The Railroader retired from the Norfolk & Western Railway as a locomotive engineer on January 14, 1980. His career of 40 years began on the Pennsylvania Railroad hauling troop trains during World War II. He later transferred to his beloved N & W.

At the age of 65, L.W. Buckland, Jr. “Buddy” was forced into retirement, To continue working would reduce his retirement income and he couldn’t afford that. He said to me, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the day you retire is a happy day.” I have never forgotten that.

Both of my grandfathers, a great uncle, my father and his brothers, my brother, several cousins and I, all worked for the railroad; and I married a locomotive engineer.

My paternal grandfather, Larkin Watson Buckland, Sr. and his brother, George Robert Buckland, Sr. My maternal grandfather, Asa C. Davis. My father, Larkin Watson Buckland, Jr. and his brothers, Robert Cecil Buckland,Sr., Charles Nye Buckland and Walter Edward Buckland. My brother, Larry Charles Buckland and several cousins including, Robert Cecil Buckland, Jr. and Charles Allen Buckland.

When Dad was on the N & W extra board, it was hard for everyone in the family. Same was true for his brother’s families. It was our way of life. Whether he was going or coming, it seemed to be in the middle of the night. Mom would always get up, cook a full meal and if it was for an outbound run, she would also prepare his lunch, sufficient for a lengthy trip since there was no place for stop for meals until the run reached the destination. Our family, like most in Falls Mills, VA only owned one family vehicle, so Mom would wake me up (the only child still living at home), and we’d head for the call office for Dad to report for work. When Dad was coming home from a run, then Mom and I (occasionally 3 of us when Larry was around) would load up the car and head to Bluefield, WV yard office to wait until the Railroader was relieved of duty. The cool nights, the lights, the sounds of steam engines letting off excessive pressure and cars being switched within the yard to build a train for a new destination, were all fascinating to me. It was a big city vibe to a small town country girl.

In the early 1980’s, when the US prime interest rate soared to 17%, I walked away from a stalled career in residential real estate sales and went to work for the Seaboard Coastline Railroad. SCL later became part of the Family Lines System through a series of mergers and acquisitions and then consolidated into CSX Transportation. That Seaboard line had been formed in 1967 from the merger of the Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line railroads. I worked many stations across South Georgia and North Florida while employeed as a clerk operator, usually without enough seniority to hold a regular position. But because of the environment in which I grew up, I adjusted quickly to the “extra board” and that culture of irregularity. Receiving a 2-hour call to go work at any hour of the day or night seemed “normal” to The Railroader’s Daughter. Sometimes that advance call included “dead head” travel time which was good pay, much better than selling houses. I took to the road trips eagerly in my little gas saving Toyota Starlet since I was single and had no personal obligations. Then, as fate would have it, I met my husband, a locomotive engineer on CSX while working in Florida. The family business had come full circle.

Read more about the J 611 here