Frogs

[Brian The Signal Engineer]

Can anyone tell me why the model rail fraternity use the term FROG for the crossing of a set of points?

Every time I read this in an article it makes my skin crawl. 

I am very happy with the likes of the amphibian creatures and even good old Kermit. 

[RFS]

Might be worth a read here .

[The Stationmaster]

I presume it was picked up by some early model railway writer from the American and the term has, gratingly in my case, stuck.  any attempt to change it seems to fall on deaf ears and lots of folk don't understand the proper, British, term.

[iands]

26 minutes ago, RFS said:

Might be worth a read here .

Sorry, but that doesn't make it any clearer to me.

Edited May 26, 2021 by iands
spool chuck.

[Michael Hodgson]

So how did amphibians get copyright on the word "frog"?

[jpendle]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

I presume it was picked up by some early model railway writer from the American and the term has, gratingly in my case, stuck.  any attempt to change it seems to fall on deaf ears and lots of folk don't understand the proper, British, term.

As far as I am aware I have never heard or seen the "proper, British, term" used anywhere.

But of course as I don't know what it is I might have heard it 

 

John P

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, jpendle said:

As far as I am aware I have never heard or seen the "proper, British, term" used anywhere.

But of course as I don't know what it is I might have heard it 

 

As far as I'm aware, the "proper, British term" is the common crossing.

[ejstubbs]

This question has certainly been discussed on RMWeb before, though I can't locate a specific example just now.  (It may well have been buried as a bit of thread drift under a wholly unrelated thread title.)  See also debates about turnout vs point (vs switch).  No doubt in some place or another people have also argued about carriage vs coach, truck vs wagon, loco[motive] vs engine etc etc.

 

So long as it's relatively straightforward to understand what people are talking about I don't think it matters a tremendous amount.  Often the context will make it clear whether the person using a term is doing so from the background of professional involvement in the 304.8mm to the foot railway, or amateur interest in one of the smaller scales.

 

As to whether or not it makes one's skin crawl, the word that springs to my mind is "tolerance"...

[Compound2632]

As the PWay Engineer said of his relaid station approaches, choking with admiration at his own handiwork: "There's a frog in my throat".

Edited May 26, 2021 by Compound2632
relaid, not relayed

[ejstubbs]

7 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

As far as I'm aware, the "proper, British term" is the common crossing.

 

Blame Peco, then: they probably decided that "Insulcommoncrossing" and "Electrocommoncrossing" weren't quite snappy enough, and it's all been downhill since then.

 

(Or, wasn't there a manufacturer who produced points with a "universal frog" at one time?  I may very well be widely off the mark with that hazy recollection, though.)

[Trog]

11 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

As far as I'm aware, the "proper, British term" is the common crossing.

 

It is acutely important not to be obtuse about it.  

[Dungrange]

7 minutes ago, Trog said:

It is acutely important not to be obtuse about it.  

 

Indeed, because an obtuse crossing is only found in diamonds and slips, as opposed to the common crossing, which is much more 'common', as it's found in all forms of point and crossing work.

[SGF]

If you ever have the chance to inspect the underside of a horse's hoof I think you'll find it looks very similar to the combination of the point, splice and wing rails. Oh, and that part of the foot is called: the frog!

[Stephen Freeman]

13 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Blame Peco, then: they probably decided that "Insulcommoncrossing" and "Electrocommoncrossing" weren't quite snappy enough, and it's all been downhill since then.

 

(Or, wasn't there a manufacturer who produced points with a "universal frog" at one time?  I may very well be widely off the mark with that hazy recollection, though.)

Wrenn, words fail me to describe the "thing".

[Harlequin]

13 hours ago, SGF said:

If you ever have the chance to inspect the underside of a horse's hoof I think you'll find it looks very similar to the combination of the point, splice and wing rails. Oh, and that part of the foot is called: the frog!

 

SGF has it right, as far as I can tell. There is agreement here, for instance: 

https://www.trainshop.co.uk/blog/post/419-why-are-turnout-frogs-called-frogs.html

 

[Compound2632]

On the other hand, googling around, I found one source that suggested the frog of a horse's hoof was named for its resemblance to a common crossing...

 

I expect that can be easily discounted by searching for horse-related use of the word before the railway age.

[LNER4479]

Civil Engineers cause endless confusion by referring to S&C (switches and crossings) when all I can think about is the Midland Railway's tour de force across the high Pennines ...

[LNER4479]

14 hours ago, SGF said:

If you ever have the chance to inspect the underside of a horse's hoof I think you'll find it looks very similar to the combination of the point, splice and wing rails. Oh, and that part of the foot is called: the frog!

The Wikipedia entry under 'Railroad Switch' agrees with this theory, thus:

This term frog is taken from the part of a horse's hoof it most closely resembles

[DCB]

A lively discussion regarding the virtues of live frogs versus dead ones is almost guaranteed to give one precious space in a crowded pub or on public transport, it's like a pass word or chat up line for suspected fellow modellers, "Do you prefer dead frogs or live frogs?"    I suspect early crude single blade points didn't have a frog, just a pivot for the single blade, so it would be interesting to find conemporary references to trackwork from the earlier period to see if the term "Frog" was used.  I guess the terms  "Crossing Nose" and "Crossing Vee (or "V") mean the same thing.  The term "Fishplate" was certainly a later term again misused by modellers, as early rails joined in a joint chair which made keeping accurate rail alignment was difficult.  Thus joining rails between chairs became the norm and was known as a "Fished Joint" probably because of the shape of the pairs of "Fish Plates" blothed together to through the rails to join the adjacent rails.   Why are modellers wrong?   Because the fish plates are a pair one inside and one outside the rail bolted through tightly and not a single piece into which rails slide. The RTR model versions are rail joiners and my blood boils every time I hear the term "Fishplate" misused.   (Only joking, life's too short)

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

Civil Engineers cause endless confusion by referring to S&C (switches and crossings) when all I can think about is the Midland Railway's tour de force across the high Pennines ...

Ah but maybe you didn't work on the Western where the only S&C we had were switches and crossings

[The Stationmaster]

Going back to the original question  I think i might possibly have found the culprit although, in fairness,  he might not necessarily be the originator of the misuse.  

 

In his book 'New Developments In Railway Modelling',  first published in 1947,  Edward Beal - often regarded as a father of smaller scale railway modelling  - uses the term 'frog' when he means 'crossing'.  But he does refer back to older articles in 'Model Railway News' (to which he was himself a prolific contributor).  However Beal was, so I understand, widely read on the subject of smaller scale (basically OO) modelling so if he did not come up with the misuse he no doubt played a role in widely disseminating it.  To what extent Beal was influenced by American railway modelling publications I don't know but it might possibly have been the case that they were how he came to use it? 

 

Perhaps from that usage by Beal any manufacturers, and others, then used the term because people understood what it was from Beal's writings?   Interestingly all the books I have.on a general approach to, or about, prototype railway matters going right back to the 1930s all use the correct British term (if they had been written in Britain).

[RichardT]

Fishplate I have always understood to be ultimately derived from ficere in Latin - to fix or fasten. Hence the “fish” - a strengthening piece for a ship’s mast - which Wikipedia claims as the direct ancestor for the term “fishplate”.

 

Frog (as in the bottom of a horses’ hoof) I have always understood to be derived from its resemblance to the V-shaped splayed foot of a frog (the amphibian). Its connection to railways or wagonways then arising as an analogy by the blacksmiths making early railway track, who, of course, were familiar with horses’ hooves.  As such it may well be the original term, rendered archaic in the UK as PWay engineers developed their own specialist vocabulary, but preserved elsewhere.

 

Of course all the above may be so much folk etymology: must do some diggging in old printed sources. This is one of those areas where the internet is useless, as search results just throw up multiple webpages going round in circles because they all link to each other!

 

RT 

Edited May 27, 2021 by RichardT
Spelling

[Compound2632]

Looking at the Oxford online definitions of "frog", the common crossing sense is lumped in with other senses such as a florist's frog or the frog on the bow of a stringed instrument, all of which may be influenced by Italian forchetta or French fourchette, meaning "small fork".

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Looking at the Oxford online definitions of "frog", the common crossing sense is lumped in with other senses such as a florist's frog or the frog on the bow of a stringed instrument, all of which may be influenced by Italian forchetta or French fourchette, meaning "small fork".

The UIC Lexicon is interesting in the fact that it is a technical railway publication but its English language translation of   'coeur d'aiguille' is shown as 'points crossing (frog)' although in its English reference pages it also list under 'frog' the term 'rerailing ramp (frog)' - possibly it was also aimed at those who use US railwayspeak?.  

Maybe if we're really into foreign language versions we should go Dutch and just call it 'puntstuk'?

[Harlequin]

I searched http://oldpway.info/ (using Google because their own search is not working yet) and the only references I could find were to four items held by the NRM - i.e. modern descriptions of old equipment.