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The narrator is a former soldier, working as civilian bossing coolies working on a railroad. He is told some soldiers up the line are planning to cause trouble. So he goes up there to head off trouble. In his Irish speech, I think "throlly" = trolley = hand car, a small rail maintainance car, propelled by a see-saw with handles to drive a gear. In US called a gandy dancer. Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins Publishers: gandy dancer ['gændý] noun (slang) a railway track maintenance worker [ETYMOLOGY: 20th Century: of uncertain origin] Here's a URL to some pictures of an old railroad set up on a big fruit farm to entertain customers and tourists. There are a number of pictures. The one labelled "Proud William" is of a small car for maintaince, but I don't see the handles that propelled it. http://www.phoenixandholly.com/pages/proud_william_jpg.htmHere's another URL with a lot of information, but sadly I didn't find any pictures. But if you are really interested, I think there are links where you may find them. http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2003/06_2003/06292003gl.htm
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Bill,
When I checked out gandy dancer (crossthread ref.), Gandy apparently refers to a company that manufactured railroad tools, ergo, gandy dancer was someone who worked for the railroad.
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Carpal Tunnel
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A gandy dancer was someone who worked for the railroad, but only if he also worked on track maintainance. There had to be constant inspection of the rails, because the rails are
a bit flexible, and spikes can work loose. Enough loose spikes, and train can derail.
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Yes, a worker who would have used the tool produced by the Gandy company. I certainly didn't mean to include workers who didn't regularly use those tools. 
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But the "dancer" part referred to the very fast up-and-down
motion of the guys working the handles.
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Could be, wwh, but MW Unabridged does not mention this type of movement. Perhaps the OED has a more thorough examination of 'gandy dancer's' derivation.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Unfortunately not.
gandy dancer
slang (orig. U.S.).
[Orig. uncertain.]
A railroad maintenance-worker or section-hand. Hence gandy dancing.
1923 N. Anderson Hobo vi. 93 A ‘gandy dancer’ is a man who works on the railroad track tamping ties. 1929 Amer. Speech V. 172 Gandy dancing is not considered a very honorable profession. 1933 Ibid. VIII. 26/2 Gandy dancer, section hand. (From the rhythmic up-and-down motion of workers pumping a handcar.) 1957 J. Kerouac On Road (1958) iii. vi. 215 Working in a railroad gandy-dancing cookshack. 1959 J. Thurber Years with Ross iv. 63 They discussed the parlance of railroading—deadhead, highball, whistle stop, gandy dancer. 1970 F. McKenna Gloss. Railwaymen's Talk 35 Footplatemen have a great regard for gandy dancers, the men who keep the rail safe for the train to run over.
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Oh here you have it, mav, in the OED: In reply to:
From the rhythmic up-and-down motion of workers pumping a handcar
...precisely what wwh was writing about. I wonder why the unabridged MW didn't include that relevant information? Here I think MW (unabridged) is too much abridged.
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whereas the OED2 weighs in at a gadfly 1.7GB! I'm still learnin' to work the handles but :)
edit: and my "unfortunately not" was in the attempt to answer the question about derivation, not dance steps :)
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Ah, I see, mav'...
But it has been nice taking these ganders at gandy dancers today. Quite innocent in this age of lap dancing by comparison, ain't it?
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