Les Wright:  

Life I was hired at the old Pennsylvania Railroad Headquarters located 15 N 32 St,Phila, Pa.in 1954. My first job was in New York City (Penn Station)4th floor NY Revision Bureau working there for 2 yrs. My boss was Micky Devlin (Good Irish) In 1956 I applied for a job into the Trenton, N.J. Accounting bureau and learned data processing and Keypunching as well as freight billing to the freight customers who ordered shipments in & out of the Trenton area. The Trenton Office closed in 1963 and merged into Phila. I stayed about a year and than bid a job into NJ Riverside and Burlington Freight Agency (split shift) 4 hr in Riverside and 4 hours in Burlington NJ. It was the old system that was used as far back as 1920. I did track check of all customer sidings to verify demurrage charges of each car for collection purpose. Also did the outbound billing for all shipments that were under the Burlington Station Area. The shippers brought the B/L to the office & drill order instructions for the freight crew.(Cars in and out of freight sidings) A recap drill order was issued showing all the customers request for cars the crew had to handle that evening. In 1968 while I was in Burlington, N.J. the New York Central Merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad and became the Penn Central Railroad. I stayed in Burington NJ until 1970 and than went on special assignment teaching the Demurrage procedure called (DICCS)(used by the former New York Central) IBM cards were used to control every car that came into an area as well as leaving (loaded or empty) Each car was recorded on an IBM card via the keypunch process. After a car was released by the Customer, (Inbound emptied or Outbound Loaded with B/L) the information (card)was updated and sent to the Phila Demurrage Bureau which handled the data processing of all car releases for the entire railroad and the monthly billing of statements reflecting any charges that ...Expand for more