Andrew’s comment about “Lacy’s Raiders” brought back a chill to my system! I recall my first participation in such an event as a very young
Asst. Trainmaster working out of City of Industry under Mike Mohan who was Trainmaster at the time. Lacy came to town one week and was spending day and night with field efficiency teams on the LA Division. When it was City of Industry’s turn, we all headed down to Bartolo, the junction of the SP Puente Branch and the Union Pacific mainline, over which the Anaheim, Buena Park and Los Nietos Haulers traversed between City of Industry and the sprawling area of Orange County. As the Buena Park Hauler came to a stop at Bartolo we were positioned at the caboose to immediately begin our inspection of the rear end crew and their compliance with the rules. As soon as the train stopped Lacy jumped out of the bushes as the conductor appeared on the rear platform of the caboose. “Hello there Mr. Smith (name changed to protect the innocent)!” “Can you tell me where you are right now?”, Lacy asked. “Well sure, I’m standing right here on the rear of the caboose!”, replied the conductor. All hell broke loose after that and the rear end crew was so flustered I don’t think they answered anything correctly. It was at that time that all of us working at City of Industry decided we would purposefully miss the first question Lacy would ask us, just to get the whole ordeal over with so we could move on with our lives. Fun times!