Frog and Fishplate
The Reading Terminal
“George Frederick Baer got a cyclopaedia entry that counted his five daughters.”
About the Book
The section foreman on the Philadelphia & Reading walked his miles with a gauge bar and a gang behind him. Every president’s train ran on his work. Of all the men who held that job, not one name, birth, death or wife has turned up in any source I could reach.
The presidents did a little better. A little. George Frederick Baer got a cyclopaedia entry that counted his five daughters. Moncure Robinson got a professional life written without his leave, and when it was reprinted, one copy could be found. In Chicago.
The foreman got squat. Except the words. Frog. Fishplate. Points. Ballast, which once meant the useless weight in a ship’s hold and is still exactly that: dead weight doing structural work. He handed them to whoever came next, and some of them got loose. If you have ever been sidetracked, or caught asleep at the switch, or given something a highball without wondering what ball was being raised, or where, or why, you have been talking like him.
Rail came in thirty-nine-foot lengths because that fit inside a forty-foot gondola. A fishplate bridged every joint, and the gap at every joint made the sound. Continuous welded rail took it away in the 1950s. Everyone born before 1960 knows that sound. Nobody born after 1990 has ever heard it.
The foreman heard it every day.
Other Books in A Field Guide to Vanished Trades
- Book I Horn & Hardart
- Book II Franklin Sugar
- Book III The Philadelphia Coopers
- Book IV Whitall Tatum
- Book V The Brewers of Brewerytown
- Book VI Whitman's Chocolates
- Book VII The Philadelphia Cigar Trade
- Book VIII The Philadelphia Apothecary
- Book IX Wanamaker's
- Book X Victor Talking Machine
- Book XI The Philadelphia Type Founders
- Book XII Curtis Publishing
- Book XIII Lippincott's Bindery
- Book XIV The Cunningham Piano Works
- Book XV The Wanamaker Organ
- Book XVI The Baldwin Locomotive Works
- Book XVII Fitler's Cordage
- Book XVIII The Delaware Sailmakers
- Book XIX Neafie & Levy
- Book XX Cramp's Shipyard
- Book XXI The Carriage Builders
- Book XXII The Brill Car Works
- Book XXIII Autocar of Ardmore
- Book XXV The Stetson Hat Company
- Book XXVI Dobson Mills
- Book XXVII Jacquard Looms in Kensington
- Book XXVIII The Kensington Knitters
- Book XXIX Globe Dye Works
- Book XXX The Morocco Tanneries
- Book XXXI The City Hall Stone Trades
- Book XXXII The Philadelphia Brickyards
- Book XXXIII Samuel Yellin's Forge
- Book XXXIV The Stained Glass Studios
- Book XXXV Harrison Brothers
- Book XXXVI The Fairmount Water Works
- Book XXXVII The Philadelphia Gas Works
- Book XXXVIII The Point Breeze Refinery
- Book XXXIX The Disston Saw Works
- Book XL Midvale Steel
- Book XLI William Sellers & Company
- Book XLII The Instrument Makers
- Book XLIII Queen & Company
- Book XLIV The S.S. White Dental Works