Assignment No:
Ques: Write report on gandy dancer. It is a post in railway department in Canada.
Ans: Gandy dancer is a term used for workers, who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines.
gandy dancer are builders of railway lines, and employed to inspect and maintain the track. These men did everything from laying ties to aligning the rails.Though all gandy dancers sang railroad songs, it may be that African American gandy dancers from the Southern United States, with a long tradition of using song to coordinate work, were unique in their use of task-related work chants. here are various theories about the derivation of the term, but most refer to the "dancing" movements of the workers using a specially manufactured …show more content…
The thicker bottom end was square-shafted (to fit against the rail) and shaped to a chisel point (to dig down into the gravel underneath the rail); the lighter top end was rounded (for better gripping). When lining track, each man would face one of the rails and work the chisel end of his lining bar down at an angle into the ballast under it. Then all would take a step toward their rail and pull up and forward on their pry bars to lever the track—rails, crossties and all—over and through the ballast."[10]
Sketch of standard section crew tools from the B & O Railroad, published in Maintenance of way standards on American railways, 1896. Above is a heel claw bar, below is a lining bar, and to the right is a straight wrench
Workers also needed to periodically level the track by jacking it up in the low spots. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they raised the track with square-ended picks and pushed ballast under the railroad ties. Even with repeated impacts from the work crew of eight, ten, or more, any progress made in shifting the track would not become visible until after a large number of
Ques: Write report on gandy dancer. It is a post in railway department in Canada.
Ans: Gandy dancer is a term used for workers, who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines.
gandy dancer are builders of railway lines, and employed to inspect and maintain the track. These men did everything from laying ties to aligning the rails.Though all gandy dancers sang railroad songs, it may be that African American gandy dancers from the Southern United States, with a long tradition of using song to coordinate work, were unique in their use of task-related work chants. here are various theories about the derivation of the term, but most refer to the "dancing" movements of the workers using a specially manufactured …show more content…
The thicker bottom end was square-shafted (to fit against the rail) and shaped to a chisel point (to dig down into the gravel underneath the rail); the lighter top end was rounded (for better gripping). When lining track, each man would face one of the rails and work the chisel end of his lining bar down at an angle into the ballast under it. Then all would take a step toward their rail and pull up and forward on their pry bars to lever the track—rails, crossties and all—over and through the ballast."[10]
Sketch of standard section crew tools from the B & O Railroad, published in Maintenance of way standards on American railways, 1896. Above is a heel claw bar, below is a lining bar, and to the right is a straight wrench
Workers also needed to periodically level the track by jacking it up in the low spots. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they raised the track with square-ended picks and pushed ballast under the railroad ties. Even with repeated impacts from the work crew of eight, ten, or more, any progress made in shifting the track would not become visible until after a large number of