See Lighter's post at the top of the page:

According to Amercan historian Stephen E. Ambrose, drilling and blasting weren't all that common on the Irish side of construction. The songs he mentions were sung forebiter style as opposed to chantey:

“When bosses couldn't level the grade, the scrapers*, drawn by oxen or up to four horses, were called in to do the job. When solid rock was encountered in a ridge line, which was seldom in the Great Plains, the men used hand drills and stuffed the hole with black powder. When the rocks blew apart, the remainder of the cut was dug out and leveled. A cut was done entirely by hand. The men would form an endless chain of wheelbarrows*. For fills, the dirt was dumped in. The land yielded nothing but some limestone for masonry work. There was no gravel for ballast so mainly sand was used.

At night. After supper, the men would play cards or sing songs, such as ”Poor Paddy he works on the railroad” or “The Great Pacific railway for California hail, bring on the locomotive, lay down the iron rail.” Others were "Pat Molloy,” “Whoop Along Liza Jane,” or “I'm a rambling rake of poverty, the son of a gamboleer.” The low notes of the Jew's harps and harmonicas floated across the cool night air. The songs were sung almost regardless of harmony and in contempt of tune.”

“…The evening meal was more leisurely. Then to the bunkhouses, for card games, a smoke, lots of talk (“railroad talk” was said to consist entirely of “whiskey and women and higher wages and shorter hours”), perhaps a song, such as "Poor Paddy he works on the railroad” or “The Great Pacific railway for California hail.” Then to bed, the whole to be repeated the next day and the next and the next.”

[Ambrose, S.E., Nothing Like it in the World, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, pp.138, 179)]



*The Fresno Scraper (by way of Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland) combined the scraper & wheelbarrow. Perfected and patented in 1883 by Scots-American inventor James Porteous. The basic design, on steroids, is still in use all over the world today.