I grew un very near a roundhouse where
the steam locomotives were kept. My dad worked on the railroad
thirty some years before I started. We always went on vacation
on the trains. It was an eerie thing for a tad to visualize in
the middle of the night in strange cities. The smells of the coal
burners and the oil burners were so radical. Hissing and wheezing,
and then the clickety click of the rail joints as you ride.
. Gandy Dancing is the art of one or
more people working the levers on a lever-operated rail conveyance.
Normally, two people facing each standing, as one pumps down the
opposing end of the lever raises high, then the other pumps down
and the first end raises high. The two men thus power the open
car, usually no more than 8-10 feet long, along a railroad track.
The cart can be worked by one, although it is difficult, or by
four men working in pairs. The pumping up and down in opposing
planes is known as "Gandy Dancing".
Gandy
Dancer Links
The tools the trackmen used were various,
but they were almost all made by the Fred Gandy company. The spike
mauls are funny looking sledge hammers. Very hard to hit what
yer amiong at until you've had a lot of practice. The one who
are good at it bend down low and sort of twirl it over their bacjs
and it actually brushes their back as it passes over.They had
lining bars, adzes, picks, mattaxes, tie tongs, rail tongs, etc.
Railwayman's Toast
"Heres to the conductor, the master of
his train.
With his head stuck in a telephone booth, and his ass out in the
rain."
Santa Fe Bo
This is a story about a dog who made the railroad
his lifes work.
In Shawnee Oklahoma, there was a headstone
by the railroad tracks near the old depot. It marked the grave
of Santa Fe Bo.We noticed one day, that the stone was gone. We
learned it was at the Railroad museum and we learned the rest
of the story.
When he was a young dog, Bo worked for
the railroad leading livestock up the ramps into the stock cars
and into the pens. The livestock had to be unloaded during their
trip for feed, water, and rest. One day , as a train was leaving,
Bo saw a pigs ear sticking out from between two sideboards of
a car in the train. He leaped up and grabbed the pigs ear and
held on. Soon the pigs ear ripped and Bo fell, with one leg over
the rail. He lost a leg. After that, he sort of retired, laying
around the depot all the time.
One night, a burlar broke in and Bo attacked
him. The burglar shot him, and he died a few days later from his
wounds.
The guys took up a collection and got
a brass casket and a headstone for him and had a funeral. There
were over two hindred people showed up to pay their respects.
For reasons known only to Bo, he hated
pigs.
When I was a lad a friend of mine was talking
with his father and me and his father came up from Old Mexico to
build track. Back then the forewman had to be big and tough or carry
a gun or both. He had to make them do a "days work". He told me
that one day the foreman was standing against a fence and one of
the guys ran him through with a lining bar. Its a steel bar about
six feet and about an inch and a hlaf thick. He ran him through
and he died right there.
Ballad of Casey Jones
Casey Jones was an old engineer.
Call for his family tonight, they will fear.
All I need is my water and coal,
Look out the windows, see my drag wheel roll.
One Sunday morning in a driving rain,
Around trhe curve came a passenger train.
In the cabin stood Casey Jones,
Bold engineer but he's dead and gone.
