(The following story by Gwenda Anthony appeared on the Jackson Sun website on March 19.)
JACKSON, Tenn. — It was like a family reunion when several locomotive engineers gathered last week where they used to work.
As Jackson celebrated the birthday Wednesday of Casey Jones, one of its more fabled engineers, the men’s gathering was a reminder of the trains’ pivotal role in America.
The Illinois Central Railroad Division Office off Sycamore Street in downtown Jackson is now home to state offices. But in earlier times, it was a hub for passengers and freight leaving Jackson for every direction.
At the helm of those locomotives, beginning more than 30 years ago, was a group of men proud to be among those of the city’s and the nation’s rich railroading history.
Passenger service by the late 1960s was a thing of the past, but freight service was booming.
Returning to the old IC station for a group photograph rekindled their memories.
“I worked from 1976 to ’84 on the rails,” said James Brown, who was a spark for the reunion.
“My mother worked for a man who was a claims agent for the railroad. He gave me my start,” Brown said.
“I went to Fulton, Ky., for a physical at the end of one week, and by Monday of the next week, I was on the job.”
Brown worked a northern route, leaving Memphis for Cairo, Ill., or Paducah and Fulton, Ky.
He also worked a Jackson-to-Cairo route.
“But you made more money going to Cairo from Memphis, because it was a longer route,” Brown said.
He started in the business a few years after GM&O merged with Illinois Central and became Illinois Central Gulf.
Railroad buffs know GM&O as the handle for the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio.
Brown had gotten a taste of the railroad life in St. Louis. Back home in Jackson, the 1963 Merry High School graduate started out as a brakeman and then entered the engine service.
That was the way for a number of them: start in one position on the trains and move up in the ranks. And there was none higher than being an engineer, leader of an iron horse.
Life on the rails
Larry Mercer recalled his start.
The fifth in a family of eight boys, he grew up in the southeast Jackson community of Mound City. It is sometimes called “Onion Field” because of the rampant wild onions that dot the land.
His Burton Street neighborhood was a stone’s throw from Iselin Yard and the GM&O shop, where the trains were repaired. As a young boy, Mercer remembered playing on the bluff overlooking the yard.
Even though generations before him had worked as porters and custodians, Mercer said it never occurred to him that he could have a job on a train beyond those positions.
“I never thought about working there, least of all as an engineer. The idea was pretty farfetched,” he said.
But then opportunities opened up, and he found himself at a place he never imagined. He was hired in 1974 as a brakeman, a position two of his brothers held.
Like Brown, Mercer began not too long after GM&O merged with the IC. He later transferred into the engine service, becoming a fireman and then an engineer.
A fireman at that time, Mercer explained, was more like an engineer’s assistant.
It was good on-the-job training, said Mercer, who attended several weeks of engineer school in Paducah, Ky., before taking the required test and qualifying for the job.
“It used to be that a fireman shoveled coal and wood from the firebox to keep the steam engines running. But that was before my day, thank the Lord,” Mercer grinned.
Locomotives are now powered by diesel.
Mercer doesn’t much dwell on the aspect of his hiring.
“I was grateful to have a job, and I was there to support my family just like the other men were,” he said.
“I can work with everybody. My philosophy is: ‘If you treat me right, I will treat you right’,” Mercer said.
“I am thankful for the many friends I made while working on the railroad.”
Making history – and friends
It was 1970 when Howard Knight started his railroad career.
“He began as a brakeman, too, but was the first black to become an engineer,” said his sister, Almeta Jones, of Jackson, with obvious pride.
Knight, who has been an officer in the Brotherhood of Local Engineers, is modest about his accomplishments.
“I had a lot of people who helped me,” he said. “Like E.M. ‘Molly’ Stansell, who was a conductor, and other folks who were engineers.”
That included Don Savage, Glenn McCullar, Byron Cox, Charles Patrick and Joe Hunt.
“Patrick helped train me as an engineer,” said Knight, one of the few engineers from the group still working. Another is Harvey Riley.
Both now commute to their jobs: Knight to Memphis and Riley to Fulton, Ky.
“The rail life has been good to me,” said Riley, who is looking “at the next year or two” joining his buddies who have already retired.
Knight also is contemplating that move.
‘There was something different every day’
Mercer enjoyed his time riding the rails.
“I remembered how exciting it was to get up and go to work,” Mercer said. “It was a new challenge, seeing different places and doing different things.
“There was something different every day. You were meeting trains or switching the engines or freight cars in different communities along the way.”
“Trains carried freight just like trucks on the highways do now,” Mercer said. “Anything a truck could do, a train could do better.”
“You can haul more on a train than in a truck. We even hauled the tractor-trailer trucks.
“Most everything was shipped by rail then. And most factories, such as Procter & Gamble and Maytag, still have rail lines to unload cargo,” he said.
“Rail used to be the means of moving this country.”
But in 1985, Mercer came to a crossroads. The train industry was facing more mergers and employee cutbacks.
He could continue to work for the railroad but out of Memphis. Mercer chose not to.
During the time he was working the rails, he had been feeling the call of the ministry.
“The Lord was dealing with me,” Mercer said.
“I had been doing some preaching, and it was weighing heavily on me. I was trying to sit it out, work it out, but the Lord showed me what I needed to do.”
It would be some seven years after he left the railroad though before he began pastoring Cerro Gordo Baptist Church in southwest Madison County.
In the meantime, he helped managed his family’s funeral home business.
“One step after another led me to where I am now,” Mercer said.
“I have missed the railroad, but I haven’t regretted this decision.”
These train engineers, most of them from Jackson, worked together. All told, they have a record in work years and ages that is centuries old.
# James Brown, 62, worked from 1976 to 1984.
# Larry Mercer, 57, worked from 1974 to 1985. He’s the baby of the group.
# Howard Knight, 61, started in 1970; still working.
# Harvey Riley, 62, started in 1975; still working.
# Leon Williamson, 65, started 1974 and in retired in 1991 on disability.
“Believe it or not, I used to be scared of trains when I was a kid,” he said.
But he overcame that fear when he needed a job to provide for his family.
He had a cousin who worked for the railroad in Jackson. When Williamson returned here after living in Indiana, he inquired about a job.
“The trains paid enough money, and I hired on as a brakeman,” he said. Within a few months, he applied to be an engineer.
Glenn McCullar, 63, started as a switchman in the Iselin Yard in1962. It was about the time GM&O ended its passenger service. He retired in July 2003.
The company had two passenger trains, the Rebel and the Little Rebel, McCullar remembered. It took travelers to such places as St. Louis, Mobile, Ala., and Louisville, Ky., he said.
When freight cars entered the yard, McCullar would classify them according to their cargo.
For Byron Cox, 75, railroading is in his blood. His dad was an engineer and was among the last to be at the helm of the Little Rebel.
Cox began a career on the rails as a clerk in 1955. He later became a conductor before eventually donning the engineer’s cap.
Since his retirement in 1996, he has battled cancer.
“But I’m a survivor,” Cox said.
At 78, Charles Patrick is the veteran of the group.
He hired on at the age of 16, and from a fireman became an engineer.
Patrick said he liked his runs to Cairo.
“But my very best was on the City of Miami, the IC passenger train,” said the father of three daughters.
Patrick also has seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He retired in 1987.
Don Savage, 66, lives in Medon. He started in 1967 and retired in November 2002.
“The railroad was my life,” Savage said. He started as a brakeman and has fond memories of “what railroaders called Seniority Day.”
“I had cubbed, learning the job, for three weeks,” Savage said. Seniority Day meant he was closer to a paycheck.
“I still had to work an extra month, though, before I got paid. I had no money saved up. And with a wife and two kids at the time, it was rough,” Savage said.
Joe Hunt, 62, lives in Trenton. He started working in April 1972 and retired in October 2005.
“Don put the finishing touches on me,” Hunt said of his engineer training under Savage.
“The train used to have a caboose at the end, and the conductor would wave at the kids,” Hunt said. “Now there’s just a flashing light at the end of the last car.
“I worked a job what every little boy has dreamed,” Hunt said.
“It was stressful, and it could be hard on a man’s family life because he stayed gone so much on the road,” Hunt said. But all in all, “train life was good to me. It’s still my hobby.”
The men recalled working the extra board.
That meant they had no seniority, no specific job assignment and were practically on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They worked whatever shifts were available, including filling in for men who were sick or on vacation. They also were the sub crew for any extra trains that would pull into the station.
“Working on the trains was like being in a family,” McCullar said. “We were pretty tight.”
“I can tell you Casey Jones had nothing on these guys,” said McCullar about Jackson’s legendary train engineer.