Up in 'Our heroes in our signatures' in the Admin forum, I used the example of my grandfather in a CCC&StL/NYC track gang in 1900. The questions was raised about the tools and what they were doing, I think that this is a better forum to explain it. Firstly, they are actually a Section Gang. For many years, a crew was assigned to a section of track to maintain it and most of the work was done by hand with hand tools. For years they would walk from job to job and then by horse and wagon, then hand car, then speeder, etc. Their primary job was to inspect and tighten the nuts and bolts of the joint bars that held the rails together and inspect switch points, links and frogs. Also they were to pound spikes back in that had worked loose or to drive new spikes in through unused holes in the tie plates. They might even replace an occasional tie but that generally was left to others. Their main tools were track bolt wrenches, sledges, shovels, pickaxes and pry bars. All of these tools were heavy and heavy duty and had to be stored somewhere. Since they didn't take them home, the railroads build small sheds or tool houses periodically along the railway to house these tools. Later the tool house was expanded to include a handcar or speeder storage room. Sometime it would be near the tool house. The Bottom line is that these men are, indeed, working on the railroad in every sense of the word. They worked to keep everything tight and straight and if they couldn't do this, the Gandy Dancer crew would come out, especially after a large number of ties had been replaced. Oh, my grandfather? He's the fourth from the left standing in the track. Roger Roger Hensley - rhensley@anderson.cioe.com == http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ == == Railroads of Madison County (Indiana) ==
When I went by the Maintenace shed in Langford on the E&N I watched a section gang lifting a rail onto the hi-rail. Too bad I didn't have my camera.
