Re: Conrail/Amtrak Agreement?
Author: Mr. Bob Guy, The Union Rep
Date: 10-17-2024 - 17:58
Thanks for the explanation Bill Webb. I knew a few that went to Amtrak for 2 years and went back and they said they didn't like how Amtrak managed things. 2 were guys who came from Santa Fe in LA, one named Monte and another who's name I can't remember who worked trains 35 and 36 to Vegas who used to park his car next to Terminal Tower all the time. I ran into both of them after they went back to Santa Fe and they were both working in the Yard at Hobart until they retired. The other was an SP guy named Frank Eagle. Frank was an SP LA Yardmaster when he went to Amtrak in 1986 and he worked #35 and #36 between LA an Vegas. When he went back to SP in 1988, he couldn't hold an SP Yardmaster job in LA anymore, so he went on Midnights as Bakersfield Yardmaster. When he worked Amtrak, because of his Yardmaster experience at SP, Amtrak made him SO (Supervisor of Operations) at Amtrak 8th St. Coach Yard In 1987, there were some spur tracks off the old Santa Fe work lead that were taken out and abandoned. There was one track, that had a South facing point switch that ran through the Amtrak Parking lot and under the Interstate 10 freeway that he convinced Amtrak and Santa Fe Management to leave in because it was next to a parcel of property that later became Amtrak's current Coach Yard Terminal Office, where he envisioned that Amtrak would park their Switch Engines between uses and crew changes. It was appropriately named "The Eagle Spur". Well, at some point and time, Frank made local Amtrak Management mad and the kicked him off the SO job and he went on the Desert Wind until his 2 years was up and then went back to SP as Bakersfield Yardmaster until he took a disability. At the same time, there was a Conductor/Engineer who came from the Santa Fe, who was SO, named Bob Bonham who, couldn't stand it that they named a spur track after Frank, so he decided he was going to designate what was known as the 4 track "Business/Private Car Park" at Union Station, the Garden Tracks, because of a mini garden that was right next to it. Like Frank, Bob pissed off Lee Bullock, the General Superintendent of the Amtrak Western Division in the early 1990s and he went back to being an Engineer on Amtrak and later Metrolink. I lost track of him after I went to UP in 1995.