Mike has offered up another excellent railroading memory. As the son of a railroader, he was privileged to have these insights, and we are privileged that he has shared them. Thanks again Mike. For more of Mike's recollections, check the listings toward the bottom of the main page.
The Railroader’s Track Gang
By Mike Wilson
Forget John Henry! He was a myth. Forget the steam hammer he battled in the old folk tale. They were both figments of fertile imaginations. I know. I saw real track men at work as a child, and John Henry and the steam hammer had nothing on them.
Lean and lanky from years of swinging pick and maul, they worked from can ‘til can’t, and made it look easy in the process. As a child, I grew up next to the Texas and Pacific Railroad in the small community of LaMourie, in south Rapides Parish. I would watch the track gangs work in both heat and cold, in sunshine and storms, and through it all, not a machine was used to help them. It was all muscle, timing, and some laughter.
All the glory and glamour may have been lavished on the crews that herded freight and passengers to far away destinations, but they traveled on the rails and ballast maintained by the track gangs. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, each railroad divided its trackage into sections. A section was usually about 10 miles in length, depending on the number of switches, sidings, and other factors. A section gang was responsible for the day to day maintenance of their section. A gang consisted of a foreman, a straw boss (usually the senior member of the gang), and about 8 laborers. In the South of the 1950’s, all the laborers and the straw boss were black. The foreman, straw boss, and a couple of the senior laborers lived in railroad provided housing on their section, so they could respond to emergencies quickly.
The foreman had some autonomy over his section, but also worked under the direction of the Maintenance of Way district supervisor for larger operations. Every day, his gang would trundle their Fairmont motor car and its trailers out to the edge of the main line, and wait for clearance to proceed to their work area for the day. The foreman was given a set of orders that detailed the trains running that section that day, and he was responsible for insuring that he could get his work done in between trains. Train crews would be given orders that detailed the mileposts where work would be going on, and their orders, know as ‘slow orders’ would always include the phrase “Proceed, prepared to stop upon signal”. The track crew always had a man out trained in flagging the trains approaching the work area, and in addition, yellow Slow Order signs would be put out on the track well before the actual work area.
Upon arriving at the area to be repaired, the crew would unload their tools and equipment, and then go through their routines. First, and foremost their clothes had to be right. The foreman usually wore khakis, and a wide brimmed hat. The laborers would wear overalls, and a heavy denim jumper, winter or summer. In summer, the jumper would be doused with ice water, to cool the wearer. Ice water was not for drinking in the dead of summer. The experienced men brought their water in gallon wine jugs, and would cover them in the grass along the track. They would take small drinks of the ambient temperature water, and never have a problem. It was always good sport to watch the summer hires show up on the track gang. Usually football players from a local college, they’d peel off their shirts and then later start hitting the ice water. After about an hour, they’d be laid out on the ballast, with stomach cramps, and developing sunburns for tomorrow. The old hands knew how to play the heat game. For them, meal time was usually some soda crackers and cold meat of some kind. Football players always brought enough food for 3 normal men, and sure enough, after lunch, they would be laid out again with stomach cramps. Most of them were quick learners.
One of the straw boss’s jobs was to call cadence for the men using mauls or picks. He would have a singsong pattern to his call, one that kept the men in rhythm on their swings. When lifting rail, his calls would tell the men when to set their tongs, when to lift, and then the call to step the rail into position. No military drill team matched them, because a man out of step meant that someone could be hurt. Rail size is listed by weight, with a weight given to a 3 foot section. All rail used is 33 feet long, so a section of 100 pound rail weighed 11X100, or 1100 pounds. Moving something of that weight and length required everyone to be in step, and moving to a set pattern. When aligning track, everyone had to push at the same time, so the boss called that move too. Tamping and shoveling ballast required coordination, so he called that also. The section foreman cast an overall eye on the work, and used his track gauge and level to insure that the track met specs.
To a youngster watching, it was all magic. Men calling out to each other in that special music, watching the picks and shovels moving in rhythm, and the good natured teasing common to men used to working together. The section gangs are gone now. Mechanization has replaced those men. Entire sections of track have the ties replaced, ballast resettled, and height and alignment done by computer controlled machines. Today’s track gangs are mostly Hispanic, and move all over the system in work trains, carrying their equipment from one division to the other. There’s not much pleasure in listening to the roar of diesel engines powering tie pullers, tampers, and ballast regulators. There’s just no magic in a diesel, as my steam engine railroader father said many times.
When you cross over a railroad track, look closely at the precisely set rails, the orderly ballast, and the straight cross ties. At one time, all that work was done by proud men, making good livings for their families, and respected by the men who ran their trains over their handiwork. Maintenance today may be faster and more efficient with the machines, but we’ve lost something with the passing of the section gangs, just like the loss we suffered with the demise of the steam engine.
Those were proud days on the rails, for all concerned. I miss them terribly.
===========================================================================
My wife just read it and shares my opinion. She came in grinning exclaiming that his descriptions were so vivid. I have yet to attain that status, thus all my pictures. For those with less than vivid imaginations, I've copied a few pictures and writes by others. In this day of disappearing websites, I'm going to carry their flag whether they like it or not. These are too valuable. Links to the originals are supplied.
Reiterating: Below this point are additions I found to enable a tangible vision of the track workers, sometimes called "gandy dancers" or as Mike mentioned, "section gangs". I've thrown in a little more explanation. That's all below.
Picture from Here
Below is from Here.
A gandy dancer is someone who works on the maintenance crew of a railroad. Track crews are critical for a working railroad, as these men and women ensure that the tracks are in good working order, and they address situations on the tracks before they turn into problems. Work in this field can be backbreaking, and the hours are often very long, as people are sometimes required to travel great distances to check on and repair tracks.
The origins of the term “gandy dancer” to refer to a track worker are rather obscure. The term appears to have emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, and it was often used specifically in reference to black track workers. Many track workers in the Eastern part of the United States were of black heritage, while workers in the West tended to be Chinese and later Latin American, after Chinese immigrants were excluded from most work as well as property ownership, marriage, and citizenship. Latin American gandy dancers had their own term for themselves: traqueros.
There are a variety of theories about why track workers came to be known as gandy dancers. The “dance” part is actually rather easy, as most track crews sang songs while they worked to keep rhythm. Singing also helped to dispel fatigue, and on a well-coordinated crew, the singing and carefully timed movements could be reminiscent of dancing.
As for the “gandy,” things are a bit more complicated. Some people have suggested that it is a reference to special tools known as gandies which were use for lifting the rails while ties were replaced. However, this could easily be a backformation from “gandy dancer.” Others have said that it is a nod to the Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago, which made lots of tools for track maintenance. This would be plausible, except that no record of this company's existence can be found.
In another theory about the origins of "gandy dancer," people point to the way in which the rails used to lie track were handled. These rails were very heavy, and typically a large crew of men would move the rail together, shuffling carefully in time to the music and supposedly looking like a flock of waddling geese. This apparently led people to call track workers “gander dancers,” which was corrupted into “gandy dancers,” though why ganders specifically instead of geese in general would be singled out is unknown. Perhaps it is a reference to the all-male nature of historic train crews.
Whatever the origins of the term, gandy dancers routinely ride the rails to inspect them. Every time a train passes, the vibration loosens the fixtures of the track, so it is important to tighten tracks, check for rotting or damaged ties, and clear hazards on the tracks such as downed trees. Gandy dancer crews historically used specially built lightweight track cars, which could be self-powered or powered by a small engine, to travel the sections of the track they maintained. Many modern crews use custom-fitted cars and trucks which are capable of driving on train tracks.
Gandy Dancer Work Song Tradition
From Here
"Gandy dancers" was a nickname for railroad section gangs in the days before modern mechanized track upkeep. The men were called dancers for their synchronized movements when repairing track under the direction of a lead workman known as the "caller" or "call man." The name "gandy" supposedly arose from a belief that their hand tools once came from the Gandy tool company in Chicago (though no researcher has ever turned up such a company that made railroad tools). The name may also have derived from "gander" because the flat-footed steps of the workmen when lining track resembled the way that geese walk. There is, however, no consensus on the origin of the name.
Each group of railroad workers, known as section gangs, typically maintained 10 to 15 miles of track. The men refilled the ballast (gravel) between the railroad ties, replaced rotted crossties, and either turned or replaced worn rails, driving spikes to lock them to the crossties. Spike driving required no group coordination, but the heavy rails had to be carried by teams of men with large clamps called "rail dogs." A lead singer coordinated the effort with so-called "dogging" calls. A good half of a typical workday was spent on the constant chore of straightening out the track (known as lining), and it was from this activity that "gandy dancers" earned their name. When leveling the track, workmen jacked up the track at its low spots and pushed ballast under the raised ties with square-ended picks, often leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in pairs while the caller marked time with a four-beat "tamping" song.
In the South in general and Alabama specifically, at least through the 1950s, the foreman of a section gang was invariably white and the members of the gang itself almost exclusively African American. The foreman typically positioned himself 50 yards or more from the section gang, squatted down, and examined the length of track for problems. He used visual signals to tell the caller where the track was out of alignment and when it was "lined" properly. At the time, rails typically came in 13-yard (12-meter) lengths. The section gang systematically aligned the rails at the joints and at specified points along its length in a well-defined order.
Section gangs were made up of as few as four men but might include as many as 30 men, depending on the workload. Each workman carried a lining bar, a straight pry bar with a sharp end. The thicker bottom end was square-shafted (to fit against the rail) and shaped to a chisel point (to dig down into the gravel underneath the rail); the lighter top end was rounded (for better gripping). When lining track, each man would face one of the rails and work the chisel end of his lining bar down at an angle into the ballast under it. Then all would take a step toward their rail and pull up and forward on their pry bars to lever the track—rails, crossties and all—over and through the ballast.
Lining track was difficult, tedious work, and the timing or coordination of the pull was more important than the brute force put forth by any single man. It was the job of the caller to maintain this coordination. He simultaneously motivated and entertained the men and set the timing through work songs that derived distantly from sea chanteys and more recently from cotton-chopping songs, blues, and African-American church music. Typical songs featured a two-line, four-beat couplet to which members of the gang would tap their lining bars against the rails, as in this example:
1 2 3 4 "O joint ahead and quarter back"
1 2 3 4 "That's the way we line this track"
When the liners were tapping in perfect time, he would call for a hearty pull on the third beat of a four-beat refrain:
1 2 3 4 "Come on, move it! Huhn! (pause)"
1 2 3 4 "Boys, can you move it! Uhmm! (pause)"
and so on until the foreman signaled that the track was properly aligned. A good caller could call all day and never repeat the same phrase twice. Veteran section gangs lining track, especially with an audience, often embellished their work with a one-handed flourish and with one foot stepping out and back on beats four, one, and two, between the two-armed pulls on the lining bars on beat three.
In a ceremony at the Smithsonian in 1996, John Henry Mealing (who had worked on the Western and then the Frisco lines) and Cornelius Wright (who had worked on U.S. Steel's 1,100 miles of track), two former callers of this kind of work song in central Alabama, received National Heritage Fellowship Awards as "Master Folk and Traditional Artists" for their demonstrations of this form of African-American folk art.
Additional Resources
Courlander, Harold. Negro Songs from Alabama. Rev. & enl. 2nd ed. New York: Oak Publications, 1963.
Corn Bread Crumbled in Gravy: Historical Alabama Field Recordings from the Byron Arnold Collection of Traditional Tunes. Audiocassette. Produced by Joy D. Baklanoff and John Bealle. Montgomery: Alabama Folklife Association, 1992.
Gandy Dancers. VHS. Directed by Maggie Holtzberg-Call and Barry Dornfield. New York: Cinema Guild, 1994.
Lomax, Alan. The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960.
Traditional Musics of Alabama: A Compilation. Compact disc. Produced by Steve Grauberger. Montgomery: Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, Alabama State Council on the Arts, 2002.
Jim Brown
Samford University
Published July 13, 2007
Last updated May 18, 2009
=====================================================================
More about "John Henry" :
Click Here for this Website. Further links are below.
An Early Version
An Early Version
Construction Crew Version
Folk Version
Prison and Chain Gang Version
Other Versions
Guy Johnson's research indicated that the earliest John Henry ballads originated in the oral tradition of hammer songs in the 1870s and evolved over time into the ballads with which we are familiar today. One of the earliest written copies of the ballad, prepared by a W. T. Blankenship and published about 1900 or slightly earlier, was obtained by Johnson. Johnson believed this version represented portions of several earlier versions.
"John Henry, Steel Drivin' Man"
John Henry was a railroad man,
He worked from six 'till five,
"Raise 'em up bullies and let 'em drop down,
I'll beat you to the bottom or die."
John Henry said to his captain:
"You are nothing but a common man,
Before that steam drill shall beat me down,
I'll die with my hammer in my hand."
John Henry said to the Shakers:
"You must listen to my call,
Before that steam drill shall beat me down,
I'll jar these mountains till they fall."
John Henry's captain said to him:
"I believe these mountains are caving in."
John Henry said to his captain: "Oh, Lord!"
"That's my hammer you hear in the wind."
John Henry he said to his captain:
"Your money is getting mighty slim,
When I hammer through this old mountain,
Oh Captain will you walk in?"
John Henry's captain came to him
With fifty dollars in his hand,
He laid his hand on his shoulder and said:
"This belongs to a steel driving man."
John Henry was hammering on the right side,
The big steam drill on the left,
Before that steam drill could beat him down,
He hammered his fool self to death.
They carried John Henry to the mountains,
From his shoulder his hammer would ring,
She caught on fire by a little blue blaze
I believe these old mountains are caving in.
John Henry was lying on his death bed,
He turned over on his side,
And these were the last words John Henry said
"Bring me a cool drink of water before I die."
John Henry had a little woman,
Her name was Pollie Ann,
He hugged and kissed her just before he died,
Saying, "Pollie, do the very best you can."
John Henry's woman heard he was dead,
She could not rest on her bed,
She got up at midnight, caught that No. 4 train,
"I am going where John Henry fell dead."
They carried John Henry to that new burying ground
His wife all dressed in blue,
She laid her hand on John Henry's cold face,
"John Henry I've been true to you."
======================================================
And finally, I drug this from HERE
Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi
Coosa Tunnel, Columbus & Western Railroad - 15 miles east of Birmingham, Alabama
(Stovall & Havens, 1895)
Garst, John.
Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi: A Personal Memoir of Work in Progress
Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association
Issue No. 5 2002 pp 92-129
Synopsis
In my opinion, the data gathered by Guy Johnson and Louis Chappell,
and published in their books of 1929 and 1933, respectively, make it
very unlikely that John Henry raced a steam drill at Big Bend Tunnel.
These workers made a massive effort, focused on Big Bend, and failed
to find anything definitive, despite the fact that they were able to
interview about a dozen men who had worked on the construction of
that tunnel. Only one of these men claimed to have seen the race and
his testimony was very weak. Others testified that it could not have
happened at Big Bend - they would have known about it if it had.
Johnson received letters from C. C. Spencer, F. P. Barker, and
Glendora Cannon Cummings, all of whom placed John Henry and his race
with a steam drill in Alabama during the 1880s. Cummings stated that
John Henry beat the steam drill and died at Oak Mountain in 1887, an
event that her uncle witnessed. Barker said that John Henry was at
"Cursey Mountain" while he, Barker, was driving steel on Red Mountain
(which lies along the southeastern edge of Birmingham, Alabama).
Spencer's letter was especially rich in detail, but Johnson was
frustrated by the failures of his attempts to verify some of
Spencer's facts. Spencer mentioned "Cruzee" Mountain, similar to
Barker's "Cursey," which Johnson could never find, in Alabama or
anywhere else. Spencer also named the railroad under construction as
the Alabama Great Southern, which exists but does not go over or
through a mountain with a name similar to "Cruzee" or "Cursey."
These failures caused Johnson to abandon Alabama, in favor of Big
Bend, in his unsuccessful pursuit of John Henry.
Spencer said that he personally witnessed John Henry's death. He
described how John Henry fell into a faint near the end of the
all-day contest on September 20, regained consciousness, said that he
was blind and dying, and asked that his wife be summoned. His wife
came and cradled his head in her lap. He asked, "Have I beat that
old steam drill?" Measurements gave John Henry 27 1/2 feet and the
steam drill 21.
Further, he said that John Henry was an ex-slave from Holly
Springs, Mississippi; that he took his former master's surname,
Dabner; and that he was working for contractors Shea and Dabner when
he died. Cummings gave the contractors' names as Shay and Dabney,
and a "Jamaica" informant, C. S. Farquharson, gave them as Shea and
Dabner.
In fact, Captain Frederick Yeamans Dabney was Chief Engineer for
the Columbus & Western Railway Company during the construction of
their line between Goodwater, Alabama, and Birmingham in 1887-88. He
was a Rensellear-educated civil engineer who made a career of
railroad design and construction. Captain was his Confederate army
rank. He was born in Virginia in 1834/35; raised in Raymond,
Mississippi, from about age one; and settled his family in nearby
Crystal Springs, Mississippi, after the Civil War.
Between Raymond and Crystal Springs lay Burleigh Plantation, which
was owned by Captain Dabney's uncle, Thomas Smith Gregory Dabney. In
1860 T. S. G. Dabney owned 154 slaves, while Philip Augustine Lee
Dabney, Captain Dabney's father, owned eight. (Note: Since the
publication of the article I have learned that one of P. A. L.
Dabney's slaves was Henry, born in 1844. If this is John Henry, he
would have been 43 years old in 1887. I'm told that this is a
reasonable age for a champion steel driver. - JG)
About 15 miles east of Birmingham the C & W line (later Central of
Georgia and now Norfolk Southern) passes through Coosa and Oak
Mountain Tunnels, which are two miles apart, portal to portal.
Obviously, "Coosa" was intended by "Cruzee" and "Cursey" in Spencer's
and Barker's letters. "Coosa" is locally pronounced "Koo'see" and is
even spelled that way in some old documents.
The discoveries that Coosa and Oak Tunnels exist, that they have
railroad tunnels through them, that these were built in 1887-88, that
a Dabney was the engineer in charge of construction, that he was from
Mississippi, and that his family owned slaves near Crystal Springs
lend credence to the testimonies of Spencer, Barker, and Cummings.
Evidently Spencer simply got his Mississippi "Springs" towns confused
when he mentioned Holly Springs, which, being near Memphis, is not
very close to Crystal Springs, south of Jackson.
In addition, there is a strong local tradition among Central of
Georgia employees and around Leeds, Alabama, that John Henry raced a
steam drill and died just outside the east portal of Oak Mountain
Tunnel, between Oak and Coosa Mountain Tunnels. This tradition is as
old and strong as that for Big Bend.
Finally, in about a dozen versions of "John Henry," there are lines
that are more consistent with the Alabama location than with "Big
Bend Tunnel on the C & O Road." At least two pre-1930 versions of
"John Henry" place him on "the Georgia line" or "the Central o'
Georgia Rail Road."
Thus, the evidence favors a site near Oak and Coosa Mountains,
Alabama, and 1887 as the place and time of John Henry's race with a
steam drill.
- John Garst
Department of Chemistry
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
garst@chem.uga.edu
Stovall, Pleasant A., and O. Pierre Havens. 1895.Fruits of Industry: Points and Pictures
along the Central Railroad of Georgia. Savannah: Passenger Department of the
Central Railroad of Georgia System. "Text by Pleasant A. Stovall. Photographs by
O. Pierre Havens...Souvenir of Cotton States and International Exposition,
Atlanta, Ga., September 18 to December 31, 1895...On and after November 1,
1895, this system will be known as the Central Railway Company."
To read the full article, "Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi," contact the Alabama Folklife Association and order a copy of Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association, Vol. V (2002).
Contact information for the Alabama Folklife Association:
The Alabama Folklife Association
That's it for this page.