Historical Essay

The Last Spikes Everlasting Steam Last Spike Site Reading List Essay	THE LANGUAGE OF THE RAILS
By Susan Conrad Park Ranger Have you ever started to say something and lost your train of thought? Are there some days that you have trouble staying on track? These expressions are so commonly used in our every day language that you may not have stopped to consider where they came from. The railroad had an enormous impact on the development of the United States. When the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, transportation and commerce seemed to change overnight. A trip across the country that at one time had taken up to six months could now be completed in a little over a week. Goods and services that could only be sold locally could now be shipped all across the country. When the locomotives, and the trains that they pulled, steamed into the American way of life, a new culture was born. People began to talk about trains, sing about trains and live by the schedule of the trains. Before the railroads began to join the country together, most everything was done on a local basis. We had no standardized time in the United States. Towns and counties had their own time and it could be very different within a few miles. When the last spike was driven at Promontory Summit, it was recorded as being at different hours and even minutes across the country. Trains needed to run on schedules and the schedules needed to be coordinated across the country. The railroad officials pushed to create the time zones that we use today. The change did not come easily. People worried that changing time would create disastrous results. Many felt that it was unnatural to tinker with time. Farmers thought that their hens might stop laying eggs or that the cows would go dry. On the day that the time standardization was to take place, people gathered all over the country just before noon to watch the clocks on court houses and city buildings change. They panicked over the idea much the same as people of today worried about the concept of "Y2K". And just as today, life went on without any major disturbances. Our system of scheduling time was created to meet the needs of the railroad and a new way of life in America. Almost everything we do today is on a schedule and you can thank the railroads for bringing that idea into our lives. The telegraph was built across the country right along with the railroad and communications from town to town and shore to shore became a possibility. We started to talk about getting our "wires crossed" when the "system" was down. Of course the system being down might be the result of a telegraph pole being knocked down by a buffalo! With communications opening up, Americans went "on line" for the first time and so began the technology that we enjoy today. Today's computers were originally programmed based on the same code that the Morse code of the telegraph first sent across the wires. As the railroads became an integral part of American life, we began to use expressions that came directly from the trains. Trains were exciting and romantic and powerful and our language began to reflect the influence they had. Here are some examples of these expressions and their interesting origins: Bells and Whistles - the locomotives needed to signal their movements. Whistle signals let people know what the trains were going to do and the bells served as a warning and a greeting. When people were going to do something in a big way, they did it with bells and whistles, just like the trains did. One-track mind, side tracked, right track, off track - we use these expressions all the time to indicate a state of mind. The trains obviously used the tracks to function and to be in the right place at the right time. We talk about staying on track or being side tracked as a way to explain where we are or where we are supposed to be. Letting off steam, popping off, blowing smoke, blowing your stack - Steam engines were impressive with their smoke and sound. It became easy to associate the feeling of letting off extra energy and anger with the forceful power behind the steam that blew out of a locomotive's smokestack. Anyone who saw a steam engine in motion could understand the idea of blowing your stack when the pressure got to be too much! As a cultural influence, the trains had a large impact on American music. As soon as we started to ride the trains we started to sing about them. If you have ever hummed "I've Been Working on the Railroad" or "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", you have been part of the musical history of trains. Trains are romantic, fun, and hard working and there are train songs about all of those things. The popularity of these songs still exists today. When we hear that "Lonesome Whistle Blow" or ride the "City of New Orleans", the music strikes a chord in our collective American experience. Trains are no longer our major source of transportation. The "glory" days of the locomotives have come and gone, but as a testimony to the impact they had on our way of life, we still talk about them in our expressions and in doing so we pay tribute to the language of the rails.