Word: switchman
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Jackson drew a long breath and Switchman Gunter took it up from there. "Suppose the dispatcher holds up a freight two or three hours before he gets a spot for it. The crew doesn't get paid the first 15 minutes he's fiddling around. And then there's this assigning crews to different types of work. Say a crew's worked eight hours on a packinghouse job and the yardmaster says to make up another train afterwards and it only takes two hours. We want eight hours pay for the second...
...years Switchman Fritz Walther had handled Berlin's eastbound trains. Ebert's presidential train, Hindenburg's three-car special, Hitler's headquarters coach has passed his post. A loyal Nazi, Walther was twice decorated by the Third Reich for devotion to duty...
Last week the switchman, still handling1 eastbound traffic, saw a chance to prove his devotion. As a passenger train passed his tower, he threw a wrong switch, sent it plunging into a parked freight loaded with Red Army supplies and re-enforcements. Casualties: 18 killed, 32 seriously injured...
...From then on, Bill Jeffers' career reads like the biography of most railroaders, who miss few rungs on their way up the gritty ladder. He was a switchman, yardmaster, trainmaster, division superintendent, general manager and assistant to the president. In the tough, hard-working game of railroading he was tougher than anyone else, and worked harder. If his authority was questioned, he frequently settled the argument with his iron fist. Once, months after the event, he decided that a Chicago hotel manager had insulted Mrs. Jeffers. Bill Jeffers walked into the hotel and floored...
Certain facts about Ideal Marine Lou Diamond the Corps admitted reluctantly: that his real first name is Leland, that he is 53 years old, got through grammar school and eight years as switchman on the Michigan Central ($62.50 a week) be fore signing up in 1917. These contradict what every Marine has long sworn is truth: that Lou Diamond is at least 200, joined the Corps in 1775, has never been anything but a Marine...