We're all familiar with some of the various names for the last car on a train before FREDs were invented. Caboose was probably the most common, but there were also cabins (PRR) and way cars (ATSF?). The list grows when you start on the unofficial or slang terms like shack, hack, chariot, brain wagon, etc. I'm sure others can add a lot more names to this list.
While you're scratching your head about cabooses, how many different terms do you know for the yard track(s) where trains stop before being broken up and the yard track(s) where trains are made up? I'm familiar with Arrival/Departure, Receiving/Forwarding, and Inbound/Outbound. Any others?
ChuckAllen, TX
My favorite is perhaps in the ''None of the above'' category per your request, but anyway -
the ''Time Bein' Track''.
- Paul North.
The synonym for caboose that I like best is a "crummy." I laughed out loud the first time I heard this term.
Another term that I like is "Slaapwagon," used by the Dutch to mean a sleeper. I did a double-take when I first saw this painted on the sides of railway cars. It still makes me smile whenever I think of it.
How about the RIP Track?
That's the track where all the junk left in cars AFTER they were unloaded, and left in, by the folks, who were SUPPOSED to clean it out when THEY were finiashed unloading the contengts.
I worked in the Family manufacturing lumber yard while in High School in Memphis. WE were the RIP track for boxcars coming from Firestone's Tire Plant. If were wanted to load lumber, we got to clean the cars out. In four years, I was a one time beneficiary of a set of Firestones for my ride.
I could not count the truck loads of extraneous other "stuff" I had to take to the dump to unload. I Never could convince anyone that, that was not the way it was supposed to work. Rejected cars went away never to be replaced. I was told the folks at the Illinois Central were out of cars and we should be able to load rough lumber in anything they gave us, I think they were really upset, when I loaded a weeks worth of sawdust, and trash in a gondola they spotted for us.? [No sense of humor?]
It was a long time after getting out of the lumber industry, I found out there really was a R I P track {Repair In Place]; down at Johnson Yard they had a line across a high berm, and they shoved all the junk out of the cars and it fell down the berm into the back water of a creek. Said stuff was flushed out of the creek and into the the Mississippi River when there was a flood (simpler times).
Limiting myself to more-or-less common yard track names, consider these:
CAB Trk. = Where cabooses park between trips.
ICE Trk. = Where isulated box cars full of ice were parked and unloaded.
FUEL Trk. = The "O.P.E.C. Shrine" where diesel's feed.
COAL CHUTE Trk. = Where locomotive tenders receive coal.
TURNTABLE Trk. = The eccentric, yet fabulously wealthy wife of a top railroad executive once called this well-known piece of track structure a "revolving bridge."
WHISKER Trk. = Fed by a turntable and capable of storing one steam locomotive and tender.
OIL Trk. = Where tank cars unload fuel or lube oil, or accept waste oil.
SAND Trk. = Where covered hoppers unload locomotive sand.
STORAGE Trk. = Where surplus empties are kept.
CLASSIFICATION Trk. = Where a block of outbound cars is held.
SLUFF Trk. = Where bad orders are temporarily stashed for eventual transfer to the RIP Track.
TRANSFER Trk. = Where cars accumulate for interchange or eventual movement to another yard.
INTERCHANGE Trk. = Where cars accumulate for interchange to/from a connecting railroad.
STOCK Trk. = Found usually next to a holding pen for livestock.
HOUSE or TEAM Trk. = A railroad-owned, not-industry-specific spur for loading and unloading freight cars. "TEAM" as in teamsters.
SIDING = Designed to be used for meeting and passing trains.
SPUR = A customer-specific track for loading/unloading freight cars. One or more customers can share a spur. The actual spur extends beyond the railroad right-of-way line.
BUSINESS CAR Trk. = Where railroad business cars park between trips. Sometimes these tracks are equipped with water, electricity, and telephone hookups.
SCALE Trk. = Used for weighing freight cars.
PSEUDO Trk. = Exists only in cyberspace and used by yardmasters to temporarily stash a cut-of-cars or a train consist someplace in the computer.
While on the subject, the news piece about stolen railroad material in today's news wire has me asking what exactly they meant by "switch" ?
Switch stand
Stock rails & switch points
entire package turnout (including frog, stock rails, closure rails, OTM et. al.)
-Just exactly what was in the truck?
Which leads to the fact that trainmen, signalmen and trackmen all look at switches/turnouts differently.
(I never heard of the term "detector section" prior to leaving the eastern and central parts of my railroad (KS, CO,OK, MO, NM) for California...used heavilly when getting track & time on old CTC plants)
In Fryml's post above, add Switching Lead, Drill Track, set-out, crossover, tail track, industrial lead, wye/balloon, laundry/cleaning track, runaround, (house track and team track have different connotations to me....one you cannot unload off of)
. To a structural or bridge engineer, that's pretty much exactly what it is - just like a deck-girder, center-pivot swing bridge. Like one of those, the modern turntable has 3 points of support - the center pivot, and both ends. As such, it is "externally indeterminate" (if you don't already know, this isn't the place - essentially, that means that the loads at each point cannot be calculated from only the simple geometry of the turntable and the location of the locomotive on it - the shape and weight capacity of the girders and their vertical deflections/ motion need to be taken into account as well). The principal difference is just that the outer supports exist not only at 2 points in line with a single approach track as they do with a swing bridge - but are continuous, such as the "ring rails" that usually extend all the way around the turntable's pit.
mudchickenWhile on the subject, the news piece about stolen railroad material in today's news wire has me asking what exactly they meant by "switch" ? Switch stand Stock rails & switch points entire package turnout (including frog, stock rails, closure rails, OTM et. al.) -Just exactly what was in the truck? Which leads to the fact that trainmen, signalmen and trackmen all look at switches/turnouts differently. [snip]
In the list of cabs, crummys , hacks~ does anyone remember the 4 wheel Bobber?
Cannonball
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
At Boone in and near the engine service area we have the following tracks: North Engine Lead, Piggyback Ramp, Wrecker, Cinder Pit, and Come Out tracks. Also off the turntable is the East Table Lead, although that track has been out of service for a while.
None of those tracks still provide the service their descriptive names imply, with the possible exceptions of the two "leads." Still the names live on.
Even calling it an engine service area is stretching it. There are no longer any standing facilities (fuel, sand, etc) in the area. It does allow a place for locomotives to congregate between assignments and allow the local mechanical forces to do their thing, from the back of their truck.
Jeff
mudchickenhouse track and team track have different connotations to me....one you cannot unload off of
To be picky about this question, didn't "house track" originally mean a track serving (and maybe going inside) a freight house while "team track" was an open-air track where a wagon and team could be backed up to the freight car?
What I was really looking for in my original question, though, was how many different terms are there that all mean Receiving, Arrival, or Inbound track? And ditto for Forwarding, Departure, or Outbound?
Way back when I was still in high school a friend of mine was talking about cabeese (2 or more cabooses) when he asked "what if I wanted a caboose that was more like a passenger car with a baggage compartment or a combine. What would yo call it?" A crumbine, of course!! Crumbines are neat!! Anybody ever make up something like that?
Scale track = At one point there was or is scale to weigh cars as needed.
Ditch track = Usually set up in the computer after a wreck. Cars spotted here usually leave in small pieces.
Other assorted track names = Runner, Dolly, Eastbound, Westbound, Middle (not in the middle of anything), Jenders, Stockyard, Long, Cleaner (where stock cars were readied for their next trip), Air Line yard, Harvester yard (used for engine parking now), Coach yard, etc.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
Maybe it is time for Trains Mag to set up a page(s) with many of these definitions. I know it would have helped me in the past when I first was learning the terminology and slang. ie a RR dictionary?? If these is such an animal it needs prominent postings.
blue streak 1 Maybe it is time for Trains Mag to set up a page(s) with many of these definitions. I know it would have helped me in the past when I first was learning the terminology and slang. ie a RR dictionary?? If these is such an animal it needs prominent postings.
Some forums I frequent are segmented - all the permanent stuff like FAQs goes there.
Unless there as a particular reason to lock it (such as forum fiats) or segment it (as we do with the diner/lounge), each thread would remain active.
This area would be the repository for all that stuff that keeps cropping up over and over again - like scanners, for instance. In the beginning, it would be up to the moderators/management to decide which threads should be moved over. After a while, it wouldn't be necessary to search for stuff like scanners - it would be in the "permanent hold" area. Hopefully new forum members would discover this area and not start new threads on an established topic, or if they did, it would be easy to point them that way.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I've heard of a "makeup" track, that may have just been used for making up power (that is its current use).
Another yard calls their inbound tracks the "Park" yard. Yardmaster would tell you to put your train on 3 in the park, overflow to 4. Whether "Park" had to do with the act of "parking trains", I do not know.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann I've heard of a "makeup" track, that may have just been used for making up power (that is its current use). Another yard calls their inbound tracks the "Park" yard. Yardmaster would tell you to put your train on 3 in the park, overflow to 4. Whether "Park" had to do with the act of "parking trains", I do not know.
THAT's the kind of thing I was looking for.
I believe I've heard "makeup" track. Never heard of a "breakdown" track though except as a place to put malfunctioning equipment if it could make it that far.
Never heard of a "Park" yard though. Makes sense although I wonder if it might not have referred to a local attraction (like PRR's ZOO interlocking referred to the nearby zoological park). Now what might the opposite of a "Park" yard be?
Looking again, I was backwards. The "park" yard was for departures. The "hump" yard was for inbounds.
cefinkjr And ditto for Forwarding, Departure, or Outbound?
At PRR's (later PC and then CR) Edge Moor (DE) yard these tracks were called Advance tracks. There was a North Advance Yard with 5 tracks.
DSO17 At PRR's (later PC and then CR) Edge Moor (DE) yard these tracks were called Advance tracks. There was a North Advance Yard with 5 tracks.
I thought I recalled "Advance" from my days with PC, but I didn't trust my memory. Now, were those what I would call "Receiving", "Forwarding", or both?
cefinkjrI thought I recalled "Advance" from my days with PC, but I didn't trust my memory. Now, were those what I would call "Receiving", "Forwarding", or both?
I guess the best term might be departure tracks. A yard crew would pull cars from the classification tracks up into the Advance yard and spot them at the air plant and under the wire so the carknockers could inspect them and test the brakes. Then they would be ready for a cabin and the power if the train was originating at Edge Moor or else to be picked up by a northbound through freight.
The south end of the yard had 1 South Advance and 2 South Advance that were used in the same way for cars going south.
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