Broad axes for hewing railroad cross ties

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Steve Tall

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From a previous thread about using a broad axe, some information about how a lot of guys would hew cross ties for extra income (or their only income):

Steve Tall said:
The Foxfire series of books from the 1970s and '80s contain interviews of old-timers who remember how things were done in the early 1900s and Great Depression. In Foxfire 10, there is a section about hewing cross ties for the railroad. The cross ties were 8'-6" long and typically 7" by 9", and were sold for about 50 cents each.

Some quotes from the book:

Dan Crane: "A lot of people hewed. They had to. That's the only way they had to make a few dollars to buy groceries with... The cross ties were made out of white oak, red oak, and all different kinds of oak for a long time. After several years, we started hewing them out of pine, too. After they creosoted the heart pine, they would last a pretty good while. And a lot of times, we would get trees that would have three or four cross ties in them. The hewed cross ties came from the heart of the tree, and they would last longer than the sawed ones that were cut out of any part of the tree, so the railroad would pay more for a hewed one than a sawed one..."

"And all we ever used to hew with was a three-and-a-half pound Sager double-bitted axe. We never used a broadax."

"We'd hew the cross ties mostly in the fall of the year after the sap went down..."

"My daddy could hew ten a day. Eight was a good, easy day's work. He'd hew ten a lot of times. I could hew six or seven myself, and I was just a boy then sixteen or seventeen years old."

Dan Crane showed the writers of the book how to hew a cross tie. There's a photo of him hewing a log using a double bit axe. Here's a link showing another photo of him holding up the finished cross tie that he hewed for the demonstration:

http://books.google.com/books?id=l7E9SysL_OkC&lpg=PA29&dq=foxfire%20hewing&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q=foxfire%20hewing&f=false

By the way, these Foxfire books tend to have a lot of good information and stories about life in Southern Appalachia when people were more self-reliant. Foxfire 5 was an interesting read, with chapters covering Ironmaking, Blacksmithing, Flintlock Rifles, and Bear Hunting.
Click to expand...

from http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/998368-Tutorial-Hewing-with-the-broad-axe


Some recently uncovered information about the size of this "industry" and how the cost of hewed cross ties compared to those made at a sawmill:

"...It has always been cheaper to produce a tie with an axe than to manufacture on a sawmill. However, during the past few years the supply of cheap labor has been absorbed by other industries and, with the increased selling price of ties, it has been profitable for sawmills to manufacture cross ties."

books



IMPORTANCE OF CROSS TIE PRODUCTION
The annual consumption of cross ties in the United States is placed in excess of 100,000,000 for replacement service alone...Like the poor, the lowly tie maker has always been with us. In the early days of railroad construction up to the period just preceeding the war, the railroads of the country depended very largely on the small tie man to produce the necessary ties. It is estimated that probably eighty percent of the ties used annually in the United States are hewn. The broad axe and a saw constitute the only tools necessary for tie production. Ties are therefore universally produced from Maine to Florida and across the continent to the Pacific Coast. Even the state of Illinois produced 2,500,000 ties last year.


books



from The Timberman, February 1921, pages 29 and 43
http://books.google.com/books?id=rUc1AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA9#v=onepage&q&f=true

by the way, check out this electric chainsaw from 1920:

books

"Operates from a central power plant or a portable generator."
 
Add to that number similar framing and forming timbers. My grandfather in east Tennessee made money on the side by trucking lumber to the Norris dam (tva) project for concrete forms, scaffolding, ad the like. I don't think he hewed it all himself, but I know he did hew timbers for barns, sheds, etc. I believe all he used for that sort of thing was a "Poll Axe", which in that context was a single bit Axe on a straight handle. Almost all the older barns were framed with rough hewn timber and pegged together. He Still had a huge brace for drilling holes when i was a kid, although construction methods were more modern/conventional.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting material. It goes along with what I've been thinking about how the pioneers probably made do quite well with just one Axe... A broad Axe was a very specialized tool and maybe a luxury owned by a relative few.
 
Very interesting post. I notice that new ones are entirely sawmill-made, treated and strapped together in crane-delivered bundles (I stopped and hiked a few times along some active and scenic rail lines in south central B.C. back in May of this year). 30 years ago, when I built retaining walls and boat slips with used rail ties, oak featured in many of them. An 8'6" 7x9 is not a joke when it comes to moving a water-logged one made of Oak or Maple around; they're heavy.
 
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