For a century and a half American railroad workers have created folklore--songs, stories, styles--to cloak their lives. These on-the-job expressions by hoggers, snakes, and tallowpots as well as by baggage smashers, brass pounders, and car knockers were natural extensions of work, much like greasy overalls or telegrapher's green eyeshades. In the most direct sense, a spikedriver's chant or a fireman's elegy to his dead engineer was a verbal or musical form which helped members of a distinct occupational group define their social and economic roles.

Rail craftsmen see locomotives, cabooses, roundhouses, or track-sections as other mechanics view their personal work sites. Simply stated, one earns a living at the throttle or on the section. All human work is decorated by some artistic embroidery and railroading is richer than most kinds of work in this decoration.

Had rail lore remained the esoteric possession of only a special work force, it would have resembled the hidden culture of ironworkers or shipwrights--known chiefly within tight vocational bounds.