I had to work in all that for 40+ years mostly at night, year round. I got to lay on my back under a caboose with my feet in the air shoving a pulley back to install an alternator belt in a foot of snow on the main, or walking an eighty car train in knee deep snow lacing air hoses that were so stiff they could hardly bend. There were times in winter that the wind was so strong that it felt like someone was driving needles into my forehead. In the summer the heat from the freight cars in the yards radiated like an oven and you would sweat until you thought you were going to black out. The creosote burns from the freshly installed switch timbers. Humping an EOT a mile down the track because the crews time was up and the relief crew hadn't gone on duty so no one could back the train up to you. Getting sent out of the yards on a wild goose chase to find a train in trouble, to arrive in the middle of nowhere and have the dispatcher call to say the crew made a temporary repair and had already left. Yes it was a hard job at times, but I would not have traded an office worker or a factory worker for their jobs ever. Doug
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