Memories of a Railroad Signalman
       by Cecil E. Anderson (Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1985)

 We moved to a farm four miles south of Pennock when I was five years old.  My father however stayed
in the section house and came to farm week ends. My mother wouldn't allow me to go to school until I
was over seven years old, because it was a two and a half mile walk. I passed two grades that year and
brought me up to date. We went to work early those days. I broke land with three horses and a walking
plow when I was nine.

  My folks decided to sell the farm and move to Willmar, MN, six miles east of Pennock, where they
were going to relocate his section quarters. I went to school at Willmar and worked on a farm during school vacation but the next school vacation I went to work on my Dad's section.

  I was fourteen years old when I went to work for the railroad. I worked four years on the section and
then got a job installing signals with the signal gangs at Glasgow, Montana, where we finished the
unblocked territory to Shelby and to Culbertson, Mont.

 The construction work was over, at least the big jobs by the fall of  1926 and I went to the supervisor in
Minneapolis and convinced him I needed a steady job and by the fall of 1926 I was sent to Campbell
Minnesota as a signal maintainers helper, however with all my experience in construction, whenever there
was maintenance construction to do, I was always asked to run these temporary gangs, but when finished
I always had the job at Campbell to bump into. I think most of the time my job was not filled when I was
on construction.

 These were hard times and my helpers job was pulled off in 1933. My next permanent job was in mid
1942, when I was assigned as the maintainer at Barnesville, Minn.  I had 6 1/4 years of a permanent
assignment as a signal maintainers helper in the 22 years I had worked on the railroad. I had not been
able to work in this time for 4.36 years. All of the above despite the fact that I had taken any work that came my way. I worked on signal crews as a signalman, foreman, relieved maintainers, worked as a foreman installing signals (crossing) for the Griswold Signal Co. for a total of a year and a half. I had
got married in the meanwhile and was running a crew here at St. Paul, when Barnesville came open for bid, and I bid on it. I had either been transferred or laid off 96 times in those 22 years.

  I took over my maintainers job at Barnesville, MN June, 1, 1942. I thought here is where I retire but it
didn't quite work out like that. I was at Barnesville for 6 years and eight months and then I was sent to
Grand Forks as Supervisor of Signals.

  I THOUGHT I accomplished a few things at that job. One of the things was, when the maintainers
sent in their battery reports I thought they were far too uniform and when I made a study of past records
I could see that they were taking them out exhausted or not. I realized I wouldn't want to mix batteries after winter set in, in that North Dakota country, so I wrote to the General Office for permission to set up the number of batteries in multiples that were required to carry through the winter. The results were amazing. After I got permission, we just about cut the consumption of batteries in two for our district. This came to about 500 cells a year.

 Another project I started we set up at my maintainer's tool house at Hillsboro, ND which was between
Grand Forks and Fargo and handy for me as I could get together with him quite often. I wrote to the
GRS Co. [General Railway Signal Co.] and got their exact method of adjusting the inside unit for the signal lights. We anchored a short mast at one end of the toolhouse with a canvas marked exactly, so
that the light would be brightest at the proper height and at the marking on the canvas. We had extra
units, which the maintainer would send in relay boxes when any of the fellows ordered some, and
then he would adjust those to have ready for the next order. All they had to do when the new units
were in place was put a level on the head and sight for horizontal. This maintainer of mine sent units to his brother at Herringbone, Wash. I never complained and I thought its all railroad. When I rode the engine on No, 3 & 4 from Fargo to Minot, I thought I had never seen better lights. This project is a continuing job as signals heave and move in the winter.

  The mechanical train order board caught our attention next. They were usually an unsightly looking
thing. They had a square shaft through a square hole in the spectacle and generally leaned out or in at
a 10 degree angle. We took  these down and brazed the [?] on the spectacle and took the slack out of the round part of the bearing. These worked really nice and smooth and looked so much better.

  Specifications were written for crossing signals and gates and also discussed regular testing and
painting, cleaning of lights, housings and checking for adjustment of lights.

  Oct. 1, 1951 the Signal Engineer at St. Paul asked me if I would come into St. Paul as circuit engineer.
I told him I didn't know why he wanted me to come in as engineer of circuits. I had never drawn a straight line between two points but if he wanted me to come in I would. Of all the jobs I've had I never liked anyof them better then supervisor. Anyway I left Grand Forks after three years and eight months.

  I was circuit engr. for only one year then was promoted to office engr. for eleven years and five
months. The only thing I recall vividly is that RAJ [probably meant TAJ] said that he thought I was the best circuit man  in the country. There were two incidents that maybe made him think so. One of these was, I was coming home from out west, and was riding the engine on No. 4, when one of the trainmen came running up at one of the stops with a wire to get off at St. Cloud  account of signal trouble. I wasn't happy about this as I had been on the train since Seattle. By the way my brother was the engineer on
No. 4.

  Anyway when I got to St. Cloud, the supervisor met me at the depot and took me out to the trouble.
There were three other fellows and they had been looking for the trouble for a day and a half.  I found
the trouble in less than a half  hour. Would you believe I can't even remember what the trouble was.
The supervisor took me home and I beat my brother home. We were neighbors at the time and he called to tell the wife I would be late.

  Another time, I just got home from a trip west and [blanked out] circuit engineer, met me at the depot
and we caught the train to Superior, where they had just put in service plans that he had just furnished
them to add a signal so that you could have a follow up movement between interlockings. The men in
the field had been searching for the trouble for at least a day and a half. When I looked  the prints over
I could see right away that my circuit men had failed to follow the old rule, don't use pole changer and
neutral circuits together especially when connected to the same battery. I fixed it so the circuits would
work until morning and then called the boss PGS, told him what the trouble was and said  I could fix
it two ways. Either run another wire or put in a separate set of batteries at the middle location. He went for the batteries.

  I was promoted to assistant signal engineer and was on this job for five years and four months.

  Finally the merger came and I worked for the BNI for 14 months as a project engineer. I left the
railroad May 31, 1971.

  In all I went to night school about five or six years. This was a tough grind, fifteen hours. I don't know
if I learned anything as beside this I had to take quite a bit of work home with me as I was never with a
tutor on any of my jobs, always learn it by ones self.  At least nobody could be blamed for my ignorance.

  I felt sorry many times when we were combining the Signal and Communications Departments. Some
of these fellows had nothing more than a looking out the window  job. If we had it to do all over again, how would we do it?

   Cecil  (In retrospect)

PS I hope you don't think that there is nothing but a pack of I's in this story of my railroading,  but you
can't tell a story of most of your life without getting a lot of I's in it. I was going to substitute an X or a Z
for the I's but if I did that you would think the whole story was wrong (X) or you would think I was
dizzy (Z).

  Now for the bombshell. In the fall of 1964, The Vice President of Operations, T. A. Jarrow and by the
way he was the superintendent when I was supervisor at Grand Forks, called me to come into his office
and he offered me the top job, Superintendent of Signals and Communications, and I turned it down.
Believe it or not.

  I  knew at once what this job would mean. Although I thought a lot of TAJ but at this late day in my
career, I didn't want to lay off all the men involved. I was right as when that consolidation came into
effect the ax fell many times.

      CEA

Cecil does not name the railroad where he spent most of his career. It was the Great Northern
Railway. He worked a short time at the Burlington Northern after the big merger.

I added the title and the material between the [ ]'s.

My Uncle Cecil died on July 23, 1996 at Bloomington Minnesota.

Copyright 1999 Gerald Kackman
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