Grandpas Railroad Crummy

Growing up outside of Seattle, WA I fondly remember visiting my Grandfathers home workshop. It was a magic place of wonder. This was not a large space, just a tool shed at the back of his carport in Sultan, WA. But the tools hanging on every square inch of the walls and the ceiling made it seem like a museum of mystery where anything was possible and anything could be fixed. Sitting just outside his workshop sat Grampa's Crummy. 

This 1969 Suburban is similar to my grandfather's Crummy, his definitely had more rust...

Grandpas "Crummy" was a late 60's GMC Suburban in a weather-worn Orange color and had an elegant rusty patina. General Motors made these 3-door workhorses from 1967 to 1972 and they were often used by railroads as crew cars. The idea behind the 3-doors was that the passengers in the backseat could only exit on the safe (non-traffic) side of the vehicle. 

I remember seeing Grandpa one random Sunday morning wearing his denim overalls with his church clothes on underneath. He emerged from beneath the hood of the Crummy with a smile on his face and a wrench in his hand. Who knows? He might have been fixing something or simply giving it an oil change, but the Crummy was ready to go!

How Grandpa's Suburban got Nicknamed the Crummy

We always called Grandpa's Suburban the "Crummy" and I thought it was a unique nickname to his special vehicle but a few years ago I was visiting a car show and spotted a 3-door late 1960's Suburban. I told the owner about my Grandfathers Crummy and he told me that was a common name for these vehicles. He told me the railroads would use these for their road crews and since being on the road crew was the crummiest job on the railroad, that's how the nickname came to be.

Another theory is that on train lines, the caboose was often called a "crummy" because of the sparse accommodations for the crew. Grandpas Crummy might have gotten its nickname for the same reason. His Suburban was no luxury SUV like our modern Suburbans. It was nothing more than a work pickup truck with a roof over the bed and an extra row of seats. Monday through Saturday it could fit all of his tools, and on Sunday it would fit all of his grandkids, whichever was needed.

Whether it was the spartan similarity to a caboose or the job description of the road-crew occupants, General Motors' sales of vehicles to the railroads is well documented and the "Crummy" is another example of one of the vehicles that kept the railroads running.