Hostler

[Sharon Eberhard]

Could someone tell me what is a hostler???   I have seen mentions of hostlers and usually hostlers are engineers so the question is this  --  if all hostlers are engineers, are all engineers hostlers. 


Sharon

[Ron Marquardt]

A hostler is an engineer (or in the old days often a fireman) who moves engines around when they are being repaired, serviced, or (with diesels) being made up into consists.  A hostler works under the direction of the Master Mechanic or roundhouse foreman.

At one time hostling may have been a craft in itself, but today it is simply a job filled by engineers.
When I hired out, I was just a fireman, but I cubbed with qualified hostlers, and became qualified myself.  Hostlers are not engineers, but all engineers are qualified to work as hostlers.  / Ron

PS,  nowdays, at some locations, by contract the hostling jobs may belong to Mechanical Dept. employees.   Being qualified as a hostler does not qualify anyone to work as an engineer.  Being qualified as an engineer is a separate issue.  Even in the old days they had inside and outside hostling jobs.  Inside hostlers were not permitted to move engines outside the confines of the mechanical department's territory.  Outside hostlers had to be qualified on the rules and signal indications.

[Rick Dreistadt]

A few years ago, while I was working at Osborn yard, one of the clerks told me he had watched an old Western movie the night before and one of the cowboys who herded the horses into the corral was referred to as the hostler.  I can't verify that is correct, but makes sense that is where the term hostler on the railroad came about, as the hostler mostly shuffles locomotives around the railroad yard, or in the roundhouse(now service center)
Rick

[Ron Marquardt]

I think you're right Rick.  I always understood that's where the term came from.  / Ron

[Gene Remaly]

Ron:
Sounds like a lot of bull to me !

[Ron Marquardt]

Gene and all, this from Websters:

1: one who takes care of horses or mules
2: one who moves locomotives in and out of a roundhouse; also : one who services locomotives

[Gene Remaly]

I thought it might be a "drover"  Some railroads had drover cabooses.