I worked at PS in 1974. In the spring of '74, we made several grain hoppers...all painted PINK. We thought it fitting for Easter. But, also thought it strange for a RR car. They got moved to the tracks...and never seen again. Ten years later, when living in Texas, on Easter Suday, going to my moms, there on the tracks, was the pink grain hoppers. I pulled over...and saw the PS, Butler, PA...04-74. OUR CARS! Those cars made it 1200 mi., in 10 years...and still looked liked new! God only knows where they had been. Pullman Standard made the best rail road cars in the world. We can be proud of that. To bad we still can't still do it...
Almost every guy in my family worked there at one point. My Grand Dad and great uncles all retired from the "mill" I fondly recall helping packing Grand Dad's his "dinner bucket" I loved it when we got to pick him up. I wish I had his locker tag. I can still see it on his big ring. I do have a milky white coffee mug. It closed shortly before I left Butler.
My dad worked at Pullman throughout the 50s to close to shutdown. Many of my uncles and both grandfathers too. I've got some memorabilia from them.
I too have seen cars made in Pullman at various locations around the US. Sadly, I wasn't able to or didn't think of taking the photos. I don't remember the pink ones, they would have been fun to see.
My dad started working there in 1952 and retired with 30 years in 1982 when it closed. He was in the paint shop. He used to bring me these huge pieces of chalk for me to play with. I think he still has the white coffee cup mentioned in another post. I also remember his gray metal lunch box, with paint on it, that he carried.
I worked at Pullman Standard the summer of 1974 before beginning my first year of college. I started out sweeping floors in the punch department, and shoveling up the round pieces of steel that landed beneath the huge punch machines. I didn't own a car, so my mom would drop me off on her way to work as a secretary at the Butler High School print shop, and then pick me up every day after work. She cried the first day she picked me up because my face was so black from sweeping the floors I looked like a coal miner. By the end of summer I was hooking loads of plate steel and angle iron onto a pair of chains dangling from overhead cranes used to move materials from one station to the next. The cranes ran on trolleys that spanned the entire length and width of the building. We "hook-ons" used hand signals to tell the crane operator when to start lifting or lowering loads. Sometimes the steel was so hot it would catch the 4x4 pallets on fire and we'd have to replace them with greener lumber. It was a dangerous job; I remember the day a load of plate steel slipped off the chains and almost sliced the guy working beneath it in half. Fortunately, it wasn't my load. I remember another day I was helping a couple of guys who were being paid by the piece to punch angle iron. I was a summer guy, so I wasn't in the union, but the union safety boss called me over and said I needed to learn how to work. "Slow down or you'll work us out of a job," he said. By the time I finished college in 1981, the plant was closed. I would love to have a photo of the inside of the plant if anyone out there has one.
8 comments:
My Pappy might have done that one. He worked there right up to the big layoff.
I worked at PS in 1974. In the spring of '74, we made several grain hoppers...all painted PINK.
We thought it fitting for Easter. But, also thought it strange for a RR car.
They got moved to the tracks...and never seen again.
Ten years later, when living in Texas, on Easter Suday, going to my moms, there on the tracks, was the pink grain hoppers.
I pulled over...and saw the PS, Butler, PA...04-74. OUR CARS! Those cars made it 1200 mi., in 10 years...and still looked liked new!
God only knows where they had been.
Pullman Standard made the best rail road cars in the world.
We can be proud of that.
To bad we still can't still do it...
My Dad was a Government Ordinace Inspector. He was assigned to the PS When they were producing shells during the war years
My dad worked there in the 40's and 50's.
Almost every guy in my family worked there at one point. My Grand Dad and great uncles all retired from the "mill" I fondly recall helping packing Grand Dad's his "dinner bucket" I loved it when we got to pick him up. I wish I had his locker tag. I can still see it on his big ring. I do have a milky white coffee mug. It closed shortly before I left Butler.
My dad worked at Pullman throughout the 50s to close to shutdown. Many of my uncles and both grandfathers too. I've got some memorabilia from them.
I too have seen cars made in Pullman at various locations around the US. Sadly, I wasn't able to or didn't think of taking the photos. I don't remember the pink ones, they would have been fun to see.
My dad started working there in 1952 and retired with 30 years in 1982 when it closed. He was in the paint shop. He used to bring me these huge pieces of chalk for me to play with. I think he still has the white coffee cup mentioned in another post. I also remember his gray metal lunch box, with paint on it, that he carried.
I worked at Pullman Standard the summer of 1974 before beginning my first year of college. I started out sweeping floors in the punch department, and shoveling up the round pieces of steel that landed beneath the huge punch machines. I didn't own a car, so my mom would drop me off on her way to work as a secretary at the Butler High School print shop, and then pick me up every day after work. She cried the first day she picked me up because my face was so black from sweeping the floors I looked like a coal miner. By the end of summer I was hooking loads of plate steel and angle iron onto a pair of chains dangling from overhead cranes used to move materials from one station to the next. The cranes ran on trolleys that spanned the entire length and width of the building. We "hook-ons" used hand signals to tell the crane operator when to start lifting or lowering loads. Sometimes the steel was so hot it would catch the 4x4 pallets on fire and we'd have to replace them with greener lumber. It was a dangerous job; I remember the day a load of plate steel slipped off the chains and almost sliced the guy working beneath it in half. Fortunately, it wasn't my load. I remember another day I was helping a couple of guys who were being paid by the piece to punch angle iron. I was a summer guy, so I wasn't in the union, but the union safety boss called me over and said I needed to learn how to work. "Slow down or you'll work us out of a job," he said. By the time I finished college in 1981, the plant was closed. I would love to have a photo of the inside of the plant if anyone out there has one.
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