Chapter 01: A Life of Trains
Charley Reeb worked his way through the various menial jobs you can hold for the railroad. After emigrating at age 12 from Germany, he wandered into the Penn Railroad yards in Indianapolis and immediately was hired, at age 13, as a coal shoveler to pick up the coal on the ground which was spilled from the coal elevator when it was loading the coal cars. At age 14 he graduated to grease monkey basically the “go get it now” guy on the round table floor. This was his first experience in the roundhouse and he learned quickly about the various parts of the engines and the special tools which were required to work on them. At age 16 Charley was able to run the engines through the yards to check on their repairs. At age 17 he was allowed to “high ball” the engines, to really put them through their paces, on the special test track. Then at age 20 charley became a full-time engineer which he continued to do until he was 70.
There were two parts to Charley’s railroad engineering career. The first part of his career ran from 1884 until 1921 when he was an engineer responsible for delivering coal to a very hungry steel mill. During the second part of his career from 1921 until 1934 Charley was responsible for pulling long freight trains from the East Coast to Indianapolis and Chicago.
​
Midnight was my companion in the cab for about 24 years. He was my trusty fireman responsible for shoveling in the coal to keep the steam engine running. It wasn’t a simple matter of shoveling. He had to keep the bed of coals fed and spread out evenly so the fire under the boiler was predictable.
Midnight was so black that when he was in a room and the lights were shut off you really could not find him. Then he would open his mouth and share his wonderful Cheshire Cat smile and you just had to smile yourself. Midnight was quite content being the fireman on the engine and had no expectations of advancing. He had a predictable income sufficient to raise his family and provide for a bit of entertainment during his off hours. Midnight was married to Jennifer and together they had three children, two sons and a daughter. He had some ideas of his children going to the university. One wanted to become a doctor, one a lawyer, and one an artist. Fortunately for Midnight, Jennifer worked for Tulane University and had an in to get the children placed. He was forever bringing in the drawings by his son as he advanced in age from eight to eighteen and the Art was quite advanced for his age.
Midnight’s amazing arms were a real showstopper as we would walk through some of the hobo camps. He was occasionally being challenged to arm wrestle and this was always the demise of the challenger.
Midnight was my best friend and I could always depend upon him.
In 1884 coal and steel were king and Charley was responsible for delivering Appalachian coal to the steel mills in Gary Indiana. He would pull, up to, seventy coal hopper cars filled to the brim. He always started his run in Gary Indiana where Charley would take the empty coal cars down into West Virginia around Blair Mountain where he would fill all of his cars and then pull the heavy load all the way back into Gary Indiana where there was a large steel mill. Over the years Charley progressed using ever more powerful steam engines.
In 1921 a couple of things happened which caused Charley to bid on a different run. The first was his diagnosis of lung congestion. Now there were two direct causes. First was his two pack of cigarettes a day habit and second was his indirect exposure to the coal dust. His wife Ellie Mae made it quite clear to Charley that she wanted him around for a while longer and he was going to pay attention to the doctor and immediately throw away his smokes and look for a change in his regular train runs. Ellie Mae used some special form of persuasion to encourage Charley to change. He immediately threw away his pack of cigarettes and never lighted one up again in his life.
The second cause was the union strike at Blair Mountain. The battle of Blair Mountain was a series of clashes culminating in August and September of 1921. More than 10,000-armed union miners from the northern coalfields of West Virginia marched south to support unionizing efforts amid an anti-union regime in Logan County. The miners were met with the West Virginia state police and machine gun nests manned by mine guards. The governor sent in the National Guard, and over 900 miners were indicted on various charges. Though the number was never confirmed, it is believed that anywhere from 20 to more than 100 men were killed in the standoff.
Charley carried many union workers from the North in the empty coal cars to help carry the strike to the overseers. They tried to block Charley and his steam locomotive but he was focused upon getting through at all cost to deliver his precious cargo of strikers. Blowing through the improvised stack of timbers on the track was truly exciting. Charley viewed the owners as the evil money grabbers and the workers as not getting the standard of living necessary to sustain a family. This was the last straw and Charley left his string of coal cars and dead headed it back to the barn, in Gary.
When he arrived, Charley went into the line manager’s office and said:
“We have a problem and it will either be solved with my retirement from the railroads or a reassignment of my run from the coal fields to a standard freight or passenger run. This is because of the way the workers at Blair Mountain are being treated by the owners and my diagnosis of lung congestion. I need to be taken out of harm’s way.”
The line manager eventually agreed and with Charley’s seniority and experience, assigned him to an East Coast freight line.
Once Charley was situated on his East Coast run, Ellie Mae answered an ad and got a job running the caboose where she was responsible for preparing three home cooked meals each day.
After four trips the run was Memorized, each turn, each railroad marker, each speed zone, and especially each turnout. This was critical to know for making sure that there was a safe passage for all.