In the 1800s, it was generally rare for a private company to take such an interest in its employeesвЂ™ well-being, but railway surgeons were not celebrated figures. Some consider them the worldвЂ™s first trauma surgeons. They were pioneers in emergency medicine and specialized in amputations and prosthetics. An on-call doctor could rush to the scene of an accident, or be ready to receive a bleeding, injured worker sent to them by train. In the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, companies hired вЂњrailway surgeonsвЂќ to staff private hospital and health care systems. Railway work was so dangerous that an entire medical specialty developed to deal with it. In Britain, railway accident reports contain more than one incident where the body of a man struck and killed by a train flies through the air to hit and injure a coworker. One out of every 117 workers died on the job.

In the United States, in 1889, one in every 35 railway workers was injured each year, and in the more dangerous вЂњrunning tradesвЂќ that put some of them in close proximity to trains, that rate jumped to one in 12. вЂњThey suffer as if they were fighting a war,вЂќ said Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge, in 1892. Railway workers spent long shifts maintaining tracks, coupling and decoupling cars with swift and practiced moves, or unloading goods in train yards, and throughout all those exhausting hours one unlucky moment could cost them a hand, or a leg, or more. To work for a 19th-century railroad, it helped to be fearless, tireless, and a little reckless. Courtesy Mike Esbester and Railway Work, Life and Death Railway company publications warned about hazards at work.

Long dark broken railroad