Railroad shopmen were employees of railroad companies charged with the construction, repair, and maintenance of the company's rolling stock. At the turn of the 20th century, approximately one fifth of railroad employees worked as shopmen, a broad group that came to include machinists, carpenters, boilermakers, electricians, sheet metal workers, and other related trades.
In 1922, some 400,000 American railroad shopmen collectively went on strike in a massive work stoppage remembered to history as the 1922 National Railroad Shopmen's Strike.