Knocking Fire, Clinkers and the Building of Wayne County Roads

Transcribed by Laurie Selpien

I had found a letter written by my grandmother Hazel SMITH Lane which said my Grandfather Clarence was working at “Knocking Fire”. I had never heard of such a thing so I asked my great uncle George Rayburn if he knew what the job “Knocking Fire” was. The answer surprised me. 

Clarence Lane ( pictured left ) worked for many years at the Bluford railroad roundhouse. In the 1950’s the trains were still burning coal and using steam engines. As the fireboxes of the coal burning steam engines built up “clinkers” they lost capacity for coal and reduced efficiency. The engines were taken to the railroad “Roundhouse” where the coal fires were extinguished, using steam and water. Then workers crawled into the fireboxes and manually scraped and sometime chiseled the buildup and shoveled it out into huge clinker piles. The work was hot, steamy and physically exhausting. One of the “perks” of the job was that the workers had first choice of free “Clinkers” to haul out to their muddy Illinois roads that had never seen gravel or any form of hard surfacing at the time. I have helped Clarence to load and haul many, many loads of this material to Grover (Smith’s) ¼ mile lane and Clarence and Hazel’s driveway and entrance. These are some fond memories of the good ole days. George Rayburn

(Clinkers are the impurities of the coal fusing together in the heat of the firebox).