KCS Remembrances
Leland
C. Stanford (born July 17th, 1914 in Booneville, Arkansas). Worked for the Kansas City Southern during
World War II.
Interviewed
by Matt Hutson in Crystal City, Colorado on 9/5/99
"I
had a friend that had gone to work for the KCS Railroad down at Heavener
(Arkansas). Lessee, he went to work for
them in 1940….and he took me to the roundhouse and introduced me to ol' W.D.
Caileff who was the father of this Caileff that wrote
this book on the Kansas City Southern (KCS: Route of the Southern Belle). We talked for a long time and before I left
there ol' Caileff had hired me to run student trips on the railroad. Well, student trips meant that you made the
trips, shoveled the coal there and back, which was 100 miles between stations and
you had to make several trips without any pay until you had learned to fire
that locomotive good. So, I think I
spent about 16 or 18 days before I finally got on the board and had been on the
board about (a) couple of weeks when a job came up to be bid on. The engineer that was assigned to this job,
he was an eccentric ol' boy who didn't believe anything except what he came up
with; he didn't believe anybody else.
My friend told me, 'Stanford, nobody else will bid on that job. Nobody likes to work with that ol' sucker'.
"Anyway,
I bid on the job and I got it and I worked for him until I was in a bad wreck
just this side of DeQueen, Arkansas. I
got on regular with him and I double headed troop trains and local trains and
extras. We got all of 'em along the
way. I'd learned to fire pretty good
and at times why I'd get kinda bedraggled with my firekeeping. I had to work like a son-of-a-gun going up
Rich Mountain which was 30 miles right straight up out of Heavener. And boy, you shoveled all the way up that
mountain. When I got on the other side
of the mountain I'd sit up on the seatbox and get my breath, you know. Well, a lot of times I'd sit up there too
quick and going down the mountain you know, shakin', would shake my fire down
and I'd wind up with not enough steam for him to couple up when he got ready to
go. And he was the kind that went
whether he had no steam or not, one way or another!
I'd
been working with him quite a while and this was on the South Local, which
worked from DeQueen to Heavener, Oklahoma.
And we was doin' just fine when we come through Mena headin' toward Rich
Mountain, the south side of Rich Mountain.
And I had set on the seatbox too long and let my fire get down. And I got down and started fightin' it, you
know. When you get in a hurry, why you
always goof up. And my fire wasn't
doin' any good so he got down there and was gonna help me. Well, the more he worked on it the worse it
got. I said, 'Uncle Billy (Hartman), if
you don't get back up on that seatbox and run this engine and let me do your
firin' I'm gonna throw this hickory handled stoker in on this fire and let you
have this durned thing'. 'Oh, by
Jiminy God, Stanford! You cain't do
that' he sez 'they'll fire both of us'.
I sez, 'No, they won't fire me 'cause I will have thrown the shovel in
and quit when I throw the shovel in.
You'll be the guy they'll fire.'
'Oh, by Jiminy' he sez, 'You cain't do that to me'. I said, "f you don't stay up there on
your side of the engine and run this engine and leave my fire alone, you're
gonna find out'. And I never did have
any more problems with that ol' boy,
why everything was just lovely.
And my firin' even got better.
"We
stopped at Mena, which was one of the main towns on the railroad. It was named after Queen Mena from Sweden
(actually Holland). She had helped
finance building the Kansas City Southern, and Captain Stillwell had named a
lot of the towns along the way in honor of her, even though he only just used
part of her name. And on top of Rich
Mountain why, he built a real pretty hotel and he put it right up on top of
Rich Mountain, which was in the wild.
But, it really took because they had called it 'Queen Wilhelmina Lodge'
and it's still operating today.
"Down
there at Mena, we stopped to get water - we had to stop at least two times in
the hundred miles with those bigger engines, and sometimes three times. So at Mena, we stopped to get water and I
crawled back on the water reservoir and climbed up on the water spout that came
out of the water tank, which was the kind of water tanks they used throughout
railroadin' back then. The spout….you
had to pull it down with a rope. And
then you had to climb up on it and set on the spout in a certain place and then
pull another rope to cause the water to go into the water tender.
"Well,
I pulled the rope to get the water to come out, but I wasn't in the right
position on the spout and when I turned it on why, the spout just went right
straight up, and here I am up there, helpless as all get out with water runnin'
everywhere! At the same time I was
hollerin' for the ol' engineer's attention.
'Course the steam and all the noise, he didn't hear me. After I set up there, seemed like 30 minutes
or more, he came back there and give me a cussin' out again. He wanted to know, 'What in the world are
you doin' up there?'. I said, 'You're
gonna find out when I get down from here'.
So he pulled me on down and let me get off of it. Oh boy.
"I
used to, even after I quit the railroad and went to the Navy, when I got back
home why I'd go down to see my friend
at Heavener who had got me the job……..I'd always go on down on to Mena from
Rich Mountain which was oh, 30 miles and visit with him (Hartmann). He had a little house he'd bought somewhere
along his career and that's where he lived.
In fact, I think he was raised in Heavener. Uncle Billy (Hartmann).
Anyway, I visited him as long as he lived.
"I've
got to tell you about the wreck we had.
We were called on what was called an 'Extra', carried two white flags,
you know. We were goin' from Heavener
up over Rich Mountain and down through Mena.
Just this side of DeQueen there was a local who had backed into a
sawmill to pick up lumber and had left about half of their train out on the
main track. And we were comin' down the
mountain there at 55 miles an hour around a curve, why, here was the
flagman. He hadn't gotten back toward
our unit very far. There he was,
flaggin' us down, and we went through 9 box cars, one oil tanker and a caboose,
just lickety brindle. And we put the
brakes on so hard, that they locked.
But we scooted until we put between 9 and 10 inches of flat spots on all
the drivers, and that's a pretty good piece of flat spot! Anyway, we just went scootin'. We probably would've been able to slow down
a little bit but in the middle of (our) train was 9 cars of steel. And I still can see the boards
a-flyin' from those wooden boxcars.
'Course they're all steel now, but back then there was still lots of
wood.
"The ol' engineer and I had to ride that engine back with those flat spots
on those drivers a hundred miles. Took
us 16 hours to go a hundred miles. And
boy, you talk about beat when we got to Heavener! My railroadin' was somethin' else!
"After
the wreck, they put me up in a hotel down in Mena there for two-three days
after the wreck and wouldn't let me go home.
The railroad had me up in the investigation and tried to get me to
testify that the old man was at fault, you know, that he caused it all. But even as far back as that was in the
forties, they had black boxes on those engines that they could lay that tape
and tell just how fast you was goin' around a certain curve. Well they tried to get me to testify against
him in all parts of the investigation.
Well I wasn't gonna do that 'cause the old man tried to stop the engine.
He didn't deserve to be trumpled (?).
Anyway, I held up for him and saved his job until he made it into
retirement."
Leland
died in July the summer after this recording was made.