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BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES OF AMERICAN RAILROADS.

CHAPTER II.

SECTION TOOL-HOUSES.

SECTION tool-houses or hand-car houses are used for storing hand-cars, tools, and suppliesrequired in connection with the construction or the maintenance of the track and roadbed ona railroad. They also afford shelter to the men during very heavy or prolonged storms andare, to a limited extent, frequently used as the section-master’s workshop. There is usuallyone house for every track section of the road or for every regular track gang; in yards or atlarge terminals several small houses or one large tool-house are frequently used.

Section houses will be found located, as a rule, from three to ten miles apart, accordingto the local conditions on each road, the number of tracks, and other controlling circumstances.The adoption of a standard design becomes very essential, owing to the frequency with whichthese buildings occur. Hence there are but few roads that cannot show something in thisline, although the methods employed differ considerably.

The general requirements for a section tool-house are that space should be provided forthe hand-car and tools used by the gang on the track, in addition to which provision shouldbe made for the storage of lamps, signal appliances, oil-cans, and, to a limited extent, suchsupplies as rope, spikes, nails, track-bolts, fishbars, etc., without seriously blocking the floor-space. Boxes, shelves, and racks for storing tools, lamps, oil-cans, bar iron, tool steel, etc.,conveniently arranged, aid materially in keeping everything well assorted and yet confined tothe least space. A small locker for the section foreman to keep blank reports, time books,and other papers, and a short work-bench, to be used at odd times for making light repairsto the outfit, will about complete the furniture. On some roads the tool-house only servesfor storing the hand-car and the few tools in daily use, in which case a building slightlylarger than the hand-car suffices without any further inside fixtures.

The location of the building should be alongside of a track. The most desirable site isat the head of a siding opposite the stopping-post near the switch leading off the main track,the advantage being that the section men can dodge in and out of the main track betweentrains with greater ease and less risk than if they had to lift the hand-car on and off the maintrack. In yards or at stations this feature is preserved by locating the tool-house near thehead of the yard.

These buildings, with probably few exceptions, are frame structures, sheathed only onthe outside and roofed with tin, shingles, or corrugated iron. The designs in use differmainly in the location of the large door and the position the hand-car track occupies insideof the house. In all cases provision must be made to enable a hand-car to be placed outsideof the house without obstructing any tracks. Whether to place the door in the gable endor in the side of the building is a much-disputed question, which the width of the right ofway available outside of the tracks will frequently determine. With a very limited right of