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mainlines using 152-pound rail. The rail itself rests

upon a tie plate which has holes through which spikes are driven into the crosstie. Amtrak has used concrete crossties with steel rail anchors on some sections of the Northeast Corridor. Use of continuous welded rail or ribbon rail is a fairly recent development which has helped reduce maintenance costs. It also eliminated the familiar clickety-click of wheels over rail joints. Roller bearing cars moving on welded rail hardly make any sound at all. There are no section gangs anymore. The work is totally automated and mechanized.

W-BRH

RAILROAD TRACK While at first glance it may appear that putting together a piece of railroad track is a simple task, it actually is a precise science that at one time was crafted into an art. . The construction and maintenance of a railroad's track and right of way was handled by "section gangs," so called because a group of workers under a foreman would have responsibility for a specific section of the line, ranging to five or more miles. These were the people who, with their hand tools and handcars, insured safe passage over the railroad for people and goods. Railroad folklore says such workers were called "gandydancers" and thatthetermderivedfromthe gyrations of two men swinging spike mauls in a full circle to drive a spike with coordinated alternate blows. Among the many jobs of the track people, one was to insure that the gauge was correct. Gauge is the distance between the two rails, the standard in this country being 4 feet 8-1/2 inches. That dimension traces back to England and, the story goes, it also went all the way back to the distance between the wheels of Roman chariots. When railroads were first built in the U.S., different gauges were used by different companies, but this proved impractical as cars could not be interchanged between carriers with different gauges, necessitating transloading of the cargo. The rail now used is a product of long development in its composition and size. Most of B&O's early track consisted of strap iron affixed directly to wooden stringers resting on embedded stones, the type originally used through here. Elsewhere in this book, the article on "The American Legion Home" cites use of this type of track, and its replacement with iron rail in 1845. One of the problems with the strap-iron-on-wood type of track was that the strap iron had a tendency to work loose, creating a "snakehead" that could puncture the wooden floor of railway cars causing damage, injury, or death.Railroads soon realized they needed better track structure to support increasingly larger and heavier equipment moving at higher speeds. After trying cast iron and several configurations of steel rail, the present rail became wid.e ly adopted. The standard rail length is 39 feet, and the weight of rail is measured in pounds per yard. It got progressively stronger and heavier, now ranging up to 119 to 130 pounds, and some heavy-duty

W-BRH

FORMING A UNION Itis unlikely that a book such as this could begin to do justice to the subject of railway labor relations and union development in view of the innumerable complexities and long history of the subject. It is, however, an important topic deserving mention, and to that end a manuscript in our files has proven to be a valuable resource. John P. Hankey, Curator of the B&O Museum, wrote an article entitled "MAKING UNION MEN IN A COMPANY TOWN: The Brotherhood Railway Carmen of American in Brunswick, 1900-1915," which details the development of the Carmen's lodge here. We have used Mr. Hankey's work as the basis for the following extremely abbreviated story.

Up through 1890, carmen's work primarily embraced the skills of carpenter, painter, and blacksmith, with carmen generally working in pairs or gangs, or individually as "car inspectors" checking the mechanical condition of every car entering or leaving the yard. The replacement of wooden railway cars with steel equipment, together with several improved mechanical features caused a wide diversification in the carmen's tasks. The Westinghouse air brake created a need for an "air man;" and automatic couplers, electric lights and steam heat in passenger cars, welding and cutting all dramatically widened the technical skills embraced in the carmen's trade. By the turn of the century, the jurisdiction of the BRCA included some 42 distinct work classifications. With intensified train schedules came greatly increased :work loads for car inspectors and car repairmen. Car wcrk was hazardous in itself, and aggravated by actual working conditions.

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