Life in a Railway Factory

by Alfred Williams

The fitters are usually looked upon as the men par excellence of the shed. Like the smiths, they have usually travelled far. Some have visited every part of the kingdom, while others may have served abroad — in America, at the Cape of Good Hope, in China, or Egypt. A few have been artificers in the Navy or in the Mercantile Marine; here is one, for instance, who, by reason of his nautical experiences, has gained the nickname of “Deep Sea Joe.” It will commonly be found that those who have gone furthest from home are not only the best workmen — as having had a more varied and extensive experience — but they are also more broad-minded and sympathetic towards their mates and labourers.

The majority of the fitters are members of Trades Unions, and of all other classes at the works, perhaps, they take the greatest pains to protect themselves and their interests. By contributing to the funds of their organisations they are insured against accidents, strikes, or dismissal, and are thus placed in a position of considerable independence. They are required to serve an apprenticeship of five or seven years’ duration before they are recognised as journeymen and they are, by a common rule, compelled to go further afield in order to obtain the standard rate of wages. Nearly all the foremen of the different sheds are appointed from among the fitters; whatever qualities an outsider may discover he stands but little chance of being preferred for the post.

Before a fitter has been promoted to the position of foreman he is a bold champion of the rights of Labour, one loud in the expression of his sympathy with his fellowmen, a staunch believer in the liberty of the individual and a hearty condemner of the factory system. If he has been appointed overseer, however, there is a considerable change in his manner and attitude towards all these and kindred subjects. A great modification of his personal views and opinions soon follows; he begins to look at things from the official standpoint. He is now fond of telling you that “things are not as they used to be.” Possibly they are not, as far as he himself is concerned, but there is another view of the situation. At the same time, he will be fairly loyal to his old mates, the journeyman fitters, and treat them with superior respect. To the labourers, however, he will not be so well-disposed. He will ignore their interests and rule them with a rod of iron.

I have said that steam-hammer forging is on the decline in the railway town. The chief cause of this is the recent development of the process of manufacturing malleable cast steel, which has largely taken the place of wrought iron forging both in the locomotive and elsewhere. Formerly all wheels were forged in sections and were afterwards welded up, and the work provided constant employment for the steam-hammer men. Now they are obtained elsewhere, more cheaply, it may be, though they are of an inferior quality. Engine-cranks also, which at one time were made exclusively on the premises, are nearly all bought away from the town, and this was a second great loss to the shed. All that remains is the manufacture of the less important details, such as connection rods and levers, with a few special or repair cranks now and then.

The steam-hammer shed has thus been deprived of much of its importance. The big machines, capable of striking a blow equivalent to a hundred or two hundred tons’ pressure, have been removed and put on the scrap-heap, and their places have been filled by other and less powerful plant. The old forgemen, too, with their mates who worked the furnaces, are missing. Of these, some are dead, some have been discharged, while others have been reduced and are scattered about the yard. He who formerly shouted out his orders at the steam-hammer and controlled the mighty mass of iron or steel with the porter, turning it round and round to receive the tremendous blow, is now hobbling about with a shovel and wheel-barrow, cleaning up the refuse of the yard, in receipt of a miserable pittance. Perhaps he is lame as the result of a blow, or he has a withered arm through its having been “jumped up” with the driving back of the porter, or he may have lost an eye. A portion of steel has fled from the hammer rod, or from the “ram,” and struck him in the eye and he is blind as a consequence.

Several years ago there was at the factory a splendid forger, a cool and highly-skilful workman, and one possessed of fine physique. He was tall, square and broad built, full of bone and muscle, solid and strong, and, though of seventeen or eighteen stone in weight, he was very nimble and of unerring judgment. One day he received the offer of a job in the Midlands, at nearly double the wages he was getting in the railway town, and he decided to accept the post. Accordingly he left the shed and took over his new duties. He had not been away long, however, before he met with a serious accident that quite incapacitated him from following his occupation as a forgeman. A careless or unskilful hammer-driver had struck a terrific blow out of time, and the porter-bar, driven out suddenly, forced the forger’s hand and arm violently to the shoulder, completely crippling him. A ruined man, he came back to the town and gained a wretched livelihood by helping to serve the bricklayers and masons with his one arm.

The steam-hammer forger is one of the most skilful and useful, as well as the most interesting of men. He may possibly have learned his trade in the town, or he may hail from Sheffield, Middlesborough, Scotland or Wales. All these places are noted for extensive manufactures in iron and steel and for the efficiency of their workmen, and especially of their forgers and furnacemen. If any forger in the shed is reputed to have come from the Midlands, the North, or the iron region of Wales, he is sure to be considered something of a prodigy. He comes bearing with him a part of the laurels of his township and all eyes will be upon him to see how he acquits himself of the responsibility. Very often, however, he quite fails to fulfil the expectations entertained of him and is easily beaten by the local men. After all, it was but the name; he is no better than many who have learned their trade in the shed. Perhaps he is not even as efficient as they, though he did come from “Ironopolis” and forged very many tons of steel ingots in an incredibly short space of time, though this happened “years ago,” if you chance to press him at all concerning the matter.

The forger is not always a man of big physical proportions. On the contrary, he is more usually of a medium, or even of a diminutive type; you seldom or never find one as stout and heavy as is the average smith. The nature of the toil forbids this. The smith, at his work, is more or less stationary. His forging, moreover, is not so heavy, nor is he exposed to such great heat. The forgeman’s ingot may weigh four or five tons, all blazing hot, with a porter-bar of thirty hundredweight or more attached, and though this will be suspended from the crane and he will have several mates to help him, it will yet require the whole of their powers to remove it from the furnace to the hammer and to turn it over or push it backwards and forwards to receive the ponderous blow. But if the forgeman is inferior to the smith in the matter of stature and bulk, he easily beats him in strength. He is a very lion in this respect. Underneath his thin, shrunken cheeks and skinny arms are sinews almost as tough as steel itself. In the most blinding and deadly heat of the furnace, with three or four tons of dazzling metal exactly in front of him and the sweat pouring out of the hollows of his grimy cheeks and running down his nose and chin to drop in a continual stream on the ground beneath, he still pushes, heaves, and shouts loudly to his mates, and works and slaves quite unconcernedly. He is almost as fresh at the end of the operation as he was at the beginning. Nothing seems to tire him down; he is for ever active and vigorous.

The forgeman often proves to be a rather irritable individual, one sharp and sour to his mates and hasty in his temper. His companions at the hammer — with the exception of the furnaceman — are so many children to him; he orders them here and there with the slightest ceremony and shouts out his orders at the top of his voice. At every command he utters they hasten to obey, fearing his testiness, and when he roars out at them they shake in their boots. Perhaps they are slow in handing him a tool, or they have applied the wrong gauge, or the hammer-driver has struck too hard a blow. Whatever it is, the forgeman’s wrath is aroused and they must suffer for it. In his anger he calls them many names that could not be styled complimentary and withers them with looks. Then, whatever kind of blow the hammerman strikes, it will be wrong. If it is light, he wanted it heavy; if heavy, he required it light — the mere suggestion of a blow. He will often, in the same breath, roar out at the top of his voice — “Hit ’im! Hit ’im! Light! LIGHT! LIGHT!” and will immediately explode with passion because his order was not acted upon to the letter. By and by the exasperated hammer-driver will venture to reply to his autocratic mate, and a smart battle of words ensues, in which the forgeman, however, usually comes off best. The old furnaceman, greyheaded, or totally bald with the heat, will fire away with his coals and wink at the gaugeman now and then, but never a word will he utter. He knows his mate thoroughly, and understands his temper perfectly. Accordingly, he hears all and says nothing; it makes but little difference to him which way the forging goes as long as he has performed his heat properly. Perhaps, after this, things may run a little more smoothly for a time, or matters may even become worse. I have known mates to work at the same hammer and not speak to each other for a year, not even to give the necessary instructions as to carrying out the forging.

Though there could be no excuse for this foolish exhibition of ill-nature, many apologies may yet be made for the nervous and irritable forgeman. In the first place, his work is enormously hard and exacting; and in the second, there is a great responsibility resting upon him which is not shared by his workmates. The value of the forging in his hands is often considerable, and the least error on the part of his furnaceman or hammer-driver might completely spoil it. If the metal should be in the slightest degree overheated it would burst all to pieces at the first blow of the hammer, and if the hammer-driver should happen to strike a heavy blow at a critical moment, he might spoil the piece in that way, or otherwise necessitate a considerable amount of labour to get it into shape again. All this is a matter of serious care to the forgeman, and as his mates are very often raw hands or careless, dull-headed fellows, it is not to be wondered at that he should now and then discover some perverseness of temper.