Building Railroads

Building Railroads. . , Constructing a railroad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a feat of skill, determination and hard labor. Each step took careful planning and routes often passed through remote areas with few roads and many dangers., Step 1: Finding the Route , An exploration team scouted the land to find the most economical route. Challenges such as large marshes and deep ravines frequently forced the team to backtrack and find a new path., After the general route was established, a survey team of three crews moved in. A chief of party crew led the survey team. The transit crew took measurements and set survey stakes every 100 feet, keeping the route as straight as possible. Then, the leveling crew carefully recorded elevations at the stakes., Step 2: Creating a Map , The topographic crew drew detailed maps of the route, including features such as streams and ravines. Once the topographic map was complete, the railroad company could calculate costs for the new railroad., Step 3: Making Tracks , Laying track was a rough life. Workers lived in crude camps and frequently labored under extreme weather conditions With little more than hand tools, teams of horses and their own brute strength, crews constructed nearly 7,000 miles of railroad track in Minnesota between 1860 and 1900., Life was tough in a railroad survey camp. A cook usually provided meals, typically bread, coffee and some kind of meat, but the workers had to supply their own bedding. Often, personal hygiene was minimal., Strong arms and a sharp axe made fast work of shaping logs into railroad ties., Railroad gangs work in harmony to lever tracks into place using a tool sometimes called a gandy. From a distance, the movements of their bodies as they bobbed up and down gave them the appearance of dancers, hence their nickname gandy dancers., Railroad Slang , Like any trade, railroad workers had their own slang terms for people and things. These nicknames came about during the steam locomotive era and are seldom used today. , King Snipe Boss of a track-laying crew , Ash Cat Tends the fire for a steam engine , Gandy Dancer Builds or repairs railroad tracks , Grease Monkey Greases track equipment , Juggler Loads and unloads freight from train cars , Snake Operates the brake in rail yard , Yard Geese Rail yard workers , Hoghead Engineer who drives the train , Piglet Engineer trainee who is learning to drive the train , Car Toad Freight car inspector, Railroad Pieces , Spike , Secures rails and tie plates to ties, Track Bolt , Connects rails to fish plates, Date Nail , Hammered into tie to indicate year that tie was installed (1951)., Tie Plate , Holds rail in proper alignment, Fish Plate , Holds ends of two rails together. Also called joint or angle bar., Rail , Guides trains down railroad, Formed from hot-rolled steel, rails are banded so that they can be traced back to their manufacturer. If a rail breaks or warps, rails from the same series can be checked for soundness., 6703 , Rail weight (67 pounds/yard) and series number (03); the 03 series are flat-bottomed rails with a base width of 4½ inches and height of 4½ inches., Illinois Steel Co , Manufacturer: Illinois Steel Company, Chicago., South Wks , Mill where maufactured: South Works Mill., 1892 IIIII , Date of manufacture : Year (1892) and Roman numeral representing month (5th month, May).