AT BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA
October 1853 - October 2004
For 151 years the faithful employees of the Monon, L & N, and in the end CSX Railroads maintained and operated what is know in the industry as a "Class 1" railroad through Bloomington.
They built it, they maintained it, they fought natural disasters such as floods, washouts, tornados, blizzards, ice storms and yes, derailments because of those things. Railroad employees are like a small army of people spread out along a thin line across the land. Each has a specific job to do and doing it well, without fail, is paramount for the safety of everyone.
It was very common for several members of a family to work for the railroad - brothers, sons, cousins etc. Most tended to work for the railroad for decades, not just a few years. Few women worked for the railroad, but some did as Operator/Agents and as clerical or office workers. The most romanic job on the railroad was the train engineer job. But without the clerks, mechanics, signal maintainers, car inspectors, machinist, track workers, management staffs, and others, there wouldn't have been any trains for them to engineer.
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Above: The man on the far left of the photo is Raz Freeman, Conductor. On the far right is Lurley Fultz. Second from the right is Cy Mathers. If you can identify anyone else let us know. Note the BL2 engine is flying classification flags.
Many, if not most, of the workers had nicknames such as Cookie, Nine Joints, Snapper, Booger, Buttercup, Taterbug, The Pope, Banty, Humpy, The Old 14, Buck, Cockeye, Snooze, The big Ape, Pa Pa, Senator, Hoss, Big'un, Bump, Rabbit, Punkin, Toad, Brown eyes, Hap and Holly. We don't mean to leave any out, it's just that probably all 2000 employees had nicknames. Such nicknames usually had a story to go with them. Earning a nickname seemed to a right of passage and acceptance into the Monon family of employees.
In 1920, according to the U.S. Census, 79 head of households in Bloomington worked for the Monon Railroad. Last names which still linger in Bloomington such as Storm, Cook, Strain, Hanson, Kerr, Jackson, Hinton, Stultz, Souders, Fleetwood,Chambers, Slinkard, Ison, Walls, Ferree and Dupree are all listed.
Yes, women worked for the Monon Railroad from the beginning.
McDoel Yard, Bloomington, Indiana
looking North toward town
In 1927 the yard office was on the west side of the Yards about 2000 feet South of Grimes Lane. Sanborn fire maps call this the "Telegraph Office". In the row stooped down, the man on the left is Roy Pope. The third from the left in that same row is Ray Stevenson. The fellow standing with the white shirt, black vest, no hat, is Fox, he was the "telegrapher". The man on the right, sitting next to the track wearing the white shirt is Raz Freeman. He eventually became a conductor with the Monon. His granddaughter, Tanice Freeman Hinson still resides in Bloomington. If you can identify anyone else in this picture let us know.