NS Recognizes Retirement of Last "Barney Yard" Car Rider

Norfolk brakeman Wallace Askew remembers a time when African-American railroaders had to struggle for equal treatment. He joined NS predecessor Norfolk and Western Railway in 1969 when blacks working at Lamberts Point Coal Terminal could only work as car riders at the pier's barney yard.

The barney yard, or hump yard, is where loaded coal cars are staged and then released down an incline by gravity. At the bottom of the incline, the open-top hoppers pass over scales and move to the dumper.

It was the job of car riders to release the brake and allow cars to roll down the slope. Before Pier 6 and its safer free rolling system was built, barney yard car riders had to mount the moving coal car and control its speed with the manual brake so the car could pass slowly across the scales.

The car rider would then dismount the moving car before a narrow-gauge electric locomotive brought it to the ship to be dumped. "It was quite an experience if you were interested in railroad work," said Askew.

When he joined the railway, the car riders were in the middle of a class action lawsuit -- the Robert Rock Case -- against the NW and the United Transportation Union. Before the court's decision, there were separate unions, one explicitly for the African-American barney yard car riders, and the other for trainmen at the facility's other transportation yards.

"Before the decision in 1973, African-Americans were confined to working in the barney yard," said Askew. "There was still some bitterness among my new coworkers after the unions merged, but the decision made it 100 percent better for us."

Askew, who retired Jan. 30, was the last employee working in the Norfolk Terminal who was hired as a barney yard car rider. Hard work and toil for equality paved the way for African-American railroaders to work in many more capacities.