Upon the 20th of April we did
this work. It had been our plan to do it somewhat earlier, but floods
prevented.
Most of the rail was old chair iron, short, and consequently more time
was used in making the change than would have been required had our
work been on fishplate rail. Our sections here were about eight miles
long, and we arranged our men on the basis blocked out by the
committee, viz., 24 to 26 men to the section, consisting of 6 spike
pullers, 4 throwing rails, 12 spikers, 2 to push the cars and carry
water.
We soon found 5 ft. cars useless, and threw them into the ditch to be
picked up at some future time.
The men were spread out so as not to be in each other's way, and when
the organization was understood and conformed to, it worked well. One
gang changed 5 miles in 5 hours and 10 minutes, including a number of
switches. We found, however, and it was demonstrated still more
strongly on later work, that after 5 or 6 miles the men began to lag.
We believed we had the best results when we had sections of about that
length.
It was arranged that two sections, alternately, commenced work
together at one point, working from each other and continuing until
the force of another section was met, working from the opposite
direction.
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