I should probably ask on little details, but....

[rm]

Lives of railway construction workers in America circa 1892/3.
Google is not quite getting me where I need to go.

Got anything?

Yes, fandom people who recognize the year in question, it's for fic.

Comments

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

http://books.google.com/books?id=EecoAAAAYAAJ

The Railroad Trainmen's Journal, 1892

worth at least a glance for the floridity of the language back then, if possibly not quite what you are searching for...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Looking -- not quite what I was looking for, but totally useful.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't seen that yet. This is a sweepstakes of fabulosity, clearly.

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

Now that I look, there's even fiction... take this example from page 169

He was a fair pianist and several months ago Banker Sightdraft had given his clerk a free invitation to visit his princely mansion. The idea was that Edward was to put the banker asleep with his music. Now it so happened that the banker had a daughter, and furthermore it occurred that when (the banker) dropped asleep, his daughter—the fair and rich Virginia—took great pains to follow Edward's fingering, and for that purpose leaned frequently against his manly bosom.

EGAD!

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's so funny I could die. Funnier, even, than the poetry I found in it, which was pretty hilarious.

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

Also: there's a LOT of linkage to follow here:

http://cprr.org/Museum/index.html#Read