom
line during the years 1957-61 was less than sterling, but even so, I'd say the NP was keeping its
pencils rather sharp, indeed. I find
that unit-drop at JY to be very
interesting. The NP did not do that in earlier years, even with the same train lengths, same schedules,
same locomotive rotations--etc. I
have seen two photos of trains 25/26 in
1958 that show the train with only two units (11 cars!). Train 26 was at Billings (an A-A pair,
back to back) and train 25 was at
Fargo (an A-B pair). It is possible the
third unit was dropped from 25/26 account failures, but if the third unit was dropped from those
trains on the eastern district (St.
Paul - Livingston) for the same reasons as the unit drop at JY for 3 and 4, that would be remarkable and yet quite believable. No wonder they figured mileage for pay
purposes the way they did... Sharp
pencils, indeed! fuel costs, F-units,
Train 3, Train 4, Train 26, Emil
Stumm, Glenn Hove, Employee Time Tables, Mileposts, Mileage Compiler C Frissell |
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06/10/03 17:35 |
Bill Kuebler |
Basic trip pay for his
trip east on No. 4 on 6/2/61 was >
$18.01 Meant to write
$18.81. fuel costs, F-units, Train 3,
Train 4, Train 26, Emil Stumm, Glenn
Hove, Employee Time Tables, Mileposts, Mileage Compiler C Frissell |
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06/10/03 20:59 |
Brad Slaney |
During my tenure in the
Accounting Dept of the Q in Chicago, I remember the payroll dept was always
in turmoil. Timeslips all over the place. It's amazing anyone ever got paid.
I suspect the NP was no different. time
slips, pay Compiler C Frissell |