Machines and Workers

Machines and Workers. . , As machines replaced human labor, workers' jobs and lives changed., In 1882, Pullman mechanical engineer Norman W. Robinson invented a new transfer table to move railroad cars. A small steam locomotive rolled a table that carried a railroad car under construction between shop stalls. The transfer table locomotive engineer and two helpers operated a clutch, cables, pulleys, and a hook that pulled each car off the movable table into a stall for further assembly. One machine, one engineer, and two helpers could now do the work of 40 men., By 1910, dozens of electrified transfer tables shifted railroad cars in the new steel and repair shops. At the aging Pullman Car Works, the old steam transfer tables kept operating until at least 1918, when they were converted to electric power. Transfer Table 34 at Pullman's Calumet Shops was still moving cars with a three-man crew in 1968.,

"I have known men to drop down by the side of a car when they were working for want of food; and the way I had to work myself, in order to make the amount of money I did, I would frequently have to sit down at 10 o'clock in order to rest until I got strength enough to go on again; and there were hundreds of men in that condition at the Pullman shops when we quit." , Thomas Heathcote, Pullman car builder, President, America Railway Union Local 208, 16 August 1894

, [Captions:] , Left Transfer Table 1 supports a shining Chicago and North Western Railway passenger car in front of the Rear Erecting Shops on a summer afternoon in the 1890s., Bottom left A rare close-up photograph looking northeast shows Transfer Table 2 at the transfer pit's southern end, near 111th Street., Bottom About 1890, Transfer Table 1 shuttles a newly varnished car past a worker holding a shop stall door open. The Allen Paper Car Wheel Company can be seen through the open vestibule doorway, looking north.