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Arthur Cates's Work on the B & O Railroad
Kimberly Johnson Arthur Gates worked for twenty-eight years in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B & O) yard in East St. Louis. We often hear of railroad building and labor unions. But what was the life of a railroad worker like? Gates was born on February 16, 1913. His real name is Roshier Arthur Gates, but he prefers Arthur. He was born near a small town called Doniphan in Missouri, the oldest son of nine children. He attended school until the fourth grade when his father made him quit so that he could work on the farm. When he was seventeen he went to Charleston, Missouri, where he picked cotton; in the spring he baled and loaded watermelon onto cattle cars. In 1936 he left Charleston to go live with his uncle, Jessie Adams, in North St. Louis. He got a job at LaCledes Steel in Madison, Illinois. He had to walk almost nine miles and cross the McKinley Bridge to get to work. He later took a job in a diner. In 1939 he married Opal Fry. They moved into an apartment building where Arthur Gates met two freighthouse workers who worked in the Cone yard in East St. Louis. They told him that there was a job opening. He applied and got the job and rose from freighthouse worker (thirty-eight cents per day) to switchman ($7.32 per day). In 1943 Gates became the yard foreman of the Cone yard. Later that year, he went on strike with his union, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. They needed a pay increase and wanted some changes in their work rules. After only a few days, the government forced them back to work even though none of the trainmen's demands had been met. The government threatened to turn them in to the draft board if they did not comply.
Three years later the workers struck again. Again they wanted a pay increase, and again the government took over. But this time, it was different. President Truman personally intervened. He addressed the trainmen from the end of a caboose at the Relay Depot, which was a passenger depot near the Cone yard. He told them that going back to work was the right thing to do. So they did, with only a three-and-a-half-cent pay increase. Gates did a lot of things while he worked on the railroad, but he usually was a switchman. When trains came into his yard, he would couple and uncouple the train cars. At one point during his career, he was offered the job of yardmaster, but he turned it down. He said, "Well, I felt I didn't have enough education to be yardmaster, but in the end they gave the job to a man with even less education than I had." During the 1950s the trucking industry became a major competitor with the railroad industry. Gradually the railroads began buying trucking companies and started using them for their own benefit; instead of having to hire trucks to come and haul their shipments, the railroads used their own trucks. They also used the trucks to haul short distances. Arthur Gates got involved. Part of his job was to load and unload the trucks. He backed the trains and the trucks up to the freighthouse doors. Eventually freighthouses became obsolete because they began hauling the trailers on flat cars, a process called "piggy-backing." In 1957 Arthur Gates worked on number 2818, the last steam engine to work a regular assigned job in the East St. Louis division. The very next day he began working on the new diesel trains. On October 1, 1968, the B & O consolidated with the Chesapeake and Ohio. The trainmen followed the Chesapeake's rules, but were paid by the B & O. It was a very confusing time for the workers. Finally on April 25, 1971, Arthur Gates worked his last shift on the B & O. While he was trying to uncouple a train, he hurt his back and had to have surgery. He was unable to do his job any longer, and he was forced to quit. Arthur Gates experienced many hard times and had many good ones on the B & O. He worked a large portion of his life on it. The only landmark that survives as a reminder of his experiences on the Baltimore and Ohio is an old tower on First and St. Clair in East St. Louis.—[From Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Rules and Regulations Handbook; student historian's interview with Arthur Gates, September 1, 1994.]
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