Sam is the fireman on a big freight locomotive. Like lots of people who
work on trains, Sam belongs to a family of railroaders. His father was a
locomotive engineer. His grandfather was one, too. And, long ago,
grandmother was an “op.” That means she operated the fast-clicking
telegraph key in a railroad station. Her telegraph messages helped to
keep the trains running safely and on time.
When Sam was a little boy, he listened to his father and grandfather
talking railroad talk. They used all kinds of words that ordinary people
didn’t understand. They had wonderful nicknames for each other, and
slang words for many of the things they did.
For instance, grandfather called his big locomotive a hog. Since he ran
it, he was the hogger. After every trip, he brought his engine to the
roundhouse, where men cleaned it and fixed it all up. Pig-pen was one
nickname for the roundhouse. Can you figure out why? Another nickname
was barn, because people often called a locomotive an Iron Horse. The
barn had stalls for the engines. A modern roundhouse does, too.
The lumps of coal that grandfather’s engine burned were called black
diamonds. Fireman was the regular name for the man who shoveled coal,
cleaned out the ashes and helped to grease the wheels with tallow fat.
But the fireman also had a whole string of nicknames--diamond pusher,
ashcat, bakehead and tallow pot. He called his shovel his banjo.
Once an old-fashioned train began rolling, it was hard to stop it. A man
had to run from car to car, putting the brakes on by hand. Naturally, he
was the brakeman, but his friends called him the shack.
In the days before electric lights, railroads needed signals just as
they do now. The first ones were large balls that hung from a tall post.
A black ball hanging halfway to the top of the post meant STOP. A white
ball hanging high in the air meant CLEAR TRACK.