Search results
Jun 6, 2023 · There are other sources which state the workers themselves came up with "gandy dancer. However, historians have widely felt the term "gandy" was in reference to a tool manufacturing company that is believed to have been based in Chicago.
But most researchers have identified a "Gandy Shovel Company" or, variously, "Gandy Manufacturing Company" or "Gandy Tool Company" reputed to have existed in Chicago as the source of the tools from which gandy dancers took their name. [5]
People also ask
Where did Gandy tools come from?
What was the Gandy Shovel Company known for?
How did gandy dancers get their name?
What is a gandy gang?
Oct 17, 2023 · The name “gandy” supposedly arose from a belief that their hand tools once came from the Gandy tool company in Chicago (though no researcher has ever turned up such a company that made railroad tools). The name may also have derived from “gander” because the flat-footed steps of the workmen when lining track resembled the way that geese walk.
Railroad maintenance crews were nicknamed "gandy dancers" for their synchronized movements during track repair. The term "gandy" may have originated with the company that made the workers' tools, or with the stylized steps, resembling a goose or duck, they took while repairing the railway tracks.
Jan 22, 2018 · First of all, they were all Irish. Second, they had to fight Indians every step of the way while laying track. Third, they ate and drank themselves to death on meat and potatoes and rotgut whisky instead of eating vegetables and seafood like the Chinese. Fourth, they spent the last of their money in whorehouses.
There are various theories about the derivation of the term, but most refer to the "dancing" movements of the workers using a specially manufactured 5-foot (1.52 m) "lining" bar, which came to be called a "gandy", as a lever to keep the tracks in alignment. [1]
Some writers have suggested that gandy may be a corrupted form of gander, from the nodding heads of the workers using the tool, implying that the tool was named after the gandy dancer who used it. But this is no more than guesswork, I’m afraid. Some recently unearthed earlier examples have taken the term back a few years but in a different ...
