Section House
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 32° 36.949 W 116° 28.271
11S E 549613 N 3608821
This historical sign is located in front of the historical Section House at the Pacific Southwestern Railway Museum.
Waymark Code: WMJ73W
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 10/04/2013
Views: 2
Section House
This section house was used by the railway to house the men of the railroad section gang. The SD&A Railway had section houses about every 10 to 15 miles. Each room housed several men, with the plumbing outside. Electricity was added when it became available in Campo. The section gang included common workers called gandy dancers who are responsible for maintenance of a particular section of railway. Before machines, the "dancing" movements of the workers were usually performed to a song using a specially manufactured 5-foot "lining" bar (called a "gandy") as a lever to keep the tracks in alignment. The song allowed each man to push on the gandy bar at the same time to align the track.
Rail tracks are held in place by wooden ties and the mass of the decomposed granite beneath and around them. Work crews had to pry them back into place routinely. For each stroke, a worker would lift his lining bar and force it into the ballast to create a fulcrum, then throw himself forward using the bar to check his full weight (making the "huh" sound in the song) so the bar would push the rail. Even with repeated impacts from the work crew of eight, ten, or more, any prigress made in shifting the track would not become visible until after a large number of repetitions. When leveling the track, men jacked up the track at its low spots and pushed ballast under the raised ties with square-ended picks, often leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in pairs. As Maintenance of way workers, gandy dancers used special sledge hammers called spike mauls to drive spikes, shovels or ballast forks to move track ballast, large clamps called "rail dogs" to carry rails, and ballast tamper bars or picks to adjust the ballast. The same ground crews also performed the other aspects of track maintenance, such as removing weeds, unloading ties and rails, and replacing worn rails and rotten ties. The work was extremely difficult and pay was low, but it was one of the only jobs available for men and newly arriving immigrants at that time.