To our ears quaint, in a former time formidable, the
expression “I’m gonna clean your clock!”
was not a mere amusing gibe heard bandied about in a 1930s film but a bondafide
threat with a meaning well understood by all.
Until the 1940s the pre-dominant mode of mass-transportation
in the United States was via railway. Indeed, America had embraced the automobile,
but railroad tracks spanned and spider-webbed the nation whereas roads, while
plentiful, were not quite what we may expect.
In 1927 the first transcontinental highway in the world,
Lincoln Highway, was only continuously paved from New York to Iowa. From there
paving was intermittent, signage rare, roadside markers almost nonexistent. In
the words of one contemporary user of the road, the highway was “largely hypothetical.”
So, while the automobile was on the rise the railroad dominated.
Everyone knew railways, had some experience with them and to an unusual degree
the railroad was held in a bit of romantic regard as it was the best way to travel.
Popular novels were written with railroaders as the
heroes, Frank Spearman’s Whispering
Smith, for example, and there were entire magazines devoted to stories of
adventure and romance on the rail road with Railroad Stories being a prime example.
With the United States steeped in railway culture more
than a few words specific to the industry and trade were in common usage in
everyday life.
In the days of steam locomotives, the engines were powered
by creating enormous pressure in the boilers to drive the rods. A skilled engineer
and crew were required to keep the boiler running powerful enough to attack steep
grades, make long journeys, and always with a watchful eye on keeping the boiler
on this side of explosion [of which there were many.]
A keen eye on the boiler gauge, or the “clock” was a
vital requirement. If an emergency stop was required, the train couldn’t stop
with a full-head of steam. With nowhere to vent the energy the boiler would
blow killing crew and destroying mighty expensive property. To make an emergency
stop the entire head of pressure had to be vented from the boiler so that the gauge/clock
read to zero.
The emergency command to stop meant venting all steam-pressure
first, before braking the engine. The command to vent the pressure was “Clean
the clock!”
Once the clock showed zero the boiler was considered harmless.
Naturally the expression trickled to the railyard itself where Bulls [foremen
and rail detectives who kept order around the yard and aboard the trains] when
they rendered an individual unconscious, they were said to have made him harmless,
to have cleaned his clock.
How some of these Bulls cleaned clocks is another
story altogether. And a mighty vicious one at that.
Another day.
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