Some industries just have more colorful slang than others — as I learned when researching background information for Iron Horse Claim.
Early railroading was a good example of unique jargon. Some railroad slang made it into the common lexicon, such as caboose, graveyard, pencil pusher, and riprap, while other railroad slang was strictly confined to the industry.
Iron horse, as anyone who has watched their share of Western movies knows, refers to the locomotives that crisscrossed the nation.
Ashcat referred to the locomotive firemen who stocked the firebox.
Gunter’s chain was an archaic term I wasn’t familiar with. In researching railroading in the 1800s, I learned about Gunter’s chains, which surveyors used to measure distances. The chain consisted of 100 links, each link being 0.66 ft or 7.92 inches for a total length of 66 feet. Surveyors stopped using Gunter’s chains sometime in the 1880s.
Gandy dancer is one of my all-time favorite words. My father was a gandy dancer.
Men who laid track were called gandy dancers. Gandy referred to the tamping bars made by Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago. “Dancer” referred to the rhythmic cadence the laborers used to tamp down the ties.
I relied on Workin’ on the Railroad by Richard Reinhardt for background information about day-to-day life on the railroad. The book includes first-hand accounts of engineers, brakemen, section men, surveyors, and other railroad workers. Their stories were interesting and informative.
And, one couldn’t write about the railroads in the 1870s and 1880s without mentioning Jay Cooke and the Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 – along with the many other instances of fraud and grift of that era. Jay Cooke’s Gamble provided solid background.
As one of the characters in Iron Horse Claim said, “The railroads played a major role in the Union’s success” and continued to help the nation grow, connecting East to West with the transcontinental railroad.