Who's crew:

Typically, there were four crew members on each freight train in the late 1970s.

• Conductor: boss of the train, timekeeper, supervisor of car switching work and freight paperwork
• Engineer: driver of the train, direct supervisor of the headend trainman while the train is rolling
• Tailend trainman: usually the more senior trainman who would probably soon work as a conductor
• Headend trainman: the baby of the crew (e.g. me) who was up front for "experience"
  

The engineer sits behind the controls at the right of the cab. The headend trainman sits on the left side of the cab.
So hello, headend trainman!  ... sometimes they wave back.

Here are some of the duties of the headend trainman:

• Sweep out the cab when you get on board and announce the train brake test to the tailend crew by radio.
• Review the running orders so you know where the train is to slow down for safety reasons.
• Operate the radio so the engineman can concentrate on his train handling. He can still hear everything on the speaker.
• Call out the coloured signals by name, particularly those indicating that the train must slow down or stop.
• Pop out the cab door in front of your seat and run ahead to quickly throw switches without forcing the train to stop.
• Using a portable radio, "talk" the engineer through switching moves as you, the trainman, couple and uncouple cars.
• Write out verbal orders from the dispatcher regarding your train over the trackside telephones.
• Sweep snow out of track switches so the dispatcher (hundreds of miles away) can move them.
• Go back to dead locomotives and start them up when the engineer needs them.
  
• When the emergency brakes go on (and you know the conductor didn't do it) run down the train in the snow in the dark in the middle of nowhere, and find and fix the problem.
  

They assumed you had the prerequisite qualification for sweeping. In 1977 they showed you some of this stuff during a two week course which included an operating rules exam and two or three student trips.

• Have your nineteenth birthday and fill out application forms.
• Get a telephone call, find Schreiber on a map and travel there in four days in time for training.
• Do the course and some student trips on both the East End (118.3 miles) and West End (132.9 miles). 
• Perform all the duties above using real, mile-long, 7000-10,000 ton freight trains.

This van is at White River in 1987, coupled to a westbound train. The crew will spend their work day SAFELY getting the train 118.3 miles to Schreiber. In this photo, someone is working on the electrical generator which supplied power for the lights and other appliances. Here is what the tailend trainman and conductor will be doing:

• The conductor is responsible for the train: speed, special slow zones, picking up cars en route, paperwork, etc.
• TRAIN = millions of dollars of equipment and freight (including hazardous freight) and human lives.
  
• The conductor and tailend trainman ride up in the cupola (CUE pole a) looking for anything that doesn't look or smell right on their train or other trains they meet. 
• They also communicate regularly with the headend just to be sure everything is going OK - the engine is often about a mile ahead of the van. It pays to stay in touch.
• Traditionally, most conductors working along Lake Superior sat on the south side of the cupola to watch their trains as they ran around the many large bays. A conductor once told me the real reason was that the scenery was better on the south side.
  
• If the emergency brakes go on, like the headend trainman, the conductor and tailend trainman also get to run down the train to find and fix the problem.

In southern Alberta in 1978 we have just "met" a westbound freight. The tailend crewman is not out getting a suntan. He is smelling, looking and listening for anything that might be wrong with our train. If all is well, he will wave. If not, he'll be calling us on the radio. He's holding on because a "slack runout" could throw him off the back of the train when he least expects it.

Vans disappeared in 1990. Today, a small telemetry box talks to a computer in the locomotive, allowing the headend crew to monitor their train's tailend. Automated trackside scanners inspect passing trains. Today the engineer and conductor ride together in the cab and the trainmen are gone.