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The Railroad Vernacular

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, April 6, 2013 2:51 PM

Where did the track term, frog come from?

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Posted by Norm48327 on Saturday, April 6, 2013 3:55 PM

Bucyrus

Where did the track term, frog come from?

Ever see a frog jump?

Norm


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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Saturday, April 6, 2013 4:05 PM

Norm48327

Bucyrus

Where did the track term, frog come from?

Ever see a frog jump?

I have been told that the bottom of a horse's hoof is called the Frog and looks very much like the RR switch "frog".  Since the early makers of track and other equipment were often Blacksmiths, whose primary occupation often dealt with fitting shoes on a horse, it is natural for the term to have been used to describe the RR switch frog. 

 

I have no idea why the bottom of a horsey's li'l' footie is call a frog!

 

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 10:48 AM

There are quite a few different meanings of the term frog, and its origin.  But the dictionary lists the track term frog being of uncertain origin circa 1850.

It is curious because other track terms such as spike, rail, tie, tie plate, joint bar, switch, guardrail, switch point, anti-creeper, etc. all have an obvious linkage to meaning and origin.  But frog stands alone. 

Frogs (the animal) are notorious jumpers, and a railroad frog does cause a wheel to jump a gap.  I believe that linkage is the most convincing explanation of the term's origin.  If so, it is pretty clever.        

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Sunday, April 7, 2013 11:24 AM

&ei=6JxhUfb9L4a0qgGRuIGQCg&psig=AFQjCNFNdfK29rbz1RVi pxxLqE 481Gg&ust=1365438056867402

 

Can't seem to link it as an image, so click the link to see the bottom of a horsey's lil' footsie...  See the part labeled "frog" and how it resembles the RR switch frog.

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 11:53 AM

The railroad frog could be derived from the horse's foot.  They do have a resemblance to each other.  Apparently the origin of the horse foot term, frog is also uncertain.  I can't see any reason why it would be called a frog.  I am inclined to go with the wheel jumping that a track frog causes.   

Oddly, another meaning of frog is that weight with with holes in it that you place in the bottom of a vase, and put the flower stems into the holes.  Go figure.   

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:02 PM

Why were four-wheel ore cars called Jimmies?

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:08 PM

Bucyrus

Why were four-wheel ore cars called Jimmies?

Same reason 4-axle ore cars are called Jennies?

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:24 PM

I forgot about jennies. 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:24 PM

I think the current 'consensus' about the horse's frog is that it resembles a hard V with wings (corresponding to how the rails come off the point casting).  As noted, the derivation is probably from the triangular shape of the batrachian.

I did look to see whether this could be a mistranslation from a foreign term, as "quill" instead of 'spring' is a mistranslation from German in 'quill drive'.  Don't see anything likely, but other eyes and wits may be sharper...

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:40 PM

If track frog is named after the hores's foot, it is named by resemblance.  If it is named after jumping the wheels, it is named by function.  Either one seems plausible, but several other things are named frog with no apparent connection to appearance or resemblance.  So it seems uncertain to conclude its derivation comes from either function or resemblance. 

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 12:45 PM

My reference to railroad terminoloy dictionary says Jimmy is a four-wheel ore car, but it seems like have seen eight-wheel ore cars referred to as Jimmies as well as Jennies. 

In any case, why call an ore car a Jimmy or a Jenny?  Do ore cars have gender? 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, April 7, 2013 2:11 PM

A quick search of the 'Net yielded no information regarding the source of the terms "jennies" or "jimmies," but it did reveal that fact that while jennies in the Iron Range area were bottom dump hoppers, on the Pennsy, they were gondolas, which the Conrail Cyclopedia refers to as "Jimmies."

The mud thickens...

I would opine that these are terms for which the origins are lost to antiquity.  I would suggest, however, that said source may have little or nothing to do with gender, being instead a corruption of some other term. 

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Posted by John WR on Sunday, April 7, 2013 5:39 PM

I've always seen the word "Jimmie" refer to a small 4 wheeled gondola used to haul coal during the early days of railroading.  

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 6:07 PM

John WR

I've always seen the word "Jimmie" refer to a small 4 wheeled gondola used to haul coal during the early days of railroading.  

What about a Jenny?

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Posted by John WR on Sunday, April 7, 2013 6:25 PM

Bucyrus
What about a Jenny?

I've never heard of the word "Jenny" used in a railroad context.  

However, Samuel Slater memorized the design of a "spinning jenny" and came to the US with it.  He opened a spinning mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island using the new technology.  The term actually means "spinning engine."  Originally it was 8 spinning wheels which used hooks to give roving (cotton fibres) a twist that would hold them together and create 8 cotton threads.  

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, April 7, 2013 6:55 PM

John WR

I've never heard of the word "Jenny" used in a railroad context.  

However, Samuel Slater memorized the design of a "spinning jenny" and came to the US with it.  He opened a spinning mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island using the new technology.  The term actually means "spinning engine."  Originally it was 8 spinning wheels which used hooks to give roving (cotton fibres) a twist that would hold them together and create 8 cotton threads.  

Never heard of an ore jenny?

So now we're searching for the ore jenny origin?

Heh.

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, April 7, 2013 7:08 PM

There have been jimmies and Jennies.  But whichever, I think we can all agree that the ore car is the most handsome piece of railroad rolling stock.  

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, April 7, 2013 8:04 PM

Bucyrus

There have been jimmies and Jennies.  But whichever, I think we can all agree that the ore car is the most handsome piece of railroad rolling stock.  

No way....

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by John WR on Sunday, April 7, 2013 8:28 PM

zugmann
Never heard of an ore jenny?

Not until I encountered the term on this forum.  I've learned something new here.  

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, April 7, 2013 9:37 PM

John WR

zugmann
Never heard of an ore jenny?

Not until I encountered the term on this forum.  I've learned something new here.  

Maybe the term isn't as common as I thought.  Learning something new means we aren't dead!

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, April 7, 2013 10:39 PM

zugmann

Maybe the term isn't as common as I thought.  Learning something new means we aren't dead!

I suspect that it's a "local" thing, if you will.  Those who have interest or other contact with steelmaking from mining to steel mill in the midwest have probably heard the term.  Others not so much.

The info on the spinning "gin" (which might carry over to the cotton "gin") is telling, however, indicating that a perhaps archaic term or bastardization morphed into the "jenny".

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, April 8, 2013 11:39 AM

I gather that “Jimmy” does refer to a four-wheel ore car, and “Jenny” refers to eight-wheel ore cars.  However, it also appears that the eight-wheel ore cars are sometimes called “Jimmies.”  Likewise, the Jimmies might have been alternatively called Jennies, but the Jimmies disappeared with the advent of the Jennies, so there were no Jimmies to refer to as jennies. 

Jimmies continued to be used far beyond the discontinuance of the other four-wheel cars. 

Jimmies often ran in relatively long trains.  According to John White’s The American Railroad Freight Car, one source mentions a train of 225 jimmies in 1891. In 1879, a train of jimmies 1.5 miles long was run.  This train consisted of 593 jimmies.   

Another name for flat cars was Platform Car

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, April 8, 2013 3:59 PM

Bucyrus

There have been jimmies and Jennies.  But whichever, I think we can all agree that the ore car is the most handsome piece of railroad rolling stock.  

Never heard of jimmies, except on a ice cream sundae.   Through my career ore cars have always been jennies, though my carrier has never owned any.  Never thought of them as 'handsome', ugly with a purpose comes redily to mind.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by mudchicken on Monday, April 8, 2013 5:57 PM

BaltACD

Bucyrus

There have been jimmies and Jennies.  But whichever, I think we can all agree that the ore car is the most handsome piece of railroad rolling stock.  

Never heard of jimmies, except on a ice cream sundae.   Through my career ore cars have always been jennies, though my carrier has never owned any.  Never thought of them as 'handsome', ugly with a purpose comes redily to mind.

There might be some pretty under all the crud those cars are subjected to, but I doubt it.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by tree68 on Monday, April 8, 2013 6:58 PM

BaltACD
Never heard of jimmies, except on a ice cream sundae.   Through my career ore cars have always been jennies, though my carrier has never owned any. 

http://crcyc.railfan.net/crrs/gon/gonore.html

LarryWhistling
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Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by efftenxrfe on Monday, April 8, 2013 7:30 PM

Commendable that everyone's resisted changing the spelling and mentioning GM trucks and diesel engines!

Jennies....somewhere in a moss-covered corner of memory, it seems that "jenny" was associated with burro's, donkeys, mules.....

Good looking could be descriptive of the Jennies SP supplied for  the Kaiser Steel ore trains between Fontana and Eagle Mountain....the outside ribbing and angularity of the car sides worked for me.....

I came across this:

 It blew me up, but it's germain: the word is "siderodromophobia."

The def.. is on page 176 of an annual book that I bought here in the Sierra Nevada Foothills for less than $7.00 on a Rite-Aid  Magazine shelf. 

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, April 8, 2013 7:35 PM

efftenxrfe

I came across this:

 It blew me up, but it's germain: the word is "siderodromophobia."

Surely on this list you mean 'siderodromophilia'...

Was it in MR years ago that someone mentioned that the study of narrow-gauge steam locomotives was stenosiderohippology?

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Posted by zugmann on Monday, April 8, 2013 8:50 PM

tree68

BaltACD
Never heard of jimmies, except on a ice cream sundae.   Through my career ore cars have always been jennies, though my carrier has never owned any. 

http://crcyc.railfan.net/crrs/gon/gonore.html

Guys who I talked to (who worked for Conrail and used to haul the things to Bethlehem) always called them Jennies.   Never heard of "jimmies", except for the truck.

Now there are Jimbos...

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by efftenxrfe on Monday, April 8, 2013 9:00 PM

Overmod, your response I appreciate and welcome it because it makes me feel good, which is what i tried to do for the rest of us..

Divert, divulge and discourse....'mean't that,"  If this forum isn't written to be serious historical reference,  and isn't declared to be, have fun with it, why not?

 

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