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The person who shoveled coal to a steam locomotive was called a railroad engineer. I guess the distinguishing feature here is how much capital is tied to the

• bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  >The person who shoveled coal to a steam locomotive was generally called the stoker. Also heard fireman but I find that confusing.
• michaelteter 3y ago
  > If you had a button that switched on a thousand washing machines at a time I guess one could flirt with the title "washing engineer". Since that button probably wouldn't work correctly 100% of the time, the operator would probably be forced to learn about problems and solutions related to that activity. Over time, that person would accumulate experience and knowledge which would make them well suited to that simple job of flipping the switch on and off. And at that point, that person would be more of an engineer than a random person who walked up and flipped the switch. An _anything_ engineer is just someone who does that thing and the unnamed related things necessary to do the main thing.
  • fsloth 3y ago
    Exactly.
• onion2k 3y ago
  The person who shoveled coal to a steam locomotive was called a railroad engineer. Maintaining a constant head of steam while changing altitude, water level, external temperature, etc using a direct heat source is a really skilled job. Talk to anyone who works on a heritage railway and they'll explain just how hard it is. I lived in the same city where George Stephenson invented the locomotive, and went to the same pub that the volunteers who worked on a replica went to. It's fascinating, and very much 'proper' engineering.
  • fsloth 3y ago
    "Intellectually demanding" was a poor choice of word. I meant to say something along the lines "does not require to invent anything new" - which a railroad engineer does not need to do. That does not mean work they do is low-effort or trivial.