04/25/2026
Was there a railroader in your family? Last week in response to a post, we had a couple of people ask if we had any record of relatives who worked for the Cotton Belt. In our archives we have some personnel and payroll records, but they are far from complete… one great source are Seniority lists... All the unionized employees had a “seniority date” and the man with the longest service with the company could bid on better positions. Every trade had its own list. The lists for shop workers are rare, but for train crew, the lists were printed annually in time books, where employees kept nots of hours worked, and in the case of engineers, which engine they were running (the heavier the engine the higher the pay).
Fred Burban asked if we had anything on “WB "Pappy" Robbins (my Step mother's Father) was an engineer on the 819 and Diesel Electric after that till they "Bad Ordered" him in the mid 50's. He always laughed that he out lived the Sawbones that Bad Ordered him.”
Here is a 1957 time book that shows that he was No 61 on the engineer’s seniority list, with a seniority date (the day he became an engineer) of June 25, 1941.
