Home Page Forums Prototype and Historical Employees Gambling on the railroad

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    peggyrothschild
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    I don’t know what made me think of this story – maybe the recent lottery discussions. I wasn’t around a lot of gambling on the railroad. I generally was working around the smaller agencies and customer service centers and to be honest there wasn’t time for the clerical forces to play cards. They’d put together a football pool but that was about the extent of it and folks would put a dollar on a square – not big money. On the tie gang they’d play a dollar or two playing eight ball in a bar but that was it…..nothing serious.

    My one exposure to serious gambling was out at Horace, Kansas one night. I’d ridden the local from Hoisington to Horace that day and we were returning back to Hoisington the following day. I was riding the caboose both ways. If you’ve ever been to Horace there isn’t much there. Tribune is the nearest town and the city fathers didn’t want the railroad to build their yard and roundhouse there as water was in short supply in western Kansas. So the Mopac located a few miles down the road and created the tiny burg of Horace (named after Horace Greeley). Horace in 1975 had a large concrete grain elevator, small depot, a little railroad cafe, maybe three or four houses, a large railroad YMCA for the crews to stay in and several earth dugouts where the trainmen stayed to avoid paying to stay in the ‘Y’ (saving maybe $1.75 a night).

    Being a railroad officer, the lady running the YMCA decided to give me a private room vs having me out in the dormitory with the crews. I really didn’t care but it was her YMCA. I remember the room had four walls but no ceiling so it was open to the rest of the dorm. Right next to my room was the crew lounge with a black & white television (complete with rabbit ears and poor reception), a big card table with several chairs around it and chairs lined up against the walls for those wanting to be spectators to the card game.

    I’d gone to bed around 11:00 pm and tried to sleep but being next to the lounge was like sleeping ‘on’ the card table. I could hear the cards being shuffled, the side discussions, the cussing on getting a bad hand and the bets being made. Giving up on trying to sleep around 1:00 am I got up, got dressed and decided to be a spectator. I watched a few games of Poker and saw one trainman lose $600-$700 one hand. That certainly confirmed I wasn’t playing cards with this crowd! I think I finally went to bed around 3:00 am and had a call at 6:00 am as we were scheduled to depart around 7:00 am. I made my way over to the cafe had a quick breakfast and got a bagged lunch to go for the trip back.

    On the way back I remember talking across the cupola to the conductor on seeing the trainman lose the large amount of money that night. He looked over at me and said, as a matter of fact, “….son that’s nothing, I saw a guy lose his brand new Cadillac one night in a card game…”

    I decided those ‘were’ some serious card players at Horace.

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