My father
worked 43 years for the Union Pacific Railroad, first as a fireman when he
started in 1927 long before I was born, then as a locomotive engineer as the
years passed before his retirement in 1971 when I was a young married woman
with two small boys. Those early days my
dad spent working for the U.P.R.R. were characterized by stoking the fires on steam
locomotives for his regular run from my
Wyoming home—Rawlins to Green River—before his promotion to engineer about the
time I was born in the mid 1940’s.
A
few months ago, one of my nephews, just eight years younger than myself,
decided to write a series of essays for his children and grandchildren highlighting
lessons from the everyday in the lives of his family. He has shared some of those essays with
me. His writing is thoughtful, clear,
and spot on with the corollaries to life they express. I include here an excerpt of one essay he
wrote about my father’s work for the Union Pacific Railroad in his position as
train engineer.
“Once my grandfather as engineer climbed into that
locomotive cab along with the fireman, they faced a "Wyoming
Sandwich": sub-zero winds whipping at their backs while the firebox heat
scorched their fronts. To move a thousand tons of steel over the Continental
Divide required an intimate understanding of their machine. In a steam engine,
the throttle only lets the steam out of the boiler. The real mastery lies in
the Johnson Bar, the lever that controls how much steam enters the power
cylinders.
“A novice engineer keeps the valves open for the entire
stroke, using every ounce of pressure to force the piston forward. The
old-timers called this "tearing the fire," because it created such a
vacuum in the smokestack that it pulled the burning coal right off the grates
and sent it shooting into the night sky. Heat was lost because they were trying
too hard for speed.
“But a master like my grandfather knew the "Art of
the Cutoff." He would start the piston with a small, calculated
"sip" of steam, perhaps just the first twenty percent of the stroke,
and then he would "hook her up." He closed the valve which allowed
the expansive power of the steam already inside to do the rest of the work. The
two railroad men in the cab would then let the heat provide the momentum that
their own muscles never could.
“I’ve come to see this as a perfect window into the
Atonement. We often try to power through every trial with 100% of our own
willpower, convinced that if we
just push harder, we will find the speed we need. We
exhaust ourselves, and in our frantic intensity, we burn out like those coal
fragments shooting into the night sky.
“The Savior is the expansive power of the Cutoff. Life
works better when we offer our honest effort—our "twenty percent"—and
then allow the Atonement of Jesus Christ to provide the infinite, expansive
force that carries us the rest of the way. He does not wait for us to reach the
destination before He helps; He enters the cylinder of our lives the moment we
open the valve to Him. His Grace is the momentum that our own strength can
never produce.” (Paul Eyre—Tyler, Texas)
Though
I often heard tales of the hard work that had to be performed in those steam
locomotive engines (related to us after my father had returned home black with
soot, full of cinders, and bone tired from the relentless cold and sheer
physical effort to man that powerful machine) at that time I never recognized the lessons those
experiences held for those with discerning minds.
Although
I now can see a broader application of the “Johnson Bar” as I determine just
how much of the Savior’s power I will allow for Him to carry me the rest of the
way as I journey through life in need of His atoning grace to forgive, to comfort,
and to enable me. I have learned I cannot do all that on
my own. However, I am sometimes as imprudent as a
novice engineer trying too hard for speed.
But when I acknowledge I cannot “do it all on my own”, I
receive a momentum to move forward with far more than my singular strength can
produce.
Think
of situations in your own life when you felt that you couldn’t “do it” on your
own. Willpower just wasn’t enough to get
through whatever trial you were experiencing.
Were you humble enough to acknowledge you needed the Savior’s help to
carry your burden so you could move ahead?
We’ve all been there, certain we could persevere without help if we just
tried harder.
In
April 2026 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Dale G. Renlund taught this truth
about the Atonement: “Because
of Jesus Christ, all that is unfair in life can and will be made right. He
will consecrate our afflictions for our gain. He will sanctify to us our
deepest distress. He will fill with sweet a bitter cup. He will
dependably and consistently make us whole. If we let Him, we will “suffer
no manner of afflictions, save it [is] swallowed up in the joy of Christ.”
So,
I invite you—and me, too—to do things differently. Ask for help, the Savior’s atoning rescue, in
the very beginning of your ordeal and let His loving power cover your path
forward. His grace is sufficient. It will save soooo much heartache and pain if
we trust His expansive power of the “Cutoff” right at mile marker one.
