section of the Vermont Railway I would ride in a freight locomotive so many years later. Railroad tracks haven’t changed much since the first trains chugged across the landscape. Steel rails are laid across wooden ties (concrete is now standard on high-speed intercity tracks), which are set into a bed of crushed stone called ballast. The rails fit onto steel plates, which are in turn spiked onto the ties. Since both rails and ties have a limited lifespan – about 40 years for rails, 30 for ties, although the tonnage they’re subjected to can cause considerable variations – periodic replacement of both components is necessary. Rail is so heavy that new sections had to be dropped into place by machinery even during my gandy dancer days, but our crew was still replacing ties by hand. Every morning, we’d head out of the yards at Rutland for the section needing new ties. The six of us rode a little open-sided diesel jitney that scooted along the track, probably having replaced the seesaw-cranked handcars you see in old movies by only a couple of decades. The foreman was a Sicilian with a heavy accent, a wiry little guy who was probably stronger than any of us, even a couple of big lugs who prided themselves on their ferocious swings of the spike maul. During the time I worked, we were replacing ties up near Brandon, maybe fifteen miles north of Rutland, and it was a pleasant, breezy ride of a half hour or so. The next time “pleasant” was an operative word, though, was the trip home. The foreman told us where to start, and we began by prying out spikes with long iron crowbars. Since these were old ties, the spikes were often loose and came out easily. Next we’d dig out as much as we could of the ballast surrounding each tie. Once enough ties had been detached from the rails and cleared of ballast, the foreman would place a ponderously heavy iron jack under a rail, in the middle of the loosened section, and
ratchet it up with a six-foot iron bar. Modern rail weighs well over a hundred pounds per yard, so it’s easy to see why the bar working the jack had to be that long – and why the Sicilian had muscles. Next he’d repeat the procedure on the opposite rail. With the rails bowed up a few inches above the ties, we gandy dancers would get to work with big iron tongs, like the ones icemen used to use, and wrestle out the old ties. With the same tongs, we’d wrestle in the new ones, which had been dropped along the roadbed by a crew that had passed through the day before. When every tie was in place, and properly imbedded in ballast, the plates would be set to receive the rails. Now came the moment of drama – and danger. “Everybody away,” the foreman yelled, and we had no trouble heeding his warning. He’d trip the jack, and the rail would slam down onto the plates and ties with a force that would treat the strongest steel-toed work boot, and the foot inside it, like an aluminum beer can. Once more, other side, and it was time to start spiking. A railroad spike is six inches of iron, a giant square-sided nail tapered at the tip, with its head offset so that the protruding lip grabs the base of the rail as the final thwacks of the hammer sets it into the tie. The head is maybe an inch and a half across . . . and so is the face of the spike maul. In other words, aim is everything. But perhaps we’re talking about a realm beyond aim. Aim is a combination of decision – where you want to land your blow – and skill, the ability to land it there. Raising a spike maul, bringing it back over your shoulder, and swinging it downwards with enough force to cause a railroad spike whose head is the same dimension as the hammer face to penetrate a creosote-impregnated block of Georgia pine cannot, in this exgandy dancer’s opinion, be reduced to an equation of aim and skill. No. It’s more a matter of the body simply knowing what to
