In 1986 , after Dad had retired from the CPR , my family made a long trip west to visit me in Regina , Saskatchewan . One of the places we brought the family was to the Moose Jaw Transportation Museum . It served as a reminder for Dad of how he had started . The tools of the job were the same for railway building and maintenance all over the world . Most of those tools are still used these days for the job .
The car house that housed the motor car that replaced the handcar (velocipede) in the late 50's/early 60's also held the tools needed for the job .
Pick, shovel, claw bar,tamping bar, lining bar, sledge hammer, tie tongs, ballast fork, straight wrench, switch broom, spikes, bolts. tie plates, water jug and coal oil were necessary tools of section work .
A good description of some of the hard work of a section man can be found in Wikipedia : Gandy dancer
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