The Tie Gang: Hot Task for Some Modern John Henrys

They move along at a snail’s pace, a mile a day under the scorching desert sun.

Rugged railroad men.

The tie gang.

Thirty-one railroad workers maintaining Santa Fe’s tracks in the middle of Southern California’s vast Mojave Desert--the middle of nowhere--100 miles southwest of Needles, the nearest town of any size.

Replacing old, worn, spent, split, busted, weathered, rotted railroad ties on the hot desert floor, ties resting on a mesh rock bed, 30 to 60 years supporting steel rails.

The 8-foot-long, 7-inch-deep, 9-inch-wide hardwood ties have supported the weight of thousands of iron monsters creeping across the desert carrying America’s cargo, year in, year out.

Muscle and Brawn

John Henrys in the middle of the Mojave, in their day, replaced ties by hand, with sweat, shovel, sledgehammer, pick, muscle and brawn during the Great Depression and before.

In the old days, a tie gang was 140 men, each replacing eight ties a day.

Now, Santa Fe track foreman Kent Ewing, 34, and his crew of 30 operate bright yellow machines mounted and moving on the rails. Machines manned by the men of the tie gang pull out an average of 1,080 old ties and insert a like number of new ties along each mile of track stretching through the desert wilderness.

That’s 36 ties a day per man--4 1/2 times as many as they did with hammer, pick and shovel.

Mounted on work cars are spike removers, spike washers, rail lifters, tie pushers and claw-like tie handlers that lift ties into the air and drop them alongside the tracks.

There are tie inserters, tie spacers and spike-setting machines.

Since Jan. 24, the tie gang has been busy inching its way across 83 miles of open desert, putting in new ties from Cadiz (pronounced Kay-deez), Calif., to Parker, Ariz., on the Colorado River. The project is scheduled for completion today, and the men will have replaced 101,000 ties.

McCoy, Chubbuck, Fishel, Milligan, Saltmarsh, Sablon, Freda, Rice, Grommet, Vidal Junction and Earp in the Ship, Old Woman and Turtle mountains are desert towns and railroad places passed through by the tie gang on the single-track line that carries freight trains from Los Angeles to Phoenix.

Only about one-third of the ties are replaced, those that are weathered and worn. Tie crews come through every 10 years, removing ties ready for replacements.

Santa Fe makes its own ties at a cost of $18 each at a plant in Summerville, Tex. Old ties removed from the tracks are sold by Santa Fe, mostly for fence posts and landscape walkways--for $1.75 in the desert, $3.50 in the city.

The track crew lives in old passenger coaches converted into living, sleeping and dining quarters on a siding at Cadiz. They work from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. to avoid the hottest time of the day. Temperatures at this time of the year are often 110 to 115 degrees.

“We go home on weekends. Most of us live in the Riverside-San Bernardino area,” Ewing said. “We think it’s one of the best parts of railroading, working on a track gang.”

‘A Family Deal’

“It’s a good way of life,” insisted David Felix, 31, of Victorville. “Pay is good, $26,000 to $27,000 a year with housing and food allowances. My father did this 33 years. My brother has been doing it 13 years. It is a family deal with us.”

To a man, members of the tie gang said they enjoy working outdoors. They like the good, clean desert air, and they are glad to be away from the noise, traffic and congestion of the city. As for the heat, they said, they’re accustomed to it.