The Opelousas courier., 1890-07-12
4 PECULIAR OCCUPATION,
WALKING RAILROAD TRACKS FOR
A LIVING.

I7afthfn, Pedestrians Who Contin-
ually Patrol the Track IN searcN
of obstructions-Their Outfits.
Some of the old railroad track walkers
ran boast of records equal to that OF loco
motives in the point of miles which tney
have covered. Engineers sometlmes
claim that they have ridden Zoo'ooo
m;les or so. but the men who have
walked that far are not often hearo OF.
Still there are plenty of them IN tne
branch of the railroad service OF winch
the sttrack walker belongs. They are
the SAFEGUARD of travel which the pubic
Knows least about. They prevent nun
dreds Of accidents, but their good deeds
are rarely if ever rewarded, as is fhe
ease with the faithful engineer or nag
man. And it is a peculiar fact that tnere
is NO line of promotion, consequently no
great incentive to careful work.
4 New York Sun reporter got some
ideas about their duties from lnomas
sesnan. now foreman Of a sectlon Oh
trackmen in the yard of the Grand Cen
trial Station in that city. sesnan has neen
employed on the track work OF the mar
lem Railroad for forty-two years, and is
now looked upon as a patriarch among
the trackmen. He has had charge OF q
gang for the last eighteen years; before
That he was a trackman himself. He says
that he helped to lay the second track
of the Harlem road in 1s4S, over which
the New Haven road first entered 'he
city.
S.Everv piece of railroad" he said, sis
divided into sections of from Eve to seven
miles. if it is single track, and from three
to four miles, if double. A foreman
with a gang of five or six men keeps
each section in order. Al! but one are
trackmen, who are kept busy making
repairs. That one is the track walker,
WHO patrols the track all day long with
an eye out for weak points and obstruc'
tions that might cause accidents. OF
course, there is a second walker at night
who does the same work.
1.-THE track walkers outfit includes 8
hammer, wrench, lantern, red flag, a few
torpedoes, bolts and spikes. No, he
doesn't walk at pedestrian speed. His
Gait shouldn't be more than two or three
miles an hour. A man might hurry over
the entire ground inside of an hour, but
he couldn't look at every bolt and rail
connection, as his duties require. II it's
a. double track road he walks or the
! track facing the direction from which the
! train is coming and examines only one
: track at a time. He takes the other
> track on the way back. A track walker
y gets over the ground, as far as he is able,
. lust before the trains pass over his Sec
, ton. But he keeps at work all day long,
. and if he has a double track divided into
three-mile sections, he ought to make
about three round trips a day over each
track. This would make a days average
of tw~enty-four miles.
Gan experienced track walker can tell q
loose bolt at a glance. Sometimes it will
be caused by a broken rail, and he will
see that the Joints do not fit. Generally
q loose Joint will be indicated by a dis
turbance of the earth, causing a crevice
between the sleeper and the rail. In this
case the track walker props the rail with
a thin piece of wood, which he must car
nv in his outfit. Fish plates and angle
plates are distributed along the line, and
the track walker sometimes has to replace
broken plates if there isn't time for the
section gang to come up before a train il
due. In case of a broken rail or ebstruc.
tions which he can't handle, the track
walker puts torpedoes on the tracks ano
uses his red flag to warn a passing train.
Then he leaves his patrol and informs the
foreman and traekman as soon as possible
In e~ie.zseency cases at night the tract
walker wraps his red flag about the Ian
tern as a signal. Torpedoes are usee
ID also.
h 81 never heard of 8 track walkers be
" ing promoted to a better paying position
j, Once a track walker always q tract
ls walker"
a "Anybody can get such a job, then,
N suggested the reporter.
i, HNot a bit of it," retorted the patri
9. arch. "You couldn't, for instance. II
e like to see you bolt one Of those angl
plates; and you'd have to do it in case Q
10 emergency. A man must have experience
n as a trackman first. The foreman pick
= his track walker out of the trackmen
- 1Q6u pay iii Tut S6nlC-0UOue %AfSo
- day. But if there is any promoting be
NC ing done, the track walker is never tn
lucky one. Some trackman gets tn
raise. The track walker must go back I
the section gang again if he expects t
get up in the world.
aAs a rule, track walkers keep at it q
their lives. A man who worked undo
me on the section between Phifmont an
Craryville, on the Harlem road, q STIR
six miles long, made two round trips
!, day. He started out at Philnnont at
h A. NJ, and by the end of the first roun
: trip of twelve miles it was noon and b
got dinner. Another trip and he CAV
way to another man at 8 P. N. This mai
!. Michael McGrath, kept up his INVENT.
49, four miles walk about every day in q
~ ~ year for eighteen years. Reckoning 81
days to the year, this makes more tina
g 155, 900 miles. Many track wake
II have kept it up longer. 4 man on Il
Erie says he has walked more than 200
900 miles"