Riding on abandoned railroads

Musical traditions and recollections of African American railroad track laborers (AKA gandy dancers) whose occupational folk songs were once heard on railroads across the country. Gandy dancer is a term used for early railroad workers who laid and maintained railroad tracks. Replacing ties by hand was back-breaking work and required synchronized movements. Work songs were used to coordinate the manual labor-- and maintain morale among workers. The work was extremely difficult and the pay was low