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Pet hate idioms used by railway enthusiasts


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3 hours ago, Damo666 said:

And when I went to college, we were taught that you cast items in a mold. The thing you do not want in your house is mould.

Yet many people seem to want to cast their resin models in a fungus.

 

I know I'll get a lot of pushback on this, as many dictionaries now use the American spelling and this seems to have permeated into the UK lexicon more, to the extent that I would not be surprised to see that the OED have interchanged both, but I come from Ireland and that's my excuse!

 

(It doesn't help that this forums' spell-checker puts a little red wiggly line under 'mold' to suggest that the word does not exist).

 

 

Only ever seen mould used and is the correct British spelling. As in jelly mould.

 

Mold is a place in North Wales. Which used to have a railway station and a railway.

 

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Jason

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Buckeye couplings.  Never heard them referred to as anything else during nearly a decade on the railway in the 70s, and I was familiar with the term in my spotting and early modelling days, but surely they should be Janneys?

 

While on the subject of couplings, I am bothered a bit by 3-link, because instanter and screw couplings also have 3 links.  It is perhaps more specific and accurate to describe them as instanter link and screw link couplings, but 3-link still feels odd to me.  Not losing sleep over it, but it does not sit well…

Edited by The Johnster
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5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Buckeye couplings.  Never heard them referred to as anything else during nearly a decade on the railway in the 70s, and I was familiar with the term in my spotting and early modelling days, but surely they should be Janneys?

They come from Illinois, the Buckeye state. The UK version is 3/4 (?) size version of the US Janney coupler.

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3 hours ago, keefer said:

.... another similar to this is adding 'The..' to a locomotive name that doesn't have it e.g. 'The Mallard'

That's not limited to trains, of course - Aunty Beeb reported last week that Her Majesty had visited "The H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth" ................. clearly ignorant of what H.M.S. stands for.

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When I were a lad I went on an OHLE safety course and would have failed my rules if I'd referred to amber in any signalling-related context. I must admit now I tend to write it as OLE. 

 

'Train Station' is not, as already mentioned, an Americanism, I think it's more of a Generation X / Millennial thing based on the fact that buses go from bus stations so why wouldn't it be a train station ? I (Because railways were there first, that's why :-) )

 

While we're on the subject of English being a fluid language I sent a noticeboard memo out a year ago about 'hand sanitizer' and was immediately picked up by a Very Senior Railwayman about using American spellings. Fair enough I thought, I can never remember whether 's' or 'z' is the English spelling so tend to use both. But I was annoyed so I Googled it. 

 

Apparently, the original English spelling, invented by Thomas Nash, was -ize because it follows the Greek and Latin conventions. At some point in the 18th century it was changed to -ise to follow French conventions as that was seen as more sophisticated.  It only became an Americanism when Webster started compiling his dictionary and, as a classicist, he used the classic -ize ending throughout. 

 

So I wrote back to my VSR pointing this out.  Turns out the only thing he dislikes more than poor spelling is the French, so now I'm not allowed to use -ise at all !

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2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Points are points. Every signalbox refers to them as such on lever plates and diagrams. How the PW describes them is up to them. 

And nearly 40 years ago I had a top-boss who was a rusticated civil engineer. I'm not sure I knew the nature of Jim's  professional misdemeanour, but he tended to refer to a pair of points as a "CV nine-and-a-quarter" which left many of us out of further conversation!

 

Come to think of it, my immediate boss, Jim's deputy, was also a rusticated civil engineer. He is now a railway author. 

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1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

They come from Illinois, the Buckeye state. The UK version is 3/4 (?) size version of the US Janney coupler.

Ohio is the Buckeye state.

 

From memory, knuckle couplers are called "Buckeye" in the UK because the first ones we bought in were from the Buckeye Foundry, and the Americans use Janney for the same reasons. The generic term is Knuckle. Basically the same as how all vacuum cleaners are known widely as Hoovers.

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Have we had 'declared a failure' in here yet? 

 

Always set my teeth on edge seeing things like "40111 was declared a failure at Glasgow" or the like... brings to mind a mental image of someone dressed in top hat and tails unfurling a parchment and in best James Mason voice proclaiming the terrible news.

 

Chris

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41 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Ohio is the Buckeye state.

 

From memory, knuckle couplers are called "Buckeye" in the UK because the first ones we bought in were from the Buckeye Foundry, and the Americans use Janney for the same reasons. The generic term is Knuckle. Basically the same as how all vacuum cleaners are known widely as Hoovers.

Knew it was one of them-there are 50 to choose from!

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Just looked it up on my phone's dictionary:-

 

1. any of trees or shrubs of the genus Aesculus, as A.glabra (Ohio buckeye)...

 

2. the brown nut of any of these trees

 

3. (initail capital letter) a native or inhabitant of Ohio (used as a nickname)

 

4. a butterfly, Precis lavinia, having dark-brown wings with purple or red eyespots

 

Origin; an Americanism first recorded in 1755-65, buck = stag + eye, originally used to designate def. 1 in reference to the look of the seed.

 

Thinking of the brutal bulk of the buckeye buffercouplers used on the Bristish Steel tipplers for the Port Talbot-Llanwern iron ore trains, it is hard to reconcile the concept with the delicacy and fragile beauty of a butterfly!

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21 minutes ago, Firecrest said:

Have we had 'declared a failure' in here yet? 

 

Always set my teeth on edge seeing things like "40111 was declared a failure at Glasgow" or the like... brings to mind a mental image of someone dressed in top hat and tails unfurling a parchment and in best James Mason voice proclaiming the terrible news.

 

Chris

British Rail regrets to inform passengers awaiting the arrival of the xxxx Paddington-Swansea, as this train is delayed by up to 25 minutes.  The Severn Tunnel is under water, you know...

 

'British Rail regrets' is of course a standardised lie, along with 'the cheque's in the post' or 'of course I'll love and respect you in the morning'.  There are also standard oxymorons (did you know that Welsh for carrot is moron). such as 'military intelligence'. 'civil service', or 'care in the community'.

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1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

And nearly 40 years ago I had a top-boss who was a rusticated civil engineer. I'm not sure I knew the nature of Jim's  professional misdemeanour, but he tended to refer to a pair of points as a "CV nine-and-a-quarter" which left many of us out of further conversation!

 

Which tells those of us in the know that it is a natural turnout where the same radius runs right through the switches and crossing, what the likely rail section is 113A FB with the rails held vertically in the baseplates not at the normal inclination of 1 in 20, speed through the turn out maximum of 27MPH, that subject to it having a suitable number of bolts through the switch and crossing blocks (or a cast crossing) it may be suitable for use in CWR and that it is probably not part of a crossover, as that would be more likely to be a Cv10, to reduce the reversal in the middle of the crossover. Points is to small a word for such a marvel.

 

Lesser mortals than the PW will probably be able to deduce that the switches are of length C (Switches get longer as you go up the alphabet with A being the shortest and having the tightest radius) and that the crossing angle is 1 in 9 1/4.

Edited by Trog
Added the obvious for completeness.
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5 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

I've never seen the spelling of 'mould' without the 'U' in U in the UK, and I worked next to the Ingot Mould Foundry at British Steel Landore, some forty years ago.

 

Mold is just the US spelling of mould.

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5 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

The extra H happens all the time even in official reports. The report is also calling the portals, gantries.

 

That does seem to be the case - since most will know what is meant by either OHLE or OLE, both are probably acceptable.

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"Train station" also jars with me. I suspect it derives from newspaper sub editors looking for a shortened form of description for headlines which often have length restrictions. .

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2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Buckeye couplings.  Never heard them referred to as anything else during nearly a decade on the railway in the 70s, and I was familiar with the term in my spotting and early modelling days, but surely they should be Janneys?

 

Page 37 of BR's manual for the class 90 refers to a "Drophead buckeye coupling":

http://www.locodocs.co.uk/brmanuals/90General-Static-Faults-33056-128-1988.htm

 

The Mk3 DVT manual on the same site also refers to buckeye coupling

 

(that's not to say they didn't have another name in the 70s - I can't find a manual from that period that mentions them).

 

Steven B.

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18 minutes ago, Steven B said:

 

 

Page 37 of BR's manual for the class 90 refers to a "Drophead buckeye coupling":

http://www.locodocs.co.uk/brmanuals/90General-Static-Faults-33056-128-1988.htm

 

The Mk3 DVT manual on the same site also refers to buckeye coupling

 

(that's not to say they didn't have another name in the 70s - I can't find a manual from that period that mentions them).

 

Steven B.

The GWR in the 1930s referred to them as "Automatic Couplers" and called the actual working part a "knuckle"

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44 minutes ago, Derekl said:

 

Mold is just the US spelling of mould.

Just like font and fount

Typecast letters "founts" were made in a foundry.

The US calls them fonts and it has stuck for computer use.

 

A font is for drowning babies in church............:D

Edited by melmerby
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