Another interesting tidbit, as I mentioned working for a railroad was a damn good job back in the day, it was also the best opportunity for African Americans.
During the hayday of passenger rail, the conductor and assistants were the only white employees on a passenger train (outside of the locomotive crew), porters, waiters, bartenders stewards, cooks/chefs, kitchen help and car cleaners were all black, and paid the prevailing hourly wage for track crew........which was top-tier wages for hourly workers, plus they also received tips for many jobs.
The wages, coupled with their pension and other benefits (like free travel passes), made these jobs legendary, and the most sought-after positions for blacks in the US. It was so lucrative that not infrequently these jobs were passed down from father to son, and further.
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Footnote: RR benefits - travel passes: Funny how thinking about it brings the memories of these things back.....however, another lucrative benefit RR employees received was travel passes......depending on seniority, an employee/retiree was allowed to request from two to eight "passes" every year (each generally valid for two weeks), for an employee and/or members of his/her immediate family (four people per pass). These were not unlike those granted to airline employees today EXCEPT, they were honored by any railroad in North America (Canada & Mexico included), enabling employees to travel anywhere served by passenger rail. As a youngster, I went on a significant number of trips on one of these passes.