(The following story by Cigi Ross appeared on The Register-Mail website on June 24.)
GALESBURG, Ill. — In 1979, Burlington Northern was looking to hire minority women.
Betty Bunch, 38 at the time, was the only person to apply, and became Galesburg’s first black, female railroad engineer.
“If it hadn’t been for that clause, I don’t think I would have gotten hired,” Bunch said. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
When she began working for the railroad, Bunch thought she’d only stay long enough to pay for some landscaping at her home and buy her husband a set of golf clubs.
Some of her friends told her not to take a job on the railroad and thought she wouldn’t be able to stick it out.
Twenty-eight years later Bunch is still working as a service track engineer, now for BNSF Railway, and plans to retire on Feb. 9, 2011.
The Union Pacific Railroad was the first railroad to hire women, according to the American Railroad Women Web site. Union Pacific introduced registered nurse-stewardesses on Aug. 21, 1935, to help female travellers with children and to assist the elderly on cross-country treks.
Other companies such as Southern and Eastern railroads soon added women to their crews, but not just as nurses.
Tom Golden, a retired BNSF railroad conductor, said his mother, Blanche Golden, was one of the first women to work on the railroad in Galesburg during World War II.
“She worked at the old round house,” Tom said. “She was a hostler and moved the engines around. Most of the guys were gone (to the war), and the guys that were there knew why the women were there so they pulled together.”
Golden didn’t learn of his mother’s secret occupation until he got his own railroad job in 1966.
“I came home and told her I worked on the railroad, and she said, ‘I did that,’ ” Tom said. “I thought it was pretty neat that I was doing something she had done. We both thought, it didn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, if you can handle the job then you deserve the job.”
But for Bunch, the male railroad employees’ attitudes towards her have shifted over the years.
“When I first went on, women weren’t too much accepted at that time,” Bunch said. “The men were standoffish. Me being the only lady, there was no one else to talk to, so most of the time you were by yourself. Still, now, a lot of times I’m by myself.
“They’ve changed their attitude toward me a lot. Now the young men and women look more to me as a mother or grandmother.”
Cindy Godsil was hired on the railroad in 1976 and said she has worked in several different capacities. She is currently a control operator.
For Godsil, a third-generation railroad worker, the railroad was in her blood.
“It’s a way of life for my family, it’s my sense of normal,” Godsil said. “That’s how you hired on back then.”
Godsil said she’s never felt unaccepted because she was a woman.
“They never said just because you were a woman you couldn’t be an engineer or a conductor,” she said. “If you wanted to, you could. Over the last 20 years there have been more women coming onto different jobs.”
When Godsil started 31 years ago she made $35 a day. Now, she makes around $300 a day.
“That was making good money for a woman back then, very good money,” she said.
Because of her railroad job, Bunch was able to support her two daughters through college and hopes to help pay for her grandson’s college as well.
“It’s about the best thing going right now,” she said. “Not many other jobs are paying a decent wage.”
In a town where factory closings have limited jobs for many people, railroad jobs are very attractive.
“If you wanted to stay in Galesburg, the railroad is your best bet as far as money and insurance,” Godsil said.
The railroad allowed Stephanie Martinez, 23, to stay near her family and provide a secure financial future. Martinez graduated from Knoxville High School in 2002 and joined the Army. When she came back, she attended a BNSF Railway career fair that changed her life.
“I never thought I’d work on the railroad,” Martinez said. “But it was a career opportunity. I mean, in Galesburg, you just don’t turn that kind of thing down.”
After attending a conductor program at the National Academy for Railroad Sciences in Kansas City, Kan., Martinez started working. She’s a third-shift yardmaster.
“I never thought at 23 I’d be making $70,000 a year,” she said. “It’s the only job I’ve ever had that I never wanted to quit.”
But working the railroad can also have its disadvantages, like odd shift schedules and long hours.
“I couldn’t always be with my kids or go to their activities,” Bunch said. “I finally have Fridays and Saturdays off, but it took 20 years to get there.”
Family can’t always come first.
“It’s a different way of life,” Martinez said. “You don’t just have the job, your family has the job, too. Everybody takes a part, I just get the check.”
But despite its pitfalls most women on the railroad wouldn’t work anywhere else.
“It’s the only job I’ve ever had that I never wanted to quit,” Martinez said.
“It’s a real good job for women to have. It still is,” Bunch said.