Winston-Salem Photo, Dec 10 1966, for Mr. James Wall

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Responding to Herr Huber of the Dear Crick & Pacific Fast Line Ray-Road, who ye asketh:   "Is the Brakeman standing on the end railings of one of the RS-11s?"
 
The Brakeman in the photo has climbed up the ladder on the end of the engine, next to the headlight, where he can see the hand signal of the "field man" (Brakeman working in the field, i.e. farthest from the engine.)
 
Normally, when relaying signals, we took a position on top of the car next to the engine.  For some reason, in this instance the Brakeman has not done so.  Perhaps the curvature of the track at this point would have precluded the Engineman from seeing a hand signal given from the first car.  Since I never worked in this location, I am only able to guess.  Sorry to let you down.
 
Perhaps this is a good point at which to explain terms:  Jack Man and Field Man.
 
When there were two Brakemen on a crew, one "followed the engine" (i.e. stayed with the engine during switching moves.)  He was called the Jack Man.  "The Jack" was a very old term for an engine, and very likely came from the day when a male mule was called a "Jack."  This Brakeman was said to "follow the Jack."  
 
The other Brakeman was called the Field Man.
 
The Jack Man would move the engine from track to track, as necessary during the operation, handling the switches and making the coupling when the engine was coupled to cars in a track.  The Field Man, as the name implies, worked in the field, knocking off handbrakes, or tieing up hand brakes, coupling air hoses, and arranging whatever element of work was next whenever the engine came into the track they were working on.
 
Back when I hired (1964,) some of the road locals and yard jobs having heavy switching to do carried a third brakeman, and he was called the Middle Brakeman, or the Middle Man.  When pulling a track with many cars, the Middle Man often rode on top near the middle of the draught of cars, passing hand signals.  Or, if he were not needed for this, the Conductor would assign him some other duty, e.g. coupling air and knocking off hand brakes on some other track.  
 
Back in the days of LCL freight (which line of business was discontinued sometime around 1962,) every road local carried a "package car" on the head end.  That was the box car loaded with Less-than-Carload freight (pacjages, drums, bales, etc) destined toi the various stations along the line.  The package car would be spotted at the depot's freight platform, and one of the Brakemen, along with the Station Agent or his 
Warehouseman, would load and unload the LCL freight.  Each shipment was accompanied by a freight waybill and it was the Conductor's responsibility to see that all the required packages were puit off or loaded on, and to do the paperwork for this business.  If package freight was especially heavy, an additional brakeman (a fourth Brakeman) might be assigned.  When the railroads finally ran off the LCL freight business, most of the depots along the lines closed.  This was the period when the  passenger trains were being killed, too, say 1957-1962.
 
I held the Middle Brakeman's job on the Night Saltville Switcher several times, and spent our entire time at Plasterco on top, relaying signals, due to the curvature.  The details are in my little paper of memories of working at Glade Spring and Saltville, which I will attach.
 
When vacant jobs were advertised and assigned, the bulletin always described the job as "Head End Brakeman with Conductor H.E. Pack" or "Middle  Brakeman with D.A. Eastburn," or "Flagman with Conductor W.L. Aliff."
 
Back in those days, locals did a LOT of switching.  There were sidings every few miles.  The Punkin Vine locals often were on duty 15 hours and 59 minutes running between Roanoke and North Winston (and there was one local in each direction, daily except Sunday.)  Entirely different situation than railroading today, where most of the local customers have been run off over the years, and a patron's siding along the track is a rare thing, indeed !
 
Someone needs to do an article on the railroad's truly massive LCL business, the 
Roanoke Freight Station, the way this business was handled, the waybills which accompanied each shipment, and the railroad's methods of charging for and getting paid for handling this traffic.  I know part of that story, but the commercial side, including rates and tariffs and waybilling and revenue accounting and collection, were things I had very little exposure to over the years.  Did you know that there were actually cases where thieves blew open the Agent's safes in railroad depots, to get the money out of them?
 
Attachment.
 
--  abram burnett
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