David Wilkins:

I'm guessing that the organization you are "slowly becoming involved with" is Heber Valley and they at one time had a program very similar to Nevada Northern's that allowed individuals to move up with that movement being tracked on the ID badge. An image of my last ID badge is attached below. On the reverse side of the badge, running up the left-had side you'll see spots for indicating the holder being qualified on starting with Motorcar, Hyrail, ADA Lift, Brakeman, Hostler, Conductor, Fireman, Light Engineer, Diesel Engineer, Steam Engineer. On the right-hand side running from bottom upward are indicators for qualification on the Tug, Front-end Loader, Mill, Band saw, Lathe, Gas Welder, Arc Welder, Power tools (hand held), Overhead crane, and the Air Compressor (with its associated tools).

Back when I was there, we had a couple of engineers who worked on a four week rotation. Once a month they'd come down-arriving on a Friday and working through the following weekend-9 days on). One came on third week and the other on the fourth week. They'd work the local the first weekend and following week and then work the Downtown Arrow the following weekend. The Arrow was view by many as the preferred train as it only made two round trips-had an hour layover for lunch and (for trainmen) had all air conditioned equipment.

One of my favorite enginemen was Mr. Ken Fraser. He ilved in Knoxville and worked three on, four off. He would arrive Sunday evening and go home Wednesday evening. He worked in the shop whenever he wasn't running the locomotive. He was very good at spotting cars-literally could stop a car wheel within a half dollar of where you wanted it. Yes, we actually did that on multiple occasions.

If you do go there, hopefully the coal is good. We got our fair share of "real estate".