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Unbelievable Train Stories:
By Ken Lothridge
Author and former conductor Ken Lothridge follows up on his first work, “A Conductor Tells,” with another outstanding set of personal narratives, ranging from entertaining to educational and humorous to horrific in tone. Lothridge covers his entire career — from his brakeman days with the MoPac in 1973 to his passenger service days with Amtrak in 2003 — in a real conversational voice, just the kind you’d expect when gabbing about “the railroad” with a long-time friend over pizza and beer. Although the book’s layout and design could be improved, this book is a wonderful collection of first-hand accounts that will both split your sides and give you a sour stomach in one sitting with their blunt, honest portrayal of life on the rails. — Sayre C. Ko (Trains Magazine)
“The Half & Half”
The Hotel, where we stayed at Taylor was called the Blazamar Hotel. Located directly across the street from the train depot, it was very convenient for us when we got off work. The Blazamar Hotel, which was built in the late 1800’s, was four levels high. It was the tallest building in Taylor, and was known by all the residents.
The 80 year old pipes in the walls would clink and clatter when the steam started to rise. I thought the hotel was haunted when I first heard the noises. Come to think of it, it probably was. If you were unfortunate enough to be on the fourth floor, it might take as long as 8 hours before you received heat….
Once the room was warm enough to be able to stay without wearing a coat, you could prepare for bed. This meant turning the sheets down and swiping all the cockroaches out before you climbed into the bed. Most people count sheep to go to sleep, but we counted the cockroaches running across the ceiling. There were a couple of times I really got involved in counting the cock-roaches, because they were setting a new population record for one night of counting. I’m not talking about little roaches, either. These guys were what are known as “water roaches,” and were Texas-size, about 2 inches long. You got use to them after a few nights.
The summers were not much better. There was no air conditioning available, so you had to open the outside window and open up the louvered window on the entry door, to let the air circulate. There were ceiling fans, thank goodness, which were helpful. Now this wasn’t too bad in the summer if you were sleeping at night, but trying to sleep in the day with all the traffic right below your window, and the temperature at 105 degrees was not pleasant.
Some of the men would leave their entry door wide open, just to get more air into the room. In the mid-1970’s, they did finally put air conditioning window units into each room, and it was a little better. Of course, we still had to listen to the trains come and go, due to the railroad tracks being right across the street. Every time a train would start moving, the slack would come out of the train and it would make the whole building shake like an earthquake. It was noisy enough to wake the dead.
If you didn’t have the money to gamble, you could always walk a block down the street to the “Half and Half Bar” for entertainment. There’s a good reason for the name. Now, bear in mind this is a farming town with a lot of different cultures of people working on the farms. You have whites, blacks, Germans, Hispanics, Czechs, Poles, etc. The bar was just a block down the street from the hotel, next to the railroad tracks. There were two doors on the front of the Half and Half Bar. When you walk in you see a horseshoe-shaped bar in the middle of the room. Along the walls, on both sides of the bar, are tables with chairs. When we went there we sat at the bar itself, because the tables were reserved for the locals. The bar was totally segregated.
The Hispanic patrons would walk in the front door on the left and sit on the left side of the room. The black patrons would walk in the front door on the right and sit on the right side of the room. There was so much conflict in the choice of music between….. |
 "Women are just as bad "
This older lady had been drinking Wild Turkey in the lounge car from the time she had boarded the train, about 4 hours earlier in the day. She was starting to get loud and obnoxious, and as he was walking through the lounge car, the Conductor overheard her cursing. The Conductor asked the lady, “Are you alright, madam?”
She of course said she was.
“Well, you are getting a little loud and your language is offensive to some of the passengers. Please refrain from the cursing,” he told her.
She immediately defended herself by saying, “Young man, I’ve been riding this train all damn day and nobody has complained about my language. I’m just trying to have a good time. That’s what we are supposed to do on the train, isn’t it?”
The Conductor knew this conversation was going no-where, so he decided to cut her off from drinking. “I’m going to have to ask you not to drink anymore for a few hours, until you sober up a little.”
Tom called the Conductor on the public address system to come to the lounge car. The Conductor called him back on the telephone and Tom said, “Conductor, you remember that lady you wanted cut off from the booze? Well, I think she just threatened me.” He explained to the Conductor what was said.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” the Conductor replied. “I’m up in the crew car. It’ll take me a minute to get back there.” Before the Conductor could get down the stairs to talk to Tom, a male passenger said, “Conductor, do you remember that same lady in the blue shirt you were talking to earlier?” The Conductor nodded. “Well, she just dropped her pants over in the corner of the lounge and took a shit.”
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