Hi Forum Members!I bought MRR DVD: in the October 1940 Issue, on page #562 (Train Makeup & Switching), the author mentionned a "Podunk Sleeper"; what is that? I did some Net research and found nothing relative to Railroads… Anyone information about?Many Thanks!philippe, PRR N-Scaler in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podunk
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Podunk is a derogatory slang term for a very rural and unimportant community.
I have no idea what it would mean in railroad terms.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
thank you, you show me the good way! in fact, in the 1940's text, the term is used as a slang word to describe a very common sleeper - maybe ruined - , not a Pullmann!thank you again, it increases my english knowledge!
philippe
I used to live there. It was on part of the Milwaukee RR, but the trains never stopped there.
Podunk isn't the end of the world, but you can see the end of the world from there!
Bill
I have been guilty, in several posts on this forum, of using the fictional Podunk and Northern as a synonym for a minor short line of total insignificance. (Note that all of the real locations for Podunk in that wiki are, from my southwestern vantage point, 'way north to start with.) That is the context in which I understand the word - a small place, significant only to those who live there.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Phoebe VetPodunk is a derogatory slang term for a very rural and unimportant community. I have no idea what it would mean in railroad terms.
Podunk is not necessarily derogatory; there is an implication of insignificance but then 99.9% of all the inhabited communities in the U. S. of A. fill that bill. Apparently the term derived from a real locale somewhere in New York State. The little burg in Eastern Idaho from where I hail could technically be called a Podunk town -- and frequently is by its residents -- but to those who live there it is the greatest place on earth to live and anything but insignificant.
Another term implying an insignificant locale is "jerkwater" which does have a railroad connotation!
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I don't think "Podunk sleeper" is an actual railroad term. I suspect it would be a sleeping car going to (or from) "Podunk", i.e., a small relatively insignificant rural town...as opposed to a sleeper travelling between say New York and Chicago. If Podunk happened to be a junction with a branch line, the railroad might set out a sleeper at Podunk during the day. People could take a local train coming down the branch to Podunk and board the sleeper, which would be picked up by an overnight train and taken to a larger town down the line.
Most likely a Pullman car in that service would be an older (but still well maintained) car, an early heavyweight or perhaps (in 1940) even a woodsided car with a steel underframe.
My hunch is that a Podunk sleeper is not a sleeper at all but an accomodation car of marginal comfort, so the word "sleeper" was sarcasm due to the lack of good sleep one was likely to get in it.
Railroad slang has many such examples. So does logging slang, with the difference that logging slang also involves a lot of blue language.
Dave Nelson
phbx thank you, you show me the good way! in fact, in the 1940's text, the term is used as a slang word to describe a very common sleeper - maybe ruined - , not a Pullmann!thank you again, it increases my english knowledge! philippe
Actually I would think in 1940 pretty much any sleeping car would be a Pullman. It wasn't until the Pullman Co. was split up after WW2 that railroads bought their own sleeping cars...and many of them still contracted with Pullman for porters to man the cars. Such cars would normally have the railroad name on the center of the letterboard in large letters, and "Pullman" in smaller letters at one end of letterboard, often over the door. (Sometimes "Pullman" could be on both ends.)