[PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways

Tue Nov 2 09:20:26 EDT 2010

Mill time?   What mill time.   The one in my family that had mill time was my dad.   After two years of Marietta College, he decided he didn't want a liberal arts education.   He spent a year working in a Cleveland still mill to earn money to go to Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh.   Funny thing about that ... many years later I met a guy named Ed Lybarger and we discovered that both our fathers were in the same yearbook at Tech!  

My plant time was with Armstrong Cork.   Sons or daughters of employees got first priority on summer factory jobs.   Dad was the plant engineer in the Lancaster Closure Division.   That qualified me.   Franklin and Marshall College let out about a week before the other universities so it pretty well guaranteed I could beat any other kids to the starting gate.   That plus the army did a lot to teach me that I really didn't want to spend a lifetime in that sort of work.  I had two years at Armstrong and then found something I liked a little more .... a little more strenuous but I was around friends and I made just about as much but I had to work a lot more hours to do it.   Firing locomotives on the Strasburg Rail Road in the summer.   The Strasburg job also carried through to weekends in the winter so that had some advantages.   I ended up with about 115 credited months under Railroad Retirement ... you needed 120 to get a supplemental RRB pension.   My RRB money simply was rolled into social insecurity.      

On Nov 1, 2010, at 10:42 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> The real question is, what kind of a 'computer' did they use back in
> '68-'69?
> On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 18:24, BobDietrich <bob.dietrich1 at verizon.net>wrote:
> 
>> I suppose I should throw in my Mill job.  I was at Homestead for about 18
>> months between 1968 & 69.  The most significant remembrance I have is guys
>> being forced to take something like 8 weeks vacation then coming back and
>> trying to recall what they were supposed to do.  You see I was working in
>> the computer department.  The computer was just inside the 8th Ave entrance
>> and I never got any further.  Truth is I never wanted to go any further.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of Dwight
>> Long
>> Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 12:13 PM
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>  Cc: Dennis Lamont
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
>> 
>> John
>> 
>> There was a lot of slack time in my job at Crucible as well.  But woe
>> befall
>> any laborer who failed to heed the whistle at the cold roll station when
>> the
>> operator--who was on incentive--needed oil, scrap toted away, or whatever!
>> Slack time was particularly bad on night shift.  One night all the laborers
>> (myself included) were sacked out on shelves in the warehouse.  The foreman
>> was really pissed when he found us--cold roll needed rolling oil.  He said,
>> can't at least one of youse guys stay awake?  But no one was disciplined
>> for
>> it.
>> 
>> I just missed you at Homestead.  I was based there, in the transportation
>> office, for a short time in early 1965. That was a blast--got to see all
>> the
>> USS Valley mills, ride the Union RR, etc.  and got paid for it!
>> 
>> Dwight
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: John Swindler
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Sent: Saturday, 30 October, 2010 11:54
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I spent the summer of 1966 in Homestead works as a grinder.  The job
>> involved grinding imperfections out of steel plate, which would then be
>> welded, and we would then grind the weld smooth.
>> 
>> My favorite story was first shift on night turn.  There were two of us
>> college students.  We worked for about an hour grinding 5-6 plates when an
>> old timer came over to us and said:  "you boys need to take it easy for the
>> rest of the night.  Otherwise, when you go back to school, the 'incentive'
>> will be ruined for this job".
>> 
>> I remember that whenever I see closed, rusted factory buildings.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> John
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> From: hwandrews at wowway.com
>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
>>> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:34:17 -0400
>>> 
>>> Hell is right here in Michigan.  No, I don't mean Detroit - there is a
>> city
>>> named Hell just to the west of Detroit.
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan)
>>> 
>>> I think many of us from the 'burgh had interesting summer jobs.
>>> 
>>> I was a hooker at the Homestead works for a summer.  That's the guy on
>> the
>>> floor who places the crane hooks to lift and move a load of steel - what
>> do
>>> you guy thing?
>>> 
>>> My toughest job was laboring in a Gray Iron Foundry in Lawrenceville.
>> One
>>> of the elevators for reclaiming the mold sand needed repair.  My job was
>> to
>>> stand in the elevator pit and shovel the sand that fell off back onto
>> the
>>> elevator belt.  Guess that was cheaper than doing the repairs....  and
>> by
>>> the end of the summer I had a great set of biceps!
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
>> John
>>> Swindler
>>> Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 11:05 AM
>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Very interesting Dennis
>>> 
>>> My father once commented that flying over the Allegheny Mtns. towards
>>> Pittsburgh at night - my guess would be 1945 -  was like descending into
>>> Hades.
>>> 
>>> As for college - I was more fortunate - didn't spend two summers in
>> 'hell'.
>>> Instead spent summer of 1968 and 1969 as a full time temporary CTA bus
>>> driver, and achieved similar results.  Suspect many are glad they went
>> to
>>> college then, instead of now.
>>> 
>>> Isn't Hell north of Georgetown in the Cayman Islands???
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> John
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> From: trombone at windstream.net
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
>>>> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 09:24:49 -0400
>>>> 
>>>> Great stuff.  If you go the coke oven section and then select Shoaf,
>>>> you will see a short film featuring coke production.  This is very
>>>> similar (our coke pulling process was different) to where I worked at
>>>> Carpentertown Coal & Coke (Sharon Steel) facility on Scrubgrass Creek
>>>> in Armstrong County during the summers of 1973 & 74.  Yes, there were
>>>> still beehive ovens in production and my college friends who saw it
>>>> from the top of the hill at night referred to me working in "hell."
>>>> They could not believe such a place existed.
>>>> 
>>>> I made $6,000.00 in 2 summers.  My undergraduate degree cost me about
>>>> $10,000.00.  Other jobs provided the rest of the money and I graduated
>> 
>>>> debt free, a life style I still attempt to maintain.  (No wonder my
>>>> credit score is only 15 points from perfect.)
>>>> 
>>>>          Dennis F. Cramer
>>>> http://home.windstream.net/dfc1
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
> 
> 