" More Characters" & A lesson to me

Frank F. was a relief Chief Dispatcher on afternoons and such an aggravating man you never met, unless it was Ken T.

As I have said, the afternoon shift at Bathurst St. could get very busy at times, and you had to dance around, to get the things done you had to do, in time.

One of the things we had to do was give the Chief Dispatcher a count on each train that left, and sometimes he would phone and remind us, if we hadn't done that yet.

The dispatcher's phone was a separate phone that would talk with the dispatcher exclusively or that is what I thought.

The dispatcher's phone is like a door bell it rings for as long as you hold the button, and most times the dispatcher gives it a little nudge, we pick it up and give him the lineup, but not Frank, he would push it many times or just hold it until you answered.

One day when we were particularly busy, he just held the ringer down, and when I could I picked it up and said, would you shove that phone up your ass, and used Tony F.'s line "can't you see we are busy", and did give him the lineup.

A few days later I happened to be in Parkdale Station on my day off talking to the Operator Tom J. when I heard the Chief Dispatcher ask the guys at Bathurst St. for the count, at which point I say to Tom, I gave him shit the other day, I didn't know all the stations, and passengers in them in southern Ontario were on loud speakers, and he said indeed they are and we heard you give Frank F. hell the other day, and cheered you for it, but I learned my lesson and held my mouth whenever on that phone in the future, even though I would have gladly wrung his neck.

Allan

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" Tommy Crawford"

Tommy C., was one of those unforgettable characters that you meet once in a while, Tommy worked the midnight shift and, he hated to get new Car Checkers, and whenever he did he was as miserable as he could be.

Tommy would warm up to a new Car Checker eventually , if the checker could type because he hated the teletype machine, as much as he hated new checkers, and he would get the new checkers doing his typing which was good for the checker, because they would learn the Bill Clerks job, which is what Tommy was, and he worked the same job, the whole time I knew him until he retired.

Tommy was a chain smoker in the strongest sense of the word, it wasn't unusual for him to have 3 cigarettes going at the same time, he would leave one on the teletype machine, one on an ash tray, which was actually the glass globe of a track signal on one desk, and the same on another desk, and as he moved around the office would take drags on them as he passed them.

Tom was a very good employee, and when you got to know him, was a great guy, and would do anything for you, it was only in the interim that he was miserable.

I got to know Tommy and he was always good with me.

Allan

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" Norm Todd"

I know no one will jump up in recognition, and this is only a one incident thing, but I have to explain Norm Todd.

I was having a small legal difficulty and decided to consult a Lawyer in Richmond Hill, and the only reason I knew of Norm was that he had acted for the vendor, who we bought our house from.

Norm was actually a very long standing lawyer in Richmond Hill, and on occasion acted as a Judge.

When I went to see Norm initially and told him my problem it only took a few minutes, a few minutes that is until he asked me what I did, and who I worked for.

I couldn't get out of his office for two hours and was thinking during our discussion , I hope he doesn't bill me for this, which he didn't.

Norm went on to tell me that his father was the General Chairman for the Brakemans Union, and that in fact he, Norm had worked for the CNR for a while, with I think the B&B gang in the summer working his way through University.

Norm's father had been a conductor on a Niagara Falls job out of Mimico.

One of Norm's jobs for the railway was filling the tenders of steam engines with water and see to it that the water towers were filled promptly, after filling up the engine.

Evidently there must have been some kind of valve on the water tower to insure to much water would not get in the tower, but something was the matter with the one at Mimico, and he was told to watch the tower and shut it off manually when it reached a certain level.

Norm was talking when he should have been watching, which could be normal for a lawyer, but not on that job,at that time, the tower burst, sending water and staves flying all over the place, and was the end of Norm's railway career.

One of the individuals Norm was in Law School with was JJ Robinette who became quite famous for the "Dick" affair, Evelyn Dick, that is, a woman from Hamilton who was convicted of killing and dismembering her husband, but, never hung as was expected, as a result it was thought of Robinette's defence , and eventually was let out of jail to live the rest of her life in obscurity.

Norm's wife died and he retired, he must have been pushing 80 years old, and moved in with his son, and daughter in law, in the Bradford area.

I was on what was called the "Barrie Job" where I had to drive to Barrie every day to perform a few tasks, among which was correct manifests so Canada Customs would have a legitimate one.

At least once a week on my way back I would stop in and have a coffee with Norm who was alone in the house during the day, and occasionally would pick him up on the weekends and take him for a ride and an ice cream, and we became quite good friends.

Allan

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" Wilf Shannon"

Wilf Shannon was quite a character, he was the Northside Switchtender, who was almost doubled up with arthritis, and one of his jobs was to ride down on the footboard of inbound Transfers, and bleed them off after the engine had uncoupled.

Wilf had a few colourful sayings which I hadn't heard before or since, and I won't repeat them hear but, if he was particularly annoyed by someone he would call them an RCCS, and anyone who knew Wilf would know what that stood for.

Many times, if I was there, and didn't have anything urgent to do, I would ride down and bleed the train off for him.

Wilf was an ardent race track fan and always had a racing form in his pocket, talking about bets he was going to make, and that, is something the never interested me in the least.

I was in the Yard Office one day talking with Robert B. another race track bettor and I was discussing the field of one of the races that day and Robert, who was of Scottish decent said he was going to make an impulse bet on Bruce's Mill, and I said look there is a better one, Angus Glen, no Robert says, Bruce's Mill is the one.

Robert bets $10.00 on Bruce's Mill and loses, and Angus Glen paid something like $40.00 and Robert comes in the next day saying I should have listened to you Al, Angus Glen paid $40.00, and promptly went over and told Wilf.

I went over to the North Side shanty a little while later and Wilf starts giving me hell, for not telling him, about Angus Glen, at which I have to tell him, it was a silly impulse bet Wilf, I never even thought about it until Robert pulled out the Racing Form, and I never had a bet on him either.

As I said Wilf had arthritis and was all bent out of shape and you could be forgiven if you thought he was about 5 ft. tall, but in actual fact I think he was in excess of 6ft. tall and in pretty good shape, for the shape he was in.

Wilf would come to work on the streetcar and one day a few minutes before starting time, I heard Wilf arguing with Gord C. the Coach Yard Car Checker, [Gord C. was a WW11 vet, and spent almost his entire army career in a Japanese prison camp at Hong Cong], Gord was being disrespectful of Wilf when Wilf suddenly lets out a yell, and punches and drives poor Gord right accross the office, Gord picked himself up 20 ft from where he was standing and never disrespected Wilf again.

I know Wilf liked me because if someone said or did something I didn't like I would tell them in no uncertain terms and that went for the Yardmasters, and most especially Ken T. who neither of us likes very much, and in fact we were not alone in that, I had worked for the CNR for 40 years and actually only met 3 or 4 people I didn't like, and never did meet any one who liked Ken T.

Allan

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" Lou Kelso"

I never knew much about Lou Kelso, except that he was the original Interchange Clerk at Bathurst St that I knew of, and Lou was always King Billy riding on a white horse in the yearly Orange Parade in Toronto.

I went on to work the Interchange Clerk job and liked it very much, It was the one job where you had to leave the property, and in fact were given two streetcar tickets daily to go to and from the CPR Yard Office at Parkdale.

The interesting thing about going to the CPR at Parkdale was that they seemed to have the same cast of characters, it was almost like going into a parallel dimension, or "The Twilight Zone" only the names were changed, it was almost like the workers on these two railroads were bred for the jobs.

I often wondered if it was the same for other railroads as well, and because of this blog I might find out, anyway.

You had to go the the CPR office to reconcile situations, and differences that can up as a result of the "joint sidings" in our area, where we might put a car in, and they would pull it out, or vice versa.

Another problem was if we pulled a car out and the checker, checked a bum number, that is transposing a number, there would be an open record, and that problem had to be solved, which was the purview of the Interchange Clerk, and as I was told by a very smart guy I tried to teach the job to, it required a great deal of abstract thought.

That Guy was Don L.

Allan

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" Don Lakeman"

Don Lakeman was a very smart man, he taught himself to speak Spanish out of books, then joined a Spanish Club so he could use the language, he then taught himself to speak Russian out of books, the joined a Russian club so he would have somewhere to use it.

Don was a very, very, smart man,but as smart as he was, he was also weird.

Don never got on with his father who had owned an upscale taylor shop at King and Yonge St., I guess because Don was a Communist sympathizer, and in fact subscribed to Communist publications.

Don said the RCMP had visited him on several occasions wondering what he was up to and what they could find out, to no avail.

Don would wear an overcoat in the summer because he was afraid of catching a cold, or another of his quirks was, he owned a Volkswagen Bug, and he would drive it to Parry Sound and back on the different weekends and tell me that he used a quart of gas more on one weekend, than the other, and ask me why was that.

My first remark was Don are you for real, why would you even worry about that, and then I would say, it could be that your tires were low, or you could have had more head winds on one trip over the other, the usual possibilities.

Don would visit us at home from time to time and always had something for the kids.

Eventually my wife Anne and I would go on a bus trip of Eastern Europe, and would visit Moscow, and we never had his address so we couldn't send him a card from there, and I know he would really appreciated that, as he had retired, and had a stroke.

He was another of those characters.

Allan

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