Gandy dancer
Gandy dancer is a slang term for workers who provided maintenance of railroads in North America.
The term originates from the mid to late 19th century. It is often said to derive from a Chicago tool company, but several sources cite an absence of any record of this company's existance. Hand crews used specialized hand tools known as gandys (of unknown etymology) to lever rail tracks into position.
Though even Victorian-era rail tracks were held in place by wooden sleepers and the mass of the stones (ballast) beneath them, each pass of a train around a corner would, through centrifugal force and vibration, produce an invisibly tiny shift in the tracks. If allowed to accumulate, such shifts would eventually cause derailment; work crews had to pry them back into place routinely.
For each stroke, a worker would lift his gandy and force it into the ballast to create a fulcrum, then throw himself sideways using the gandy to check his full weight (making the "huh" sound recorded in the lyrics below), so that the gandy would impact the rail and push it toward the inside of the curve. Comparing the strength of a single person to the force needed to slide a railway track sideways along the ground, it becomes immediately apparent that both perfect synchronization and vigorous effort were required. Even with all impacts from the work crew timed correctly, any progress made in shifting the track would not become visible until a large nubmer of repetitions, if ever.
Rhythm was necessary for this process, to organize the manual labor, and music served to maintain the morale of workers whose exertions produced only a miniscule effect; hence "gandy dancers". The characteristic songs sung in this occupation have been recognized as a major influence on later blues music; two such songs are reproduced below.
The same ground crews also performed the other aspects of track maintenance, removing weeds, tamping down ballast, and replacing rotten sleepers. The British equivalent is "Navvy" from "Navigator", originally canal-builders who presumably navigated around the country side.
Song lyrics
- Pick an' shovel...huh,
- am so heavy...huh,
- Heavy as lead...huh,
- heavy as lead...huh
- Pickin', shov'lin'...huh
- pickin', shov'lin'...huh
- Till I'm dead...huh
- till I'm dead...
- When you hear that...huh
- 'Lantic Coast Line...huh
- Somebody's flyin'...huh
- somebody's flyin'..huh
- When you see that..huh
- Seaboard Air Line..huh
- She's a baby-mine..huh
- she's a baby-mine...