TH - Canada Southern Railway

52
John R. Burke, who has just retired after fifty-five years of railroad service, most
of the time as an engineman for the New York Central, drove the above engine for
six years between Newark and Frankfort, N. Y. The photograph was taken in the
summer of 1888, at Canastota on the Mohawk Division.
A n Eragieemae's M e m o r i e s o f L o n g A g o
DEDICATING his story to the memory of the men he has worked with and
whom he names in his reminiscences, John R. Burke, retiring engineman,
has written for the New York Central Lines Magazine the following
tale of the early days. Among the veteran railroaders vjhom he recalls
are several mentioned by F. A. Chase in the article pn-inted in the December
issue of the Magazine.
Mr. Burke, who began his railroad career fifty-five years ago, starting
with the New York Central eleven years later, came unharmed through the
early days of primitive equipment, and was retired as engineman on the
Syracuse Division early this year.
ORN December 11, 1857, at Au­
B burn, N. Y., and brought up there,
I entered the service of the New York
Central Railroad in November, 1872,
on the old Auburn work train.
There was a gang of twenty to
twenty-five men on the train. I did
the same work as the other men, and
received the same wages—$1.50 for
twelve hours' work. I was not yet
fifteen years old, and I never was a
water boy. I flanged the track in
winter with wooden shovels before
there was any such thing as a flanger
car. I picked and shoveled gravel in
Half-Way Gravel Pit before there was
any steam shovel, and more than one
day I had to sit in a snow bank and
eat frozen food when noon-time came.
Dan Shapcott was the engineer
and was also the conductor who hired
and discharged the men, kept the time
of the men and supervised all the
work. His engine was the 206. Our
working territory was from Syracuse
to Geneva. Hank Hall was road master
and he had two brothers—"Ed,"
section foreman at Cayuga, and "O.
J.," conductor of the Canandaigua
work train. Commodore Vanderbilt
was president and William H. Vanderbilt,
his son, was vice-president
then. James Tillinghast was general
superintendent. William G. Lapham
was division superintendent with offices
at Syracuse, and from Syracuse
to Rochester was a division on'both
the main line and Auburn road.
Twenty-five to thirty cars (with not
more than ten tons of freight in each
car) comprised a train in those days.
DeWitt freight yard was not yet
thought of at that time.
By John R. Burke
Henry Ward was station agent at
Auburn in those days, and I succeeded
his son, Kilbourne Ward, as yard
master at Auburn, when he went to
the M.D.T. people at Syracuse.
Coupling Cars at Auburn
In the spring of 1873 I went coupling
cars in Auburn yard with the pin
and link, crooked link and chain link,
and dead blocks, the most dangerous
cars that ever were built. At this
time there were passenger car shops
in Auburn for building and repairing
passenger cars and painting and varnishing
them. The foreman's name
was William Johnson. There also was
a blacksmith shop for mending rails,
as the ends of rails would get battered
down, and then would have to
be taken out and repaired. No steel
rails in those days. Tom Munsell was
boss blacksmith. William B. Munsell,
a son, was pensioned two months ago
in Buffalo, as an engineman. These
shops stood where the freight house
now stands, from Seymour Street to
Chappie Street, and they were built
by the old Auburn & Syracuse Railroad
when John H. Chedell of Auburn
was President. Afterwards consolidation
took place and the line was
called the New York Central.
The Early Passenger Engines
Who is there now that remembers
those passenger engineers of the seventies
that ran over the Auburn road
in the days when I worked with them?
There was Hank Case on engine 194,
John Kinney, fireman; Charley Simonds,
engine 26; Ed Morriott, fire-
New York Central Lines Magazine for May, 1928
man; Bill Pike, engines 57 and 61;
Patsy White, fireman; Dave Cambell,
engines 102 and 535; R. Peters,
fireman; Jack Baker, engine 104;
Charley Chapman, fireman, and Mace
Gibson, engine 68; Tommy Crummy,
fireman, who got killed going down
around the "Alps" one night. His
engine struck a big stone that rolled
onto the track, and he got caught in
the gang-way when engine and tender
came together. Then there was Engineer
Belty, engine 154, who went
down in a washout coming into
Geneva one Saturday night, going
west in March, 1873. Belty and his
fireman got killed. I worked at the
wreck the next day.
Some of the Old-Time Enginemen
I remember Engineer Shafer on engine
327; Charley Thomas, engine
112; Leander Wright, engine 103;
Prank Dana, fireman, and Mike Lynn,
extra passenger engineer of Rochester.
Some of the freight engineers that
I knew in those days-and worked with:
Charley H o g a n
(of 999 fame)
then running engine
410; Joe
L i p e and John
Thompson, engine
403; Bob Shannon,
404; Emps
Belden, 405; Tom
Baker, 409; Ed
McGrale (Stone
Wall), 411; Lute
Eldridge, 413;
Bill Cone, 415;
Jimmy Gould,
320; Johnnie Cof­
John R. Burke fee, 323; Dick
Pyles, 299; Cale Cherry, 398; Dick
Bishop, 121; Harry Watkeys, 331;
Jack Mack, fireman; Ben Balbou, 357;
Connie Murphy, 184; Billy Pellynze,
302; Al Pugsley, 353; Billy Owens,
377; Johnnie Cool, 363; Curley Simpson,
344; Billy Emels, 324; Engineer
Bradley, 225.
The first engine that I coupled cars
after was number 107, a wood burner.
Billy Goodwin was engineer. Afterwards
I worked on engines 56, 37
and 130.
The road at this time was going
from wood to coal in the engines, and
wood was being burned in passenger
coach stoves.
On Chicago & North Western
In 1879 I went to the Chicago &
North Western as fireman on the Wisconsin
Division out of Chicago, running
between Chicago and Milwaukee,
Pon du Lac, Oshkosh, Harvard Junction
and Janesville. I was firing three
years and in the spring of 1882 I was
promoted to engineer, and the first
engine I ran was the 284 Mogul road
engine. On December 30, 1884, I
came to the New York, West Shore &
Buffalo as engineer, running between
Buffalo and Syracuse on through
freight. In the spring of 1885 I was
put on through freight between Newark
and Frankfort, a 109-mile run.
In the summer of 1885, I was ordered
to take the pusher engine at
Oneida Castle, and remained there
about eighteen months. I then went
drawing through freight between De-
Witt and Coeymans Junction on the
Mohawk Division. My next run was
New York Central Lines Magazine for May, 1928 53
on a pick-up train between Newark
and Frankfort, then I went drawing
the local freight between Newark and
Syracuse, and after some time I went
drawing fast freight and extra passenger
between Buffalo and Syracuse.
When I left this run I took the yard
job at Newark, with passenger relief
work, and in 1892 was given a regular
passenger train out of Buffalo, but I
did, not take it, as I did not want to
live' in Buffalo.
Two Sons Also in Service
In 1914 I was transferred to Lyons
where I remained until I was pensioned
on January 1. I was railroading
fifty-five years and one month,
forty-five years as locomotive engineman.
My father and three brothers
besides myself have worked for the
New York Central, and I have two
boys who are enginemen at the present
time—Earl and Harold Burke,
running out of DeWitt on the Syracuse
Division. My father worked for
the New York Central thirty-five
years, starting in 1848.
In the December number of the
New York Central Lines Magazine
F. A. Chase, Master Mechanic from
1849 to 1910, speaks of Engineer William
Crealman at Rochester whom I
knew, and I have heard my father
speak of the other engineer, Hank
Bailey, whom Mr. Chase speaks of.
He also speaks of a Mr. Tilton, who
worked with him in the Detroit shops.
George W. Tilton was my superintendent
of motive power while I was on
C. & N. W. and was killed as Mr.
Chase says. Mr. Chase also speaks
of a Mr. Boon who was master mechanic
at Adrian, Mich., when he
worked there. I wonder if that is
not pur James M. Boon, who was superintendent
of motive power of the
West Shore, and located at Frankfort,
N. Y., where the main shops were
located? Mr. Boon was at one time
superintendent of motive power of the
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago
Railroad, and afterwards came to the
Chicago & North Western as assistant
superintendent of motive power under
George W. Tilton, and was there when
I was running on that road, and I
considered him a very able man. It
was at Frankfort that I first met
John Howard, who at that time was
assistant round-house foreman under
Joe Johnson, afterwards becoming superintendent
of motive power of the
New York Central, and a man of
whom I thought a great deal.
Engines Named and Numbered
In my early days on the Auburn
branch of the New York Central quite
a number of the engines retained
their names as well as their number.
I remember the John Wilkinson was
No. 100. The General Gould was the
101. The Young America was 53, and
the John H. Chedell, 54. The C. C.
Dennis was the 26 and the Daniel
Drew was No. 11.
I also knew Bill Gould who ran
engine 125, and Jim Wood who ran
engine 110 on the main line. What
two beautiful looking engines they
were! The clappers in their bells
were "case-hardened" and when the
bells were ringing you would be delighted
to listen to them. I would like
to hear such bells again.
Jim Wood was about the nerviest
engineer in his day on the New York
Central. It was he who always drew
Commodore Vanderbilt and his son,
William H. Vanderbilt, when they
came over the road on the Western
Division. He made the run from
Syracuse to Rochester, eighty-one
miles, in eighty-two minutes one time
before the days of any air brakes.
Nowadays it is consoling to the engineman
to know that he has a powerful
and quick-acting air brake at his
left hand.
The smallest engine I ever saw on
the New York Central was No. 12 at
Auburn. She was a wood-burner and
had only one driving wheel on a side,
and she could only handle four or five
cars at a time with only ten tons of
freight in each car. Billy Goodwin
was the engineer and he had to do his
own firing.
And now I come to the half-way
posts on the Auburn road of the New
York Central.
In my early days there were posts
erected near the side of the track halfway
between stations and they were
called the half-way posts with signs
on them reading "Half-Way."
The time-card rule in those days
Froim Here to Montreal
By Henry Stringham
T matters not where "here" may
I be,
It's just a starting place;
And here or there is equally
A valid homing base.
The way lies through a sheer domain
Of ledges crudely piled,
Contrived by energy amain
Athwart a region wild.
A land of terraced spikes of green
With silver interspersed,
Where hilltops totter and careen
Like giants sore athirst
In search of fiery waters where
But sylvan ripples flow,
The Adirondacks bathe in air
That sundown sets aglow.
The Raquettes and the Saranacs,
The Placids and the Clears,
Are spotlights on the tangled tracks
of roving mountaineers,
Till comes in calm comparison
The Salmon River's vale,
Where meet in friendly garrison
The pixies of the trail.
And so from here to Montreal
One travels through these scenes,
And marvels as the rapids fall
Or as a mountain leans.
And when returned to kin and kith,
With hearts devoid of guile,
Why do our cronies greet us with
That queer, suspicious smile?
said that eastbound trains had the
right of road over west-bound trains
until they were fifteen minutes late.
Then if the west-bound train did not
see the east-bound coming, it would
pull out against the other without any
orders whatever, and the train that
got to the half-way post first was the
best man.
The other train had to back up to
the next station. Of course if the
east-bound engineer was running late
he would expect the west-bound pulling
against him, and I have seen the
time where both engineers would see
the other one coming, but would still
keep moving toward the post, and I
have seen where one would beat the
other by the length of his pilot. I
have seen the engineer of the westbound
send a brakeman out on the
front end of the engine, and hold a
coat over the headlight, so that the
other engineer would not see him coming
until he got near the post. There
were no air brakes in those days, all
hand brakes, and in a movement of
this kind every man was at his post,
and I never heard of any accident
happening.
Every Man to His Own Engine
Telegraph offices in those days were
not as close as at the present time,
and it would be from some station
where there was no telegraph office
that such movements would take
place. In the daytime the engineer
would watch for the smoke of the
other fellow, and for his headlight at
night. Back in those days Skaneateles
Junction, Auburn, Cayuga, Geneva,
and Canandaigua were wood stations,
brought there by wood contractors.
Back in those days every engineer
had a regular engine, and no one ran
her but the regular assigned engineer.
There were no injectors in those days
that you could depend on. Every engine
had two pumps, one on each side,
to put water in the boiler when the
engine was moving. Engineers had to
pack their own pistons, valve stems
and pumps, also all cocks in cab, and
take care of the headlight.
I have run under Superintendents
D. B. McCoy, James P. Bradfield, C.
H. Ketchum, F. W. Everett, and M.
E« Walsh. The master mechanics
were T. W. Fredericks, George W.
West, James McBeth, P. E. Garrisson,
and Charley Hogan at Buffalo, and
James M. Boon, and John Howard at
Frankfort on the Mohawk Division.
W. J. Crandall of Rochester, N. Y.,
was my last master mechanic.
In conclusion, I want to say that I
hold the deepest respect and greatest
admiration for the superintendents
and master mechanics under whom it
has been my privilege to work. I always
tried to do the best work that
was in me for the Company. I have
always considered the officials of the
New York Central Railroad to be real
men of the finest type, and I am proud
today to be numbered among those
who form that great family known as
the New York Central Railroad.
I would be pleased to hear from any
of my friends, young and old, at my
home, 317 Colton Avenue, Newark,
Wayne County, N. Y.