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Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early railroad workers in the United States, more formally referred to as section hands, who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines. The British equivalents of the term gandy dancer are navvy (from navigator ), originally builders of canals, or inland ...
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Jun 6, 2023 · By: Adam Burns. The gandy dancer term has blossomed into folklore over the years, celebrated in several songs, books, and other mainstream mediums. Despite its near mythical status it described a once very common job on the railroad, hard labor. During the era before mechanized maintenance, railroads employed armies of workers to keep their ...
Oct 17, 2023 · Gandy Dancers “Gandy dancers” was a nickname for railroad section gangs in the days before modern mechanized track upkeep. The men were called dancers for their synchronized movements when repairing track under the direction of a lead workman known as the “caller” or “call man.”. The name “gandy” supposedly arose from a belief ...
The crews became known as the Gandy Dancers because when they all began pulling the lining bars together while singing, they also looked to be dancing in sync. Eventually replaced by machines, MSE had one of the last crews of Gandy Dancers in American History. Watch Charles Kuralt’s 1970s “On the Road" segment featuring the MSE team. #MSE100
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- Mississippi Export Railroad
