Denver Raike is proud of his work and time with Norfolk and Southern Railroad Company from which he retired in 1996 after 36 years spent with what was one of the country’s most successful railroad companies during the time he was employed, and which remains important to the region and country today. Portsmouth yard occupied a central position both physically and productively in the company’s rail traffic during Denver’s time that moved Appalachian coal and Detroit automobiles, and holds a significant and fascinating part of the Portsmouth city area’s work history. A collection of Denver’s accounts and memories are thus an important part of the historic record, preserving and illuminating, among other things, a little piece of labor history of the Portsmouth area and of the country’s vital railroad industry. I was in the Raike home, which Denver built himself, only a few minutes before Denver was giving me a tour of a cabinet storing and displaying old relics, gifts, and memorabilia from his days on the railroad. He had time books that record employee seniorities going back to the 1920s, pictures, old iron locks, and employee-incentive gifts that include pocket knives, and time pieces. Being my very first oral history interview for a university project for scholarly purposes, this was a learning experience for me in the technique and process of collecting oral histories as well as in the subject matter itself. I only had to do as much as to open a story book to prompt the accounts of the old railroad worker beginning the interview. Before the camera came on to record, Denver was already sharing some of his life and work on the railroad.
Considering some of the dangers, incidents, and tiring work that Denver described in his accounts of railroad employment, his experience and recollections seemed positive and spirited. That is, Denver mused on his railroad days more fondly than with any discomfort as he described his duties and job life. That doesn’t mean though that he doesn’t hold a reality of the toil and difficulties of the labor, which mainly seems to be the long hours and the time spent away from home “on the other side” as Denver put it. Denver spoke matter-of-factly when he said that his son had witnessed enough of the long and sometimes odd hours and difficulties of working in the railroad industry, as his dad did, while growing up; and Denver admitted that considering this, his son chose a different way to make a life instead of following in his dad’s footsteps to the rail yard.
Denver shared a variety of aspects and incidents from his work days including tragic accidents and what it was like being aboard a train car near the front when the train struck another vehicle disastrously intercepting the tracks. He told of several accidents, some fatal, and others where people miraculously survived. In his account of a tanker-truck hauling a load of hot tar, he said that he saw the truck coming for half a mile on that clear July morning as the train headed west going 50 miles an hour. The truck approached the crossing slow enough as to be stopping, but at the last moment seemed to let off the breaks as the truck entered the ascending grade over the tracks. Denver was a break-man at the time and when he knew they were going to hit the truck, Denver yelled to the other guy in the car to “hit the floor, because we’re gonna’ get him; and we did”, as he said that both of them tried to get the middle of the floor. They cut the truck in two just behind the tractor, and the number lights and all the glass was busted out on the front of the engine. The load of hot tar covered and breeched the engine, covering two men inside with the hot tar. The truck driver was killed and the two men in the engine were in a lot of pain and had to go to the hospital to get the tar removed. Interesting about this accident was that Denver had taken the only pictures even though workers were not supposed to have cameras. It turns out that it was good fortune for the claim agent that Denver broke the rule and had a camera and used it before the accident was cleaned up. Denver shared these photos with me before the interview. Also fascinating was the story Denver told of a runaway unmanned fifty car train that rolled all the way through town and rolled into the yard and out of the yard when someone finally caught up with it and set the breaks up. Denver said that it rolled through five crossings, with some not having protective lights, and fortunately still, no one was hurt.
Many now retired railroad workers still today are hesitant or will refuse to talk on record about their time on the railroad and the events that took place during the 1978 Norfolk and Western strike that grew to national duress and garnered federal executive action. This climaxed when “President Carter invoked emergency provisions of the Railway Labor Act, which enables the president to order strikers back to work for a 60-day ‘cooling-off’ period , during which time all parties were to participate in federally mediated negations”, after which union workers can resume their strike if nothing is worked out (Portsmouth Free Press, Spring 2008). Though he seemed a little apprehensive about it, Denver did talk a little about the strike of 1978—some of the incidents that were a part of it, and how he felt about it. He spoke briefly about a derailment close to Waller Street in Portsmouth, and of a “certain bridge around Waverly that’s in a curve” where the spikes were pulled out of the tracks. Though Denver did speak a little about the strike, it was clear that he did not divulge all he knew. He mentioned that he “saw [sic] a lot of things happen”, and he smiled or smirked noticeably as he pondered what to say and shared his accounts of the strike. Recounting the incident of the bridge tracks near Waverly missing their spikes, Denver told of a man coming back to work after the strike who knew of their destruction, and who asked the track foreman if he had checked the spikes on that bridge, which must have been missed during inspections. Denver revealed that he knows the identity of the man, but said “I won’t mention his name”. So Denver’s interview reveals some incidents and perspective of the strike of 1978, but we also learn that there is much more we don’t know about this fervent historical event as well.
Denver’s accounts of his labors and times as a long standing railroad worker, who is retired but still involved in union functions, offer a perspective that saw a lot of change over the decades. He talked about when he was first hired on in 1960 that the railroad company was still phasing out steam engines, and that the diesel engines today have grown in power significantly over time. The biggest changes have come in various automations and progressions in communications. He said that hand held radios changed a lot of things, and that engines today can be moved around in the yard unmanned with a remote device, and that computers revolutionized the railroad industry as well—in not the least of ways, with the acquisition of air conditioners in the engines. Denver mused humorously that “the air conditioning wasn’t for the employee, it was for the computers. You had to keep them computers cool, right?” One of the more important perspectives that Denver offered in his oral history was the impact of the strike in Portsmouth. He didn’t share a lot, but he did say that “as far as Portsmouth yard, we were hurt the worst after the strike because, you know, more damage was done here in Portsmouth”. Denver told of the former president of Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, referred to as Dunlap, as saying that he would “make a whistle stop out of Portsmouth, and [that] consequently he did”. Denver also revealed that Mr. Hail, a terminal superintendant, lost his job because he was “more sympathetic to the people here in Portsmouth…he didn’t put enough pressure [sic] on the people”. Though the topic of the strike was not the topic of the interview, it was what stood out the most I believe; and Denver’s thoughts about the strike and its consequences are clear when he said that “I don’t think there was ever a real winner in that strike, I really don’t”.
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