A porter is a railway employee assigned to assist passengers aboard a passenger train or to handle their baggage; it may be used particularly to refer to employees assigned to assisting passengers in the sleeping cars.

In Australia, a Railway Porter had various roles. A Baggage Porter assisted with luggage; an Operating Porter assisted with Safeworking

Safeworking

Signalling block systems enable the safe and efficient operation of railways, so as to avoid collisions between trains. Block systems are used to control trains between stations and yards, and not normally within them. Any block system is defined by its associated physical equipment and by the...

 duties; a Station Porter assisted with general station duties and a Lad Porter was a junior Station Porter.

Railroad porters in the United States

Until desegregation had its effect in the United States in the 1960s, the occupation of porter was almost the exclusive province of African American men. It was the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 policy of George Pullman

George Pullman

George Mortimer Pullman was an American inventor and industrialist. He is known as the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, and for violently suppressing striking workers in the company town he created, Pullman .-Background:Born in Brocton, New York, his family moved to Albion,...

, head of the Pullman Company

Pullman Company

The Pullman Palace Car Company, founded by George Pullman, manufactured railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Pullman developed the sleeping car which carried his name into the 1980s...

, who wished to tap into a huge potential work force that was also non-unionized. Until the latter 20th century the occupation included providing a variety of on-board personal services, such as shoe shining. (Tye, 2004) This eventually changed with the organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was, in 1925, the first labor organization led by blacks to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor . It merged in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks , now known as the Transportation Communications International Union.The...

 under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph

A. Philip Randolph

Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the African American civil-rights movement and the American labor movement. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Negro labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington...

.

See also

• Rail transport
  Rail transport
  Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
  
  
• Rail terminology
  Rail terminology
  Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term railroad and the international term railway is the most obvious difference in rail terminology...
  
  
• Pullman Porters
• Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George"

External links

• A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum