Railway porter

The role of a porter is to assist passengers at railway stations, and to handle the loading, unloading, and distribution of luggage and parcels.

Research at the London School of Economics has shown (with particular reference to the Great Eastern Railway) how advances in rail signalling in the late Victorian era led to a shortage of skilled labour, with many unskilled porters advancing to porter signalman, and ultimately qualifying as signalmen.

Until desegregation had its effect in the United States in the 1960s, the occupation of porter was almost the exclusive province of African American and Black Canadian men.

In addition to carrying passengers' baggage to their berth or room, porters also provided personal services, such as clothes pressing and shoe shining.

He launched a discrimination lawsuit for $1000 in 1914 when the Sherman Grand Theatre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada refused to honor his floor ticket on account of his skin color.

[13] In the United States the term porter had the somewhat different meaning of a member of staff attending to passengers on board trains, particularly in sleeping cars, a role known as steward in most other countries.