My Saw Blew Up!

[Gypo Logger]

Great pictures RB.
Eric, although I worked mostly as a car knocker, I think I would have liked working on the section gangs better. There was more travel and freedom I think.
Speaking of gangs, heres a picture of some workers clearing timber for the railway North of Skagway around 1900.
I don't think there were many safety rules or job security in those days.
Also, heres a movie of the Doppstadt chipper.
John

mov02355.mpg

 

[eric_271]

John I shouldent complain about the tools-saws we had when I started compared to the tools those guys are using in the pic. There were a number of guys I worked with that just had one eye. Can you guess why? A few had rail roll down the road bed on to their legs. Most of them ended up with new cars and houses. I liked the section gangs as long as they werent more then 80 or 90 miles from home. That way I could round trip it every day. Only thing bad about the section gangs was no expenses. Shortly after I left the railroad they opened the whole system up so if you was on an extra gang you could be sent any where in the U.S. and couldent get off the gang for at least 3 months. Im glad I missed out on that. And we dident have pretty country like the guys in the pic to work in. I seen a lot of crazy things and some stories I cant repeat here.