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The year 1967 was another year of progress for the BLE, well studded with advances for its engineermembers. Significant pay improvements, for example were won covering unitized coal trains and fiveday work week rate of pay on the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern.
In a new concept for highspeed trains, the Canadian National, at the urging of the BLE, saw the wisdom of putting a second engineer on its TurboTrain running between Toronto and Montreal.
Regular strike benefits for members on the strikebound Florida East Coast being exhausted, members in both the United States and Canada, both active and retired, responded with donations to help their unemployed brothers.
Several groups of apprentice engineers graduated on the Louisville & Nashville, thus being qualified to run as engineers under the BLE apprentice engineer training program. During the year two more roads signed up for the program: Georgia Railroad, and the Great Northern.
At midyear 1967 the BLE obtained a six per cent increase in basic wage rates retroactive to August 12, 1966. This increase affected nearly 40,000 locomotive engineers on U.S. roads.
The regular operation of steam locomotives came to a close in the 1960s, and the sight of Erie trains like the one above became but memories. It is on a 110' turntable at a station in Salamanca, N.Y.
With the coming of 1968 a familiar story continued: repeated attacks from the firemen's organization. However, the BLE won another round in a series of legal battles with the BLF&E over the apprentice engineer training program when a U.S. District Court judge threw out a motion by the BLF&E asking dismissal of the BLE's suit against the National Mediation Board and six carriers seeking to compel the NMB to decide which craft should have jurisdiction over apprentice engineers. During the year also the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down an attempt by the BLF&E to scuttle the BLE apprentice engineer training program agreement with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad.
Early in the year BLE members acted overwhelmingly in a referendum to change the BLE law regarding conventions of the Grand International Division. Members voted to change the convention interval from four years to five, and the convention time to be limited to 14 consecutive calendar days.
The BLE scored a significant victory in 1968 in the long-standing dispute with the Florida East Coast Railway by winning a settlement of $150,407, resolving claims progressed by the BLE arising over the carrier's removal of a number of engineers for alleged medical reasons.
Another big gain was made when the BLE obtained an agreement with the Georgia Railroad providing that when apprentice engineers complete their training and are promoted to engineers they will be given their choice of either yard or road assignments.
The Locomotive Engineers Mutual Life & Accident Insurance Association received a rating of 100 per cent after the regular periodic examination of its operations by the Ohio Insurance Commission.
Among other significant events for the busy BLE 1968 year: The Brotherhood negotiated a training program for locomotive engineers on the Canadian National, the first such agreement to be put into effect in Canada. Locomotive engineers of the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway voted to return bargaining rights to the BLE after having spent two years under the jurisdiction of the BLF&E.
The winning of a significant new wage agreement for locomotive engineers was a fitting climax to the career of the grand chief. Retirement age came to Perry S. Heath in 1969, and he chose to wind up his days in active service to railroad labor at the end of the first three months of the new year.
C. J. COUGHLIN BECOMES GRAND CHIEF ENGINEER
Charles J. Coughlin moved up to the top post on April 1, 1969, and B. N. Whitmire, formerly an assistant grand chief engineer in the BLE's Chicago office, was voted by the Advisory Board to succeed him as first assistant grand chief engineer.
As the year unfolded, the Brotherhood, under Coughlin's leadership, forged ahead with a renewed demand for a change in the antiquated Hours of Service Act of 1907 from a maximum of 16 hours to 12 hours on duty for rail operating employees.
Also the 1916 Adamson Act establishing the eighthour day came under fire. Coughlin came out strongly for an amended act to bring about a sixhour basic day with no reduction in pay.
In addition to a new wage movement, stress was also laid on the urgent need for greater safety on the rails. A rash of milliondollar derailments and entire towns being jeopardized by poisonous chemicals emphasized the foolhardiness of deferred roadbed maintenance practiced by many carriers during the past few years. The alarm bell sounded loudly by the BLE was repeated by thousands of others across the land and there were ominous overtones of a possible national scandal in the making. Said Grand Chief Coughlin: "As far as I am concerned, it borders on the criminal to ignore potentially dangerous track and roadbed conditions for the sake of economy."
In 1969, the BLE Executive Committee was composed of C.J. Coughlin, grand chief engineer (seated); B.N. Whitmire, first assistant grand chief engineer (left); and J.F. Sytsma, general secretary-treasurer.
In speaking of the present and the future, Coughlin issued the following statement shortly after he assumed the office of Grand Chief Engineer:
"When I assumed the post of Grand Chief Engineer on April 1, following the retirement of Perry S. Heath, I became custodian of a long and proud tradition of independence, honesty, fair play, and dedication which has been the hallmark of this Organization since its beginnings 106 years ago.
"At this time, it is particularly appropriate that I stress the wisdom of remaining independent of other organizations. The value of this policy has been demonstrated time and again notably in the last three wage movements. We have proved that we have more than enough economic strength to achieve our goals without being absorbed by other organizations. We continue to serve our members best by concentrating our efforts solely for the wellbeing of engine service employees"
During the administration of Grand Chief Coughlin the BLE was able to bring in many new members as the result of representation elections. Among the roads with new BLE firemen's contracts were the Jersey Central, Long Island, Houston Belt and Grand Trunk Western.
OFFICERS ELECTED TO FIVE YEAR TERMS
At the First Quinquennial Convention in 1971, C. J. Coughlin, B. N. Whitmire and John F. Sytsma were reelected to fiveyear terms by convention delegates who voted to change the titles of the Grand Chief Engineer to President, the First Assistant Grand Chief Engineer to First Vice-President and Assistant Grand Chief Engineers to Vice-Presidents. President Coughlin retired on June 30, 1974, moving B. N. Whitmire to the top post of the Brotherhood and General SecretaryTreasurer John F. Sytsma into the office of First Vice-President.
Under the leadership of B. N. Whitmire, an agreement negotiated by the BLE with the National Railway Labor Conference, was signed on March 6, 1975 and provided a 40.5 percent increase in wages and benefits over a threeyear period. The pact also contained a cost of living provision, continuation of health and welfare benefits with the addition of a basic dental care program and a 10th paid holiday.
BLE ADDS TO ITS MEMBERSHIP
By the end of 1975 more carriers were added to the list of those whose engineers and/or firemenhelpers voted to be represented by the BLE: Lehigh Valley firemen and hostlers; Quebec, North Shore & Labrador engineers; Atlanta & West Point firemen, hostlers and hostlerhelpers; Chicago & Eastern Illinoisfiremen and hostlers; Atlanta Joint Terminal firemen; and Ogden Union Railway & Depot firemen and hostlers.
The years 1975 and 1976 saw marathon sessions as BLE general chairman met to hammer out agreements in time for the initiation of the new Conrail system of bankrupt northeastern railroads A new era of railroad operation had arrived, an era of quasi-government operation of a number of major carriers which formed the largest rail system yet. It cast a shadow over the future of privately-operated rail lines in the rest of North America.
B. N. Whitmire complete two years as President of the BLE and retired at the end of June, 1976.
NEW LEADERSHIP HEAD BLE TOWARD THE 1980s
John F. Systma succeeded Whitmire as President and the Advisory Board elected L.S. Loomis as First Vice President. Both of these men were elected by the assembled convention delegates at the Second Quinquennial Convention at Cleveland later that year. Upon his election to the office of International President, John F. Sytsma became the first and only member to be elected to all three offices of the Executive Committee.
President Sytsma's first term in office saw the beginning of the merger mania that swept the railroad industry in the last quarter of the 20th century. These railroad mergers brought about the consolidation of many general committees. In 1977, 13 separate general committees merged into one enormous general committee representing engineers on Conrail.
In his first term as International President, Brother Sytsma led the efforts of the BLE in its fight against the coal slurry pipeline interests and the National Right To Work Committee. In addition, he continued the ongoing battle with the trucking industry which was seeking to increase the size and weight limits of the trucks competing for the nation's freight business.
Safety to the engineer became one of President Sytsma's strongest endeavors. He pushed hard for legislation that would make vandalism on the rails a federal crime. He also stressed the need for a safer locomotive cab design with federal standards on glazing on cab windows which the FRA approved in 1980. President Sytsma and Vice President McCulloch convinced FRA that locomotive inspections were a matter of safety and that the elimination of them would produce costlier accidents resulting in destruction of equipment, damage to public and private property, and in the worst cases, injury and death to locomotive engineers.
Larry M. Richardson, legislative representative of BLE Division 100 in Danville, Ill., gives an Operation Lifesaver presentation to a group of 47 senior citizens in Covington, Ind., in 1984. The BLE endorsed OL's expansion to the national level in the 1980s.
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