Working On The Railroad

By Thomas C. Fleming

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Spring 1998]

In past issues we have written about the thousands of resourceful black men who, even before the official end of slavery, took the necessary initiatives to use their skills to uplift their families and communities. Applying their wits and talents, they founded small businesses and enterprises of all kinds. Thomas Fleming was among those other thousands who excelled in the service occupations. These men took pride in their employment, however humble, and learned to make virtue out of necessity. Skilled or unskilled, black men found work where they could or created work for themselves when others would not.

In the glory days of travel, steam locomotives hauled luxurious passenger trains such as the Broadway Limited, operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the rival Twentieth Century Limited of the New York Central Railroad. Both were overnights between Chicago and New York City.

The 1920s was an age of opulence, in which many rail lines operated super luxury trains that guaranteed their well-heeled passengers the same amenities as any fine hotel--a beauty parlor, barber shop, library and on-board secretary.

Black men and women played servant roles for the more affluent members of white society. In my five years as a cook on the railroad, I never saw a white waiter or white porter, and only one white chef, but I heard they had some white waiters and cooks on the northern route, those lines between Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.

The rail lines were at one time the biggest employers of blacks in the nation. This work force was further enlarged by the number of black males who worked as redcap porters at terminals in all cities of medium and large size. Seattle was the only city where I saw redcaps who were white.

All of the fast luxury trains used sleeping cars, club cars and observation cars, that were manufactured by the Pullman Company. That company operated its own cars, and hired the Pullman porters and other attendants.

The club cars had a gentleman's lounge where men could smoke their fat cigars and order drinks. They had a little section where maids took care of the needs of women, and I think there was a shower for the passengers. The observation cars had a platform on the rear, with chairs for anyone who wished to have an outside-the-car look at the country as the train sped toward its destination.

Some ultra-rich folks bought exquisite private cars, and hired their own crews to take care of the owners, their families and friends. The private cars had a cook and a waiter, a small kitchen and dining room, an observation platform, and compartments for the travelers to sleep at night. The Twentieth Century Limited, which ran 961 miles overnight between New York City and Chicago, offered some of the most luxurious accommodations of any rail line in the country.

There was a steady contest between the rival carriers as to the speed with which the luxury passengers could travel between Chicago and New York, and other cities. In the late 1930s, when the new streamliners were introduced, the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and Santa Fe all shouted that their fast trains took 39 hours to travel from California to Chicago. For every hour past the slated time, passengers would be reimbursed one dollar.

Around 1930, I made about four trips as a cook on one of those luxury trains, the Overland Limited, which ran between Oakland and Chicago. It was one of the premier passenger trains in the nation. One-third of the club car was a dormitory car with bunks, where the dining car crew had sleeping quarters. On trains with no dormitory car, you took the tables down in the dining car and laid them across four chairs, and put mattresses across them, sometimes air mattresses. They provided us with sheets, blankets and pillows.

The trains didn't have air conditioning, but there was an opening underneath the roof where they would pour ice. I don't know how it worked, but the train was quite cool most of the time, except the kitchen, which was hot.

The food was always fresh--nothing canned. If the main dish was roast pork, I had to peel the apples and make stewed applesauce as a condiment. Lamb casserole was a popular dish for lunch. We made it with carrots and baby white onions, and each order was served in a separate glazed clay casserole dish with a lid, which was placed in the oven to heat. Then some peas were spooned on top, and a bit of chopped parsley.

We generally had about three different vegetables for lunch and dinner, plus mashed potatoes, rice, and sometimes candied yams. We had to fix everything ourselves. We made all the desserts on the train except the pound cake, which was prepared in the commissary bakery. They made real cooks out of us, and afterwards, you could go out and get a job anywhere.

Many passengers showed how well pleased they were, by handing out cash gifts to the porters at Christmas. They made handsome donations if they learned about a birthday or wedding in the attendant's family. Some attendants bought their own homes, and sent their sons and daughters to college.

One of the chefs I worked for was Ollie McClelland, who was a first-class chef, but like the majority of blacks working on the railroads then, he had little exposure to education beyond grammar school. Ollie recognized his own limitations, so he pushed his kids to attend school. One son, Ollie Jr., graduated from the University of California and became a principal in a high school in Los Angeles, then a superintendent at a school district there. Another son, Alden, earned a law degree, and practiced law in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Between 1927 and 1932, I worked for Aunt Mary. That was the nickname the black workers gave to the Southern Pacific Railroad. At that time, the Southern Pacific was still the biggest private landowner in California. All over the country, the railroads and ships had a monopoly in hauling freight, passengers and mail for long distances. Every rail company had a contract with the government for carrying the mail, and ships flying the American flag got a payment from the government if they carried even one letter.

Many rail companies got their land from the federal government in the 19th century, in the form of land grants. After they raised enough money, they would go to the government, and it granted them the right to build a rail line. The government granted as much as 20 miles of land alongside the track, on one side at a time in a checkerboard pattern, so that the railroads wouldn't have exclusive control over the adjacent land. The railroads were responsible for most of the towns in California: they sold the land off, encouraging people to come out and settle. That happened all over the West.

One night in 1928, instead of getting the regular three nights at home after arriving back in Oakland, we were given orders to return to the commissary the next morning to stock up the car immediately. Then we were told to remain on the cars, which would be leaving within a few hours, destination unknown. A switch engine uncoupled our car and pulled it to another track, where the switching crew formed a train. Soon there were 12 dining cars, six club cars, and six observation cars all coupled together, each fully stocked. Then a big locomotive slowly pulled us out of the assembly yard.

We heard that the train would deadhead to Portland, Oregon with just the crews and no passengers. The railroad jargon "deadhead" means to go directly from one point to another, with no stops except to change the operational crew, who were white. Almost everyone else on board--the porters, cooks and waiters--were black men. We had a full day and a half of travel, in which all we had to do was walk from one car to another exchanging gossip. We only had to prepare meals for the crews, which usually required just one cook. As the train rolled through Northern California, I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the platform of the last observation car of the long train, reading newspapers and watching the scenery.

At Gerber, about 200 miles north of Oakland, the train halted long enough for a second locomotive to be added as a "helper hog," as we started climbing into the mountains. The engineer, fireman, conductor, and brakemen made their departure, and were replaced by another crew to operate the train. After the usual inspection of all of the cars, the train began to move for Mt. Shasta City, at the base of Mt. Shasta.

This was a regular stop of the Southern Pacific during daylight hours, when passengers would get off and drink the clear, naturally carbonated water from the springs. The kitchen crew always scooped up a gallon or so in some storage cans. It would be hot in the kitchen, and you were glad when you could go out with one of those cans and fill it up with that ice-cold water. We added sugar to it, making the most delicious cream soda I have ever consumed.

By the 1950s, the airline industry had taken over most of the passenger business, because people want to get wherever they're going in a hurry. But the airlines don't hire nearly the number of people that the railroads did. The dining cars aren't the same today. The last time I rode the trains, in the 1970s, you could get a hamburger and a Coke. I call them hamburger stands on wheels.

Thomas Fleming went on to become a newspaper reporter and, in 1944, he co-founded San Francisco’s Sun-Reporter newspaper, for which he still writes. He is now 91 years old and busily at work on his memoirs. To read more about his life, visit his website at: http://www.freepress.org/fleming/fleming.html, or call for information about his books and audiotapes: (415) 771-6279.

Copyright 1998 Issues & Views