My three sons work for the railroad in different places, and they often run into people who know me or who know people I know. So, the middle son, who works in Denver, encountered somebody who knows a retired railroader from Sweetwater, Texas, and he asked if the name was familiar to me. It reminded me of this story about him.
When I was Assistant Superintendent for Santa Fe, at Sweetwater, I was in my office one morning and I answered the telephone. "Boss, I'm turning myself in," the caller informed me. He was an Engineer in the freight pool to Temple, Texas, and lived on acreage, outside town. "For what?" I asked. "Well, I thought it was too good of a morning not to hunt, and I was out on my property and had just shot a deer, when my beeper vibrated in my pocket. I had to make a decision whether to field strip that deer or to miss a call, and I have to tell ya that I decided not to leave that deer in the field. I'll sign for any discipline you want to give me."
"Well," I replied, "You turned yourself in, and admitted what you did. I can't see how formal discipline could fix this. Just give me your word that you won't hunt ever again when you are first or second out." "I can do that, Boss. It'll never happen again."
In 22 years as an Official it was my experience that discipline was only necessary if behaviors could not be corrected with a handshake. Some employees have enough credibility for that, while others require discipline for every infraction, in order to get their cooperation. Of course. there are some very serious things, such as passing a Stop signal, that always require formal discipline, but there was no need to clutter up this man's record with unnecessary discipline for what he did. Good employees, when you give them a break, will be even better employees from then on. This fellow even started changing brake shoes and adjusting the brake rigging whenever he would be called for our switcher after that. "Just payin' ya back for that deer, Boss."
And the reason I had that attitude about discipline is that, years earlier, I had been the Engineer on a crew which included a Conductor who was a bad actor and was leading the crew into doing something that could have resulted in all of us being fired. A Trainmaster met me at the roundhouse when I was signing out, took me aside, and informed me that the behavior must never happen again, and, further, the only reason we were keeping our jobs is that my record was spotless and he was sure that I would prevent any future behavior of that type from any crew of which I was a part. I got his message loud and clear.
