Railroad shopmen were employees of railroad companies charged with the construction, repair, and maintenance of the company's rolling stock. At the turn of the 20th century, approximately one fifth of railroad employees worked as shopmen, a broad group that came to include machinists, carpenters, boilermakers, electricians, sheet metal workers, and other related trades.
Beginning in the late 1820s, the technology of steam locomotion began to emerge as a commercially viable means of transportation in Europe and North America. The laying of train track and the production of locomotive engines, coaches, railroad cars, and other rolling stock became a major growth industry, attracting financial investors and entrepreneurs intent upon establishing lucrative railways for the transport of raw materials, finished goods, and passengers from place to place. The production and maintenance of this railway rolling stock became a major portion of business operations of these emerging transportation firms and dedicated employees collectively known as "railroad shopmen" were hired for the performance of these tasks.
The network of railways grew rapidly during the second half of the 19th century. By 1880 there were approximately 400,000 people (almost exclusively male) employed in the railroad industry of the United States: about 1 worker out of every 40.[1] While the largest part of them were involved in the construction and maintenance of roadbeds and rails, the second-largest group was the shopmen charged with the construction and service of rolling stock.[2] Approximately 20% of railroad employees then worked as shopmen, according to the investigation of one leading scholar.[2]
The railroads continued to grow dramatically through the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1917 in the United States the American government took control of rail transport, in conjunction with its entrance as a combatant in World War I. By then, the American rail network had grown to 360,000 miles of track, worked by 66,000 locomotives pulling approximately 2.5 million freight cars.[3] Railroad employment grew commensurately; by 1920 more than 2.2 million Americans were employed in the railroad industry with the count of railroad shopmen alone topping the 400,000 mark.[4] More Americans worked as railroad shopmen than were employed as steelworkers and meatpackers combined.[4]
By 1920, railroad repair was one of the leading industrial sectors in the United States, with more than 1750 shops generating in excess of $700 million in value-addedm an output that ranked third among the country's manufacturing industries.[4]
Labor process
A variety of different craftspeople were needed for locomotive and car maintenance, including machinists and blacksmiths to fabricate and sustain metal parts, carpenters to produce and repair wooden interiors, and others.[5] The stability of this employment seems to have varied in accordance with individual skill, with the employment of highly skilled mechanics relatively permanent, while less skilled shop hands and apprentices were put to work on a more transient basis.[6]
A situation of uneasiness and distrust existed on some railway lines between the centralized management of the company and the employees at the various local shops. The theft of brass and copper was perceived by some lines as common; others saw periodic scandals in which company workers worked on their own personal projects on company time and with company raw materials or in which local foremen absconded with company lumber and labor to improve their own homes.[7]
Jon R. Huibregtse, American Railroad Labor and the Genesis of the New Deal, 1919-1935. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2010.
Related Research Articles
Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in what became the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia, in New France in 1720. In 1762–1764, at the close of the French and Indian War (1756–1763), a gravity railroad, Montresor's Tramway, was built by British military engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage in Lewiston, New York.
The Transportation Communications Union (TCU) is the successor to the union formerly known as the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and includes within it many other organizations, including the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, that have merged with it since 1969.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, or the Railway Shopmen's Strike, was a nationwide strike of railroad workers in the United States. Launched on July 1, 1922 by seven of the sixteen extant railroad labor organizations, the strike continued into August before collapsing. A sweeping judicial injunction by Judge James Herbert Wilkerson effectively ended the strike on September 1, 1922.
Vossloh AG is a rail technology company based in Werdohl in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The SDAX-listed group has achieved sales of around €930 million in 2016 and, as of 2017, had more than 4,000 employees.
Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986.
The East Broad Top Railroad (EBT) is a 3 ft narrow gauge historic and heritage railroad headquartered in Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania. Operating from 1871 to 1956, it is one of the United States' oldest and best-preserved narrow-gauge railroads, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. The railroad is now preserved for use as a tourist attraction until operations ceased in 2011. After a nine-year closure, in February 2020 it was announced that the railroad had been purchased by a non-profit foundation and regular train service resumed in the summer of 2021.
The Richmond and Petersburg Railroad moved passengers and goods between Richmond and Petersburg from 1838 to 1898. It survived the American Civil War and eventually merged into the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1900.
Altoona Works is a large railroad industrial complex in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It was built between 1850 and 1925 by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), to supply the railroad with locomotives, railroad cars and related equipment. For many years, it was the largest railroad shop complex in the world.
The Cardiff Locomotive Workshops is a rail yard and rolling stock facility located between Cockle Creek and Cardiff stations near Newcastle, on the Main North railway line in New South Wales, Australia.
Pesa SA is a Polish rolling stock manufacturer based in Bydgoszcz. The name 'Pesa' derives from the initials PS which stand for Pojazdy Szynowe, 'railway vehicles' in Polish. Pesa is a successor to the Bydgoszcz repair shops of PKP Polskie Koleje Państwowe, Polish State Railways. From the 1950s until 1998 the repair shops operated under the name ZNTK Bydgoszcz, Zakłady Naprawcze Taboru Kolejowego, 'Repair Shop for Railway Rolling Stock' in Bydgoszcz.
The Railroad Labor Board (RLB) was an institution established in the United States of America by the Transportation Act of 1920. This nine-member panel was designed as means of settling wage disputes between railway companies and their employees. The Board's approval of wage reductions for railroad shopmen was instrumental in triggering the Great Railroad Strike of 1922. The Board was terminated on May 20, 1926 when President Calvin Coolidge signed a new Railway Labor Act into law.
The railroad brotherhoods are labor unions of railroad workers in the United States. They first appeared in 1863 and they are still active. Until recent years they were largely independent of each other and of the American Federation of Labor.
The Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America, commonly known as the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen (BRC), was a fraternal benefit society and trade union established in the United States of America. The BRC united railroad employees involved in the repair and inspection of railroad cars to advance their common interests in the realm of hours of work, wages, and working conditions.
The Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association of North America (SMAA) was a 19th-century fraternal benefit society and trade union in the United States of America. Its members included the operators of railway track switches and those who coupled train cars in railway yards. Organized in 1886, the union came to its demise in July 1894 with rise of the American Railway Union and the smashing defeat it was delivered in the 1894 Pullman Strike. The organization was succeeded in October 1894 with the establishment of the Switchmen's Union of North America.
The Burlington railroad strike of 1888 was a failed union strike which pitted the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association (SMAA) against the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) its extensive trackage in the Midwestern United States. It was led by the skilled engineers and firemen, who demanded higher wages, seniority rights, and grievance procedures. It was fought bitterly by management, which rejected the very notion of collective bargaining. There was much less violence than the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, but after 10 months the very expensive company operation to permanently replace all the strikers was successful and the strike was a total defeat for them.
The 1877 St. Louis general strike was one of the first general strikes in the United States. It grew out of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The strike was largely organized by the Knights of Labor and the Marxist-leaning Workingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era.
The Queensland Museum Rail Workshops is a railway museum in Ipswich, Queensland, located within the former North Ipswich Railway Workshops and tells the story of more than 150 years of railways in Queensland. Exhibits are spread out across a number of the complex's original buildings housing a collection of historic steam and diesel locomotives and other rolling stock that operated on Queensland Railways, as well as general interest exhibits and ones tailored specifically for children.
The Illinois Central shopmen's strike of 1911 was a labor action in the United States of a number of railroad workers unions against the Illinois Central Railroad, beginning on September 30, 1911. The strike was marked by its violence in numerous locations. At least 12 men were killed in shootings across the country, and in March 1912, some 30 men were killed when a locomotive boiler exploded in San Antonio, Texas.
The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART) is a North American labor union headquartered in Washington, DC, which was chartered by the AFL–CIO in 2013. The product of a merger between the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association (SMWIA) and the United Transportation Union (UTU), SMART represents over 210,000 sheet metal workers, service technicians, bus operators, engineers, conductors, sign workers, welders, and production employees, among others, throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. The Transportation Division represents employees on Class I railroad, Amtrak, and regional and short line railroads; bus and mass transit employees on some 45 transit systems; and airline pilots, flight attendants, dispatchers and other airport personnel. The Division's 500 local unions organize conductors, brakemen, switch men, ground service personnel, locomotive engineers, hostlers, and railroad yard masters, as well as bus drivers and mechanics.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
