What Was the Job of a Railroad Brakeman Like?
The jobs of the freight-train brakeman were very hard, especially in the bitter cold of winter, with the freezing snow, rain, wind, sleet or hail hitting them in the face as the train was going at its fast pace. On top of the train, the brakeman would stand and wait for the engineer to blow his whistle. There would usually be two or more brakemen aboard. When the whistle would be blow, the men would have to run back to their brake handle and twist it until the train started to slow down. They had to be quick but very careful. They would have to run and jump over a 4-5 foot gap between the freight cars. This would be more dangerous in the winter when the tops of the cars would be covered in ice and snow. The men who were mostly chosen for this job would have been young men who were strong and very steady on their feet. No one whose nerves are unstrung from drinking could have been trusted because they could slip and they couldn’t have bad eyesight. (I found these interesting facts in a
