THE OTHER FOUR

IN their struggle to fend off work-rule changes, the five railroad operating unions have formed a united front, but they have nonetheless fully retained their separate identities. Of the five, the Firemen's Brotherhood is most centrally involved. The other four:

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (55,000 members). Oldest of the operating unions, organized in Detroit in 1863, it was originally named the Brotherhood of the Footboard--a footboard being the catwalk on the front end of a locomotive. Head of the engineers is Grand Chief Engineer Roy Davidson, 62, a coal miner's son who started out as a fireman on a steam locomotive at 16. Along with engineers, the union's membership includes hostlers, the men who take over the locomotives once they enter railyards and shunt them off for maintenance operations or refueling.

Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen (20,000). Named the Conductors' Brotherhood at its founding in 1868, the union added Brakemen to its handle only a decade ago. The current president is Louis J. Wagner, 66, who got started in railroading in his teens as a station agent's helper. In addition to taking tickets, conductors act as straw bosses while the train is on the road. They are supposed to see that other crewmen are on the job, and that the train moves smoothly enough to avoid discomfort to passengers or damage to freight. Brakemen used to be train-top daredevils who leaped from car to car, setting hand brakes at each stop. Automatic braking equipment has made the job a lot safer, but it has also made brakemen semi-obsolete. They now serve as lookouts at front and rear when the train is stopped, also see to it that track switches are properly set when, for example, a train moves from a main line to a siding.

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (190,000). Biggest by far of the operating unions, it was founded as the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen in 1883 by eight railroaders meeting in an Albany & Susquehanna caboose at Oneonta, N.Y. Brotherhood President Charles Luna, 56, began his rail career as a construction helper on the Santa Fe in Texas. The word "trainmen" does not apply to a particular job; it is a generic term that covers both conductors and brakemen. In general, the members of Luna's union tend to be men with less seniority than the members of the older, more exclusive Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen.

Switchmen's Union of North America (18,000). Boss of the Switchmen's Union, founded in 1906, is Neil P. Speirs, 50, a business administration major at the University of Idaho who left a white-collar job to become a switchman during the Great Depression because the pay was better. Switchmen are essentially brakemen who work in railyards rather than on the road, taking over from road crews as the trains pull into the yards. In recent decades, automatic switching controls have taken over much of the switchmen's former work, so that, like firemen and brakemen, they are afflicted with obsolescence.

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