Life Members
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Life
membership in the Veterans’ Association is awarded upon achieving 50 or more
years of service. 50 year veterans were
once relatively common. As recently as
1979, 77 members had 50 or more years of service. Today, we are down to just 2 - Leland C. Cain, better known as “Sugar” Cain, and Eddie Yost, both with 53 years of service. With earlier retirement and buy-outs, it is
unlikely we will see anyone else attain 50 years of service.
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“Sugar” is well known to visitors to this web site. A full page about “Sugar” and his family can be found here. Be sure and check it out if you haven’t
already seen it. Retiring on
“Sugar,” started working for the C&NW as a 4th Cook
during the summer school break when he was just 16. 4th Cook, in case you didn’t know,
meant Dishwasher. That was in 1941. His seniority date as a full time employee is
1/5/1943, shortly after which he volunteered for the army. Upon returning to the C&NW after the war,
he was made 3rd Cook.
Subsequently working up to 2nd Cook, 1st Cook,
Chef and Head Chef, “Sugar” worked
all the name trains of his era, his first assignment being on Nos. 87 and 88 –
The Challenger. Later, he served on the
Overland Limited, all four “City” trains, the Minneapolis 400, the Dakota 400,
the Capitol 400, the Kate Shelly and the “Yellow Dogs.” “Yellow Dog,” actually a complimentary term,
was the name the employees gave to the streamliners to and from
“Sugar” was in the first dining car crew to work all the way
through to
Many high corporate executives – CEO’s and Presidents – had their own private cars and “Sugar” worked them in their travels over the C&NW. He also worked numerous Business Trains for Paul Feucht, Ben Heinemann, Larry Provo, Jim Wolfe, Joe Alsop and Jim Zito. With changes in the industry over the years, private car owners were allowed to furnish their own help and “Sugar” received an offer to go to work for one of those private car owners. He thought about it, perhaps for about 2 minutes, and declined, saying the North Western was where he belonged.
After several years on the Kenosha Club Run and following the retirement of “Big Al” Jenkins, “Sugar” took over the bar car on the McHenry Club Run. At that time, he and Warren Sims (on the Harvard Club Run) were the last two bartenders on the North Western.
“Sugar” stayed on that McHenry
job until he retired on
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Eddie Yost “hung it up” in August 2002 with 53 years of
service as an engineer on the Wisconsin Division. Eddie
was the last man on the Wisconsin Division Engineer’s roster to have run steam
engines and had the highest seniority of any engineer on the entire Union
Pacific Railroad!
The
Work
them he did, until steam disappeared and he had to settle for running the
diesel locomotives that took over on commuter, freight and passenger trains in
and out of
His
father didn't want him shoveling coal and said he should be a surveyor. But when Yost graduated from
He
started as a section hand repairing tracks and roadbed. After a year he moved over to engine service.
He began as a fireman and worked for 18 years before he had enough seniority to
become a full-time engineer. He'd barely started when he had to take two years
out to serve in the Korean War. The
suburban trains converted to diesel by 1956, through passenger and freight
trains were also dieselized at that time.
Soon
after he started as a fireman Yost
began the three years of training needed to become an engineer. Then, besides
working as a fireman, he went on the "extra board" and was called to
fill in when more engineers were needed.
In 1969 he became a full-time engineer.
He pulled a lot of commuter duty but found the flat tracks and steady
speeds boring. His favorite run was
"Once
you left
Yost
pulled a lot of commuter trains, but he preferred freights drawn by steam
locomotives. "You had a train about
a mile long and sometimes two miles long. It was always different," he
said. "I'd like to see them back. It was more challenging."
From Tom Kraemer comes another story about Ed from steam days. We can laugh at this one today, but I’ll bet it sure wasn’t humorous at the time!
Not
long after hiring out, Ed was firing
a steam powered
With
the aid of the brakeman, Ed was
fished out of the tank. He immediately
removed his soaked overcoat, climbed down into the locomotive cab and opened
the firebox doors to try and warm up.
The engineer, now fuming mad, had no concern over Ed's predicament, saying:
"Whatta ya think you’re doing?
Swimming around in there when we've got work to do! You want to take a swim, at least wait till
we get to
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