The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-03
| RAILROAD NEWS
PICKS FOR WOMEN
Female Section Gangs May Be
Used in Short Time.
Manly Myrtle May Be Super
Foreman Then.
ROADS CAN'T GET men NOW
ROADS CAN'T GET men NOW
Already Santa Fe Is Using Girls
for Draft Work.
Labor Situation Is Growing
More Serious Every Month.

Maggie, the new section hand,
puckered her brow and brushed
stray wisp of Irish auburn hair from
her eye and took a slant down the
right-o- way and leaned on the shovel.
Myrtle, the super-foreman, came
down the track, cast her glimmers on
Maggie, and snorted.
Here waht va doin'? Think this
is u Roman holiday? This railroads
payin' y'u two bones day an yu've
earned about 1 cent since mornin.
Get tn work. Ram q little gravel
under that tie. Straighten out TIL
sides of your roadbed. It'ud break
snakes back to crawl along the edge"
Maggie gave the roadbed she had
cast in place the once over. 1t looked
like the Rocky mountains boiled down
to fit along the side of the steel. She
tapped her silken eyelashes detected
! ly. The foreman took a chew of
Sheermint and grew more sympa-
thetic.
Look here" she said. "y'a wasn't
cut out for this work. Y'u haint got
shovel. They want some boilermaker
apprentices down at tn Santa Fe
shops. Better Try there. L en- fill
your place with those two female
umbray wimmen around here this
mornin.' Anyway, y'ure fired"
Inc 11OC
Maggie dropped her shovel and per
ambulated down the track, her life
ambition never to be realized, it
seemed. Aha, but wait. Maggie run
the rays from ner sky blue peppers
down the steel rail. 1t was broken.
The presidents special was due in ten
minutes. Ten minutes! Maggie must
save the special. Selling a nearby
handcar she put forth superhuman
strength and heaved it on the track
Her hair flying and her sylph like
arms working like piston rods she sent
the car skidding down the track. The
special came around the track. Oh,
dear! No red flag! Oh, an idea! She
tossed her queenly head and her au,
burn hair tagged the train. Saved!
Everything saved, including the presi-
dent and three cars of sheep the train
was carrying to cut down the car
shortage.
The president, his face a thunder
head and his eye stern, stepped from
the car, stumbled over to the handcar
and looked into Maggie's shamrock
shooters.
What can 1 do to reward thee?"
"Oh. make me a section foreman"
said she. "Get me back my two
bones per-"
so be it," he roared. I'm the
president of this read. the king of all
the flawless rails its trains run over.
You shall be the queen of section
hands and watch over them. Every
body get that"
May Be Reality.
Within the next two years women
section hands on Kansas railroads
NAV become a reality. Perhaps soon
er, if the labor shortage, because of
lack of immigration and men going to
the army, becomes much worse, and
railroads here adopt and extend, ever
SO slightly, the policy of eastern
Iroads.
Women are already taking the place
of men in clerical positions thruout
the country. In the Santa Fe offices
here a large number of women have
been recently hired to take the place
of rner called to war.
Last week the Santa Fe railway en-
ployed twelve girls in the drafting
rooms of Tie construction department
at Chicago because of the company S
inability to get masculine craftsmen
to fill vacancies caused by the war.
The women are being trained in
: railroad work in the office of S. z.
} Itice, assistant engineer of construc-
J ton. A scarcity of craftsmen is being
experienced in the offices in Topeka.
Officials today said the only reason
no women have yet been employed in
, the drafting department here is the
fact that they cannot be obtained To-
} caily. 1t is expected that after The
women employed at Chicago obtain
will be sent to this city
Other Roads Use Women.
The Santa Fe isn't the only road
employing women. In fact, the COM
pany has probably hired less feminine
\ labor because of the war shortage of
y masculine help than the majority of
other ROADS. The Erie railroad an
nounced today that the number of wo-
men employ ed IN the last few weeks
in consequence of the scarcity of male
help is about SEQ
The Philadelphia & Reading has
opened a school at Pottstown Pa, for
the instruction of young women in
telegraphy, ticket selling and station
accounting. The school already has
about twenty-fOur students
The Baltimore & Ohio is employine
women to do work formerly done bv
men. The women on this road have
donned overalls and some of them are
working in the mechanical depart
ments.
Several women, according to Off
Gals have been hired to take the place
of men in the offices attached to the
Santa Fe shops here. AS yet no wo-
men have been hired to work in the
shops.
ASKS BIDS FOR Usage & s f