Some experiences with the Boston elevated railway company

I went to work for the Boston El. Ry. Co. in the capacity of pitman on the elevated division at Sullivan Square. Now the duties of a pitman are not very inspiring. I thought I was going to start off at least by being with some one who worked on electrical jobs, but these were my first duties. I had a big monkey wrench, a lantern, machinist's hammer, box containing various sizes of cotter keys, nuts, screws, etc., a gauge for measuring the distance apart of wheels. I pounded all wheels to test their soundness, gauged them to see that they had not spread beyond a prescribed limit. I was supposed to have an eye out for missing bolts, nuts, cotter keys and the electrical connections from the third rail shoe to the car body. This latter consisted in shoe, shoe-beam, braid, fuse, and lead. The work was hard as the beams are very heavy and were being constantly changed. The work, was not only hard but very dirty. I was generally one even color all over about one-half hour after starting in to work at night, a greasy black.