Where did the term originate? How did it start? It’s what they used to call MOW workers ITGOD, especially but not exclusive to those who tamped ballast.
BTW, the term did not come from “The Gandy Co.” or “The Gandy Tool Co.” in Chicago, which allegedly made trackwork tools including ballast tampers. That is an urban legend. No one has ever been able to document any company operating under this name in Chicago, whether it made railroad tools or not.
Pop Z
The History Channel did a program on this a few years ago, I think under the “Trains Unlimited” series. They actually had footage of the trackworkers realigning track with their coordinated “dance.” Because one man pushing with a pole couldn’t move the track by himself, the whole crew had to shove in unison. The lyrical chants they did helped coordinate the movement. This is at least were the “dancer” part came from. I’ll have to see if I taped this episode and if it explains where the “gandy” part came from.
I did a Google search for the term, and got a Wikipedia site. According to this site, there are two theories, exclusive of the so called Gandy Mfg Co of Chicago which may have never existed. One says that the tool used, probably a pry bar, was called by the slang term GANDY and the coodinated use of this tool was akin to a dance. The second possibility was that the coordinated pushing in unison reminded some people of the bobbing heads of a gaggle of geese, with the term coming from a corruption of GANDER. It is, of course, entirely possible that either or both of these are wide of the mark.
The B&O Railroad museum has a ‘Gandy Dancer’ program. Once a day they call all interested patrons over to there ‘pump car’ and explain all of the tools that the track crews had to use. The best part of the program is that they allow you to take the car for a spin down the track. One of the possible explainations for the name was that ‘Gandy’ was the name of a foreman of a track crew. But they are not sure. It was more of a guess.
Rich
Most legends usually have at least a grain of truth. I’d be really tempted to go along with the corruption of gander to “gandy.” The dance part seems very reasonable.
I’ve heard that “Gandy” is a corruption of “handy” as in handcar, the transportation device these guys often used to go out and work on remote sections of track, so the pre-colloquialized term would have been “handy dancer”, what the operator had to do to make the car move.
I, for one, believe this explanation to be a fabrication, because the real Gandy was Maurice Gandy, founder of the Gandy Belt Manufacturing company, Wallasey, England.
Founded in 1873, became a limited company in 1901, operating as Gandy Belt Manufacturing Co. LTD until 1946 , when it became known as “Gandy LTD”.
Gandy was the premier manufacturer of heavy duty conveyor belts in the late 19th century, their products incorporated an innovative method of coupling the ends of the belt together to form a continuous loop, that held together much better than it’s competitors.
Conveyor machines featuring Gandy’s belt were often refered to generically as “Gandys”, and were often employed to place ballast.
A worker would customarily ride out on the end of the conveyor boom, to assist in spreading the ballast, and when forced to walk the conveyor system like a treadmill, picked up the diminutive description of “Gandy dancer”
(bows graciously)
Actually, more research about “gandy dancers”:
The term originates from the mid to late 19th century, which pre-dates by decades any mechanized ballast-spreading or tamping machines. I also could not find any reference to ballast machines with conveyor belts being used or manufactured in that era, so if you have documentation, please post it. Ballast was first laid by hand with shovels, or draft horses hauling pans, then later was added or replaced with ballast hoppers.
So it was hand laborers on section crews who used specialized hand tools known as gandys (of unknown etymology) to lever rail tracks into position. The “gandy tool” was a rod about 5 feet long with a cross bar near the bottom. Using the tool required placing one foot on the bar and hopping around on the roadbed [like a pogo stick], hence “gandy dancing.”
Though rail tracks were held in place by wooden ties and the mass of the ballast beneath them, each pass of a train around a corner would, through centrifugal force and vibration, produce a tiny shift in the tracks. If allowed to accumulate, such shifts could eventually cause a derailment; work crews had to pry them back into place routinely.
For each stroke, a worker would lift his gandy and force it into the ballast to create a fulcrum, then throw himself sideways using the gandy to check his full weight, making a “ugh” sound – so the gandy tool would push the rail toward the inside of the curve. Even with all impacts from the work crew timed correctly, any progress made in shifting the track would not become visible until a large number of repetitions.
Rhythm was necessary for this process, both to synchronize the manual labor, and to maintain the morale of workers whose exertions produced only a minuscule effect; hence “gandy dancers”. The songs sung in this occupation have been recognized as a major influence on later blues music.
The same ground crews also performed the oth
without relying upon heresay or the speculation of others, produce your proof that there never was a Gandy Tool company then. [V]
Oddly, snopes claims there was. [8]
Saw the program on this some time ago…Apparently there is a group of men who have kept this style of working in unison alive. The group was mentioned but it has been too long ago…The action show was this group aligning track down South someplace by moving it with long pry bars while keeping the activity coordinated with a song. as I recall, it was pretty impressive…
Maybe Mudchicken can add to this???
Did a few searches. The Gandy outfit is variously referred to as the Gandy Tool Company, the Gandy Shovel Company, and the Gandy Manufacturing Company. That so many names have been put forward indicates to me that it’s possible the company name so often cited may actually be the result of the term “gandy dancer”, as opposed to the term coming from the company name.
This may be an area where we have to agree to disagree - that’s pretty much what everyone else has done.
Here’s some other quotes from the web (cut and pasted, along with their links):
http://www.word-detective.com/090699.html
Strictly speaking, the origin of “gandy dancer” is unknown. Some authorities trace it to a certain Gandy Manufacturing Company of , which supposedly made tools used by track workers. According to this theory, the “Gandy” tool used to tamp down gravel in the track bed was a rod about five feet long with a projecting bar near the bottom, like on a stilt. Using the tool required placing one foot on the bar and hopping around in the track bed, a routine known, logically, as “gandy dancing.”
Unfortunately, the “Gandy Company” theory of “gandy dancing” runs aground on a simple lack of evidence. No researcher has yet been able to find definitive evidence, even in business directories of the period, that any such company ever existed. So that “dancing” theory may be true, but it has yet to be proven.
If anyone would like to see a short movie clip of gandydancers in action, here’s a link.
gandydancers
It’s the third one down, titled Railroad Gandydancers, from April 18, 1929.
I saw the same program as well ,I believe they were in Georgia or Albama on a short line …[2c] Danny
OK. Right after you prove without relying upon heresay or the speculation of others that railroads in this country had and used ballast machines with Gandy conveyor belts in the 1860s, when the term came into use. Even though the Gandy company – according to your “source” – didn’t get started until a few years later.
Proving something existed should be easy than proving something didn’t exist.
Of all of the sites I looked at, the largest majority that mentioned the company looked like cut and pastes of each other. None provided any information about the Gandy [Shovel, Tool, Manufacturing] Company, other than to say it was in Chicago, and it would appear that several people have gone looking for the company and have come up empty handed.
I still tend to think that the mythical “company” came into “being” as a result of the tools, as opposed to the other way around.
From snopes.com:
“According to Charles Albi, director of the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, “Gandydancer” most likely comes from the Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago. They made many of the tools track workers used to lay rails.”
At least snopes credits a source, which guarantees nothing other than someone else provided the information and therefore snopes is abdicating blame in case of error.
I suggest someone who thinks it’s important – not me – ask Mr. Albi where he got his info. I’ll bet he read it on one of the cut-and-paste sites tree68 pointed out, as this version of the fairy tale has been repeated often enough to where it has morphed into a belief.
Although I have heard Gandy Mfg. still exists in a secret location in a Chicago suburb, and Elvis works there driving a lift truck. Thankyouverymuch.
Pop Z
I remember Chares Kuralt doing a show on Gandy Dancers on his On the Road series. He mentioned that the name originated from use of a tool,specifically a pry bar, manufactured by the"Gandy Tool Company.
Very interesting, I always thought it came from Gandy Mfg. Co too but never bothered to verify if that even existed. My great-grandfather came from Ireland and became a gandy dancer helping to build the Frisco through MO. Many of the other theories presented above sound logical like the name for the tool and the steps used in the work that could look like a dance. Whatever the origin, I like the name. I did get to pump a handcar this summer at Huntington WV museum and that was not easy, it was just a short run and I can’t imagine doing it for a long stretch. But from what I hear my great-grandpa was a tall man and strong, he had to be to do that type of work. Mom never knew him, he died when she was a baby but she knew her grandma and heard stories from her dad and uncles too-they all became Frisco conductors.
On a bit of a tangent (not RR definition of tangent), when I was a kid, I mentioned to my father that track workers were called gandy dancers, and he said that in Honduras they called them gusucos. (goo SOO co), and I’m not sure of the spelling. Gusuco is the local term for armadillos. Armadillos are constantly digging in the dirt.
I have (somewhere) an old book (late 1800’s publication date) that has a ‘woodcut’ drawing of a man standing on the end of a long pry bar to hold a tie up against the rail while other workers pound spikes in. The caption was something like:
“Gandy Dancer… the man is exerting the maximum weight he can on the end of the Gandy Mfg pry bar by balancing on it on one foot. The gyrations he goes through to balance there is akin to a dance, hence the term Gandy Dancer.”
So if it is a misnomer or some other legend of unknown origin, it is an OLD term.
Just to explain further… the tie must be held against the rail while the spikes are being driven, because one tie could be pushed down in the ballast by the spikes being driven in and the rail is held up by the adjacent ties on ballast. The spikes might never seat properly to hold the tie and rail together. Modern equipment does the same thing today with hydrolic clamps that grip the tie to hold it up against the rail (with tie plate between) while driving the spikes.
Sources I’ve found claim that the earliest printed use of the term was around 1918. Your source would be of interest
Here’s another reference to the same period
And, copied from Wikipedia; "
Michael Quinion identified the first known (printed) use of the term gandy dancer as 1918,[18] but with so little understanding of the origin of the term it is impossible to know when it came into being. An article in the May 1918 edition of the weekly publication The Outlook (New York) asks the question, “What is a “gandy dancer”?” Using the exact words from the publication:
What is a “gandy dancer”? The words were on a blackboard outside a store on the Bowery. In old times they might have suggested the proximity of a cheap dance house. But the Bowery has changed. Within the space of a few blocks there are now more than a score of “labor bureaus” where formerly were low dives and “suicide halls”. Inquiry of an Italian employee of the bureau elicited the information that a “gandy dancer” is a railway worker who tamps down the earth between the ties, or otherwise “dances” on the track.