Around The Railroad

Conductor Returns Wallet to Traveler

January 23, 2009 | 08:57 a.m. CST

It's a terrible feeling. You reach into your pocket or purse and your wallet is gone. Dread starts to sink in as you calculate the chances that it's still in the same spot you left it. Will the person who finds it do the right thing?

"Vernon" was on his way to Albuquerque in December when he found himself in that position. He left his wallet containing $1,000 in cash at a Penny's Diner in the middle of New Mexico. It was just the latest in a cycle of bad luck for Vernon and his family – he and his wife were on their way to her first round of cancer treatment when it happened. The wallet held all the money they had left in the world.

As fate would have it, Conductor John Arias was making a pit stop at Penny's, which also serves as an away-from-home terminal. He spotted Vernon's wallet sitting on a countertop, and where others may have hesitated, he immediately got to work returning the wallet to its owner.

"I just couldn't imagine anyone pocketing that kind of money, especially around the holidays," Arias said.

After realizing how much cash was in the wallet, he didn't feel comfortable simply leaving it with the clerk. After rifling through its contents, he came across a card with a list of phone numbers and started dialing.

"I finally got a hold of a fellow who told me the family's story and how important that money was to him," he said. "That guy was able to get a hold of Vernon and he turned around immediately."

With his shift starting, Arias sealed the wallet up tight in an envelope, wrote Vernon's name across the front and left it at the front desk of the Oak Tree Inn. He called later to confirm it had been picked it up.

Frank Cisneros, director-road operations, El Paso Service Unit, was amazed when he heard the story from another employee.

"Here you have a guy who was having just an awful year. His wife is sick, he's having to sacrifice work to take care of her, and he leaves all the money they have sitting on a countertop at a diner in the middle of nowhere," he said. "Then a guy like John enters the picture."

In that moment, bad luck didn't have a chance.