REPLACING MEN

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22474, 8 January 1943, Page 2

REPLACING MEN

American Women In Heavy Jobs As wartime freight and passenger traffic goes into high gear, women increasingly are moving up to take their places in railroad yards, hangars, bus and bus terminals, which custom once made a man's domain, says the “New York Times.” Many are beginning at the bottom of the ladder, in the dirty-handed jobs of the grease monkey. Others are handling highlyskilled work behind the scenes in mechanised transportation which by wing and wheel is carrying a record load to-day. In the Sunnyside yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Morris Park yards of the Long Island, where hundreds of engines, both steam and electric, chuff in at the end of the day's run, new, exclusively feminine crews now polish up the sides with oily waste, and are well greased themselves long before quitting time. The grease and the whistle and steam of lumbering locomotives in the smoky yards were an initial discouragement when they started, but they found that the grime all washes off, and inspectors proclaim their work well done. Women are now among the block operators for the Pennsylvania Railroad. working in the signal towers of the New York zone, throwing the levers on interlocking machines that send hundreds of trains on their way. One. Mrs Kathryn Rich, began her service during the last war, and has been on duty for almost a quarter of a century. At the hangars in LaGuardia Field women employees are growing in numbers as mechanical helpers and as maintenance “men.” They file spark plugs, spray paint, or toil in the instrument shop cleaning, adjusting, and calibrating plane instruments. In addition. Transcontinental and Western Air.. Inc., reports that women are working as licensed radio operators at its terminals across the country maintaining contact between the plane in flight and the flight superintendent m the ground. This company also has women apprentice meteorologists working on its weather recordings. Clipper Air Services At Pan-American Airways women arc employed in the office of the flight watch where positions of the clippers arc reported and communications maintained with the captains. Others arc assisting code officers decoding radio and telegraph messages. As drivers of buses and conductors of trolley cars women are releasing men in another essential phase of transportation in at least a dozen cities where war industries and the draft have reduced the supply of men employees. More than 40 are behind the driver’s wheel on San Diego buses and a number are driving Oakland, California, coaches. On Long Island women drivers have appealed in Huntington aiid Greenpoint. The woman truck driver has also become a reality. A number are no’t driving trucks carrying Army truck chassis, ambulances, and jeeps from Detroit to seaboard cities for the Canfield Drive Away Company. In New London, Conn., 40 women have been put through strict training by the Savin Express Company learning to manoeuvre its trailer trucks in probation for covering the routes.