Snoose Johnson
Jim L. Rueber
Snoose Johnson came to America from the old country to
make a better life for himself and his family and what better life
could a young fellow find than a job shoveling black diamonds into the
hungry fireboxes of Chicago Great Western locomotives between St Paul
and Oelwein. After a few years Snoose was
promoted to the right hand side of the cab and one night while trying
to wiggle a heavy southbound freight up Nerstrand Hill Snoose ran out
of sand, slipped down and stalled.
When he got back into St Paul two days later there was a
note there for him to report to the Superintendents office. Snoose went
up to the Superintendents office located above the yard office there in
St Paul and as soon as he was inside the office the Superintendent said
I have a report here that you stalled on Nerstrand the other night
because you didn't have any sand and you had to double the train into
Nerstrand which not only delayed your train but several other trains.
What in hell were you doing on Nerstrand Hill with no sand? Snoose
replies, "Slippin."
After a few more years Snoose was able to bid in one of
those passenger runs between Minneapolis and Oelwein. Shortly after
going into passenger service Snoose came out of Minneapolis quite late
one night and Snoose thought he would show everybody that he could keep
up with the other engineers in passenger service so he opened the
throttle wide every chance he got on the way to Oelwein and they came
into Oelwein almost on time.
When Snoose got back to Minneapolis he had a note to
report to the same Superintendent over at St Paul. Snoose drove over to
the Superintendents office and the Superintendent said you made an
awful fast run to Oelwein the other night. Don't you know when you run
that fast your are going to turn the engine over and hurt a lot of
passengers? Do you have anything to say about that? Snoose says "We
made it."
Don Tolstead would add: One day when Snoose was leaving
Taopi after waiting for a passenger train to pass, as he left the
siding he "widened on her" and accelerated out of the passing track
through a spring frog turnout. Don said that the noise was deafening,
but, there wasn't any damage to the turnout.
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Copyright 1998,99 Tom Tolstead
