Dr Zarkoff Wrote:
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> >And, that system of "rank" included the rewards,
> higher pay for a higher skill set, since you were
> tested and "promoted" in "rank" to engineer and
> conductor.... Switching foreman, just had more
> seniority......everybody on the switching crew
> was, in theory, supposed to be able to read the
> damn switchlist...
>
> The only thing I can add is that on the SP, in
> order to be a yardmaster, or even called for the
> job extra, you have to have had 306 days working
> as an engine foreman.

That was a problem here in Bakersfield, Lots of us hill billies from the Ozarks couldn't read period. We paid the rules examiners every 2 years, $ 500 dollars to cut the card for us to keep on working. Now the Bakersfield yard is a nothing place of no bodies.