SOO Line - Bad Lands - Premium Pay

Certainly didn't hear about that on the SOO Line, back in the 1990s. But, the CN did NOT "acquire" the SOO Line, Canadian Pacific did, as the CP was a LONG TIME majority stock holder of the SOO Line.

Now, if you are think of the Wisconsin Central, which the CN purchased, THAT would be a different story.

The CP owned interest in the Soo Line since the 1880s. Around 1990, after the 1985 purchase of the Milwaukee Road, the CP did away with the Milw and Soo, and the paychecks read CP Rail. In 1987 over 2000 miles of Soo Line became the Wisconsin Central. Overly simplistic, but that's what happened basically.

The Soo Line had some bizarre back woods labor agreements in the hinterlands. And the old MNS had 5 man crews for a while after it was absorbed into the Soo.

Interesting. First I've heard of it, but I have heard of situations where employees in one division had a different pay rate than workers in another division. Sometimes it's because that division had originally been a separate railroad, and the new owners had to continue the old contract / rules. I don't know about being paid in cash though, that's pretty doubtful in recent decades due to requirements for withholding federal and state tax, Railroad Retirement Board, etc.

By the way I assume you meant CP not CN. Canadian Pacific has been a large shareholding in the Soo since the late 19th / early 20th century.

p.s. I lived along the MN&S highline 1958-2006. Part of the purchase agreement was that MNS employees would have top seniority on MNS jobs, so it was kind of like a separate division. They could bid on Soo jobs if they wanted, but no Soo railroaders could outbid them for MNS jobs.

At least on the highline it was only four man crews.

The Canadian Pacific was forced to maintain a paycar on it's International of Maine Division (state of Maine) through 1960. The paycar was manned by Omar Lavalee, the noted CPR historian, and included a chef, for food provisioning. Cash payment was required by Maine state law. Railroads are an old industry which was guided by many laws and labor agreements that went back to the 19th century - but that's part of what makes them so interesting!

For a long time, even after Lackawanna and Erie merged in 1961, engine and train crews working the old Erie NJ & NY Branch (now the Pascack Valley Line of NJ Transit) between Jersey City (and later Hoboken) NJ and Spring Valley, NY were paid a separate check drawn on the NJ & NY RR Co. when working those runs in addition to an Erie or E-L paycheck.

Walter M. Matuch

thanks for all comments. 

And Hot Water, you are correct it was the CP at the time of my meeting up there in Canada.  I believe it was in 1988.  At that time CP was looking to purchase application software for shipping lines (as in boats).  They wanted to acquire ships to bring autos from Japan to the west coast of Canada and then transport them overland via one or both of their contiguous rail lines to the east coast.

I do recall that they said CP had to honor the contract and pay SOO line employees "hazard" for the time the train ran through the "bad Lands". 

Thanks

I have heard of hazard pay.  Do you think that was meant as a tongue in cheek remark as well as calling the route the badlands?  It seems most likely to me that there was a different pay scale for the CP guys when they ran over Soo Line rails.  And the management didn't like that idea, for a couple of logical reasons that come to mind.  Hence, they called it hazard pay over the badlands.  And the paying in cash was probably standard operating procedure back in the day, but by 1980s was not practiced anymore, but remained as part of the 'urban legend', and another way to put a derogatory slant to the story.  Just a theory. 

Well there is still today a big part of South Dakota (and into North Dakota) that's called "the badlands". I suppose it might make sense that long ago, when there were very few cities or towns (and hence few if any banks) that railroads were required to pay employees there in cash - and probably way back it was by gold or silver coin and not that silly "paper stuff".

http://www.nps.gov/badl/index.htm

Some states had unusual laws.  Arkansa at one time required a SIX member train crew.  SP got around that by paying for the 6th man to STAY HOME, so he/she would not get hurt.  That is why the SP grbbed the RI section of the Golden State line when the Rock went belly up.

About cash pay masters, see the Sprint thread on Real Trains.