Pet hate idioms used by railway enthusiasts

[Clive Mortimore]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Clive

I'm not disputing that overhead line equipment (OLE) is the term officially adopted by the UIC to refer to the knitting  (it presumably includes single wire "tramway" supplies as well) but that doesn't make a commonly used term for the type where the contact wire is suspended from a catenary wire "wrong". I mentioned cátenaire simply to make the point that the usage is very common everywhere. This isn't just among the ignorant public or railway modellers but also among electrical engineers.  

For example, the title of a paper from the "3rd IET Professional Development Course on Railway Electrification Infrastructure and Systems, 2007" was "Catenary and pantograph design and interface"

or more recently this abstract from a 2017  IEEE conference paper.  

 "For the condition monitoring of railway catenaries, the potential utilization of pantograph head (pan-head) vertical acceleration instead of pantograph-catenary contact force is discussed in this paper. In order to establish a baseline of the pan-head acceleration before it can be used for health condition monitoring, one of the essential frequency components, namely the catenary structure wavelength (CSW) is studied......"

 

I'm sorry if quoting references from engineering institutes seems a bit heavy handed but I am trying to make a general point that I do take seriously. This is that the idea that there should be one "correct" term for something with all others "incorrect" or "wrong"  is itself wrong: a great deal depends on context. This is particularly true of English which, as a Germanic language with a hybrid vocabularly, absorbs words and terms  from other languages like a sponge.

 

This is very different from using a word with a  different meaning such as disinterested when you mean uninterested. I really hate that as it gradually robs our language of subtleties of meaning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi David

 

I have 16,000 OLE drawings, I have to find one that refers to the system of supplying electricity to a locomotive or multiple unit as catenary.  

 

If the pantograph makes contact with the catenary wire, some poor blighter has a 'ell of a mess to sort out.

[ejstubbs]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Almost certainly Waitrose.

 

Pretty certain it was M&S - and possibly may still be.  IIRC the actual wording was "10 items or fewer." ("Fewer than 10 items" would mean no more than nine, and would sound a bit clunky IMO.)

[Pacific231G]

10 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi David

 

I have 16,000 OLE drawings, I have to find one that refers to the system of supplying electricity to a locomotive or multiple unit as catenary.  

 

If the pantograph makes contact with the catenary wire, some poor blighter has a 'ell of a mess to sort out.

Hi Clive

Obviously it doesn't but I think the clue is in "the catenary structure" in the IEEE paper. Clearly the author is  using "catenary" as shorthand for the whole structure of catenary wire, droppers and contact wire, (possibly for more of the knitting than that)  but definitely not in reference to the catenary wire alone. I assume the electical engineers writing IEEE and IET papers aren't ignoramuses and that usage of the word catenary to mean the whole thing that a catenary wire is part of seems pretty common.

It's a bit like a "catenary bridge" which means a suspension bridge supported by chains or cables from a catenary  chain or cable. It doesn't mean that the bridge itself is a catenary.

 

Where is does go wrong  is when any OLE system is referred to as a catenary even if the contact wire is not supported in that way as in many tramways and slower speed OLE systems.

Update.

I've just found this diagram in "Single Line Railways" a book prepared in 1966 by a panel of experts for the "United Kingdom Railway Advisory Service" for the UN's "Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East"   It was edited by O.S.Nock who, as well as being a well known railway writer, was of course a  very distinguished railway engineer in his own right.

 

The authors, there were two distinguished electrical engineers on the panel, refer generically to overhead equipment "that may take several forms". Clearly these were not railway enthusiasts or ignorant journalists mistakedly using the "wrong" term.

So, if you tell me that railway engineers normally (or even exclusively)  use the term Overhead Line Equipment to refer to their knitting I have no problem at all accepting that. However, if you try to tell me that it's simply "wrong" to refer to catenary or catenary equipment to mean the whole system that includes a catenary wire, then I rest my case that it is a long accepted and well understood usage.

That apart, I found this diagram and the text it illustrated interesting. "Tramway" type construction "may be used in sidings where movement is always very slow" though I've certainly seen it used on branch lines in Germany and Austria. I've never come across "stitched" or "compound" catenary equipment but the authors regarded  "simple catenary equipment" as only being suitable for speeds up 130 km/h. "Stitched" or "compound" would enable speeds up to 160 km/h.  They don't appear to have envisaged high speed trains  even though the first Shinkansen had been running for two years, but that may be because their focus was on railway projects in the developing world.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Pacific231G

[ejstubbs]

On 10/06/2021 at 19:01, The Johnster said:

The American meaning is probably more correct

 

I would tend to agree.  The 'technical' term in the UK is "footway" - that part of the road reserved for the use of pedestrians*.  As opposed to the "carriageway", which is the bit that 'carriages' (i.e. wheeled vehicles, including bicycles) are supposed to be driven on (but pedestrians can use as well - with most wisely choosing not to for the majority of the time, other than where no footway is provided).

 

Totally non-railway-related but one that's starting to bug me currently is the rise of the tautological coinage "EV vehicle".

 

* And certain specialised wheeled vehicles, the most obvious exception cases being powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

Edited June 11, 2021 by ejstubbs

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, Ken.W said:

 

Is that a railway that's self-isolating due to the current restrictions?

 

It appears to be be using a steam locomotive so it probably does not need to isolate even if the current is restricted.

[St Enodoc]

14 hours ago, Steven B said:

Plenty more bridges cross the River Forth further west. The river was bridged by the railway at Alloa five years before Fowler & Baker's construction opened.

True but my understanding is that they cross the River not the Firth.

[corneliuslundie]

But of course the next stop might be at a signal not at a station. In the days before guard controlled doors it was known for people to leave the train at such points places.

Do I remember Gerard Fiennes commenting on such an event on the viaduct near Bethnal Green?

Jonathan

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, Dagworth said:

think it was Billy Connolly that said it didn’t even need the Forth in its name, simply being The Bridge

I’m sure I read somewhere that, unlike all the other bridges on the network, it does not have a number, simply being known as THE bridge.  In normal usage, everybody knows that ‘Forth Bridge’ refers to the big railway bridge with the cantilevers that is always being painted. 
 

Similarly, at least where I live, the Severn Tunnel is simply ‘the tunnel’, or in railway parlance, ‘the hole’. 

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

......... at White City the announcement is always in the form of  "The next train alongside platform three is for Ealing Broadway". "The next train at platform three...."  would do just as well. .... 

In most places the phrase would "on platform three" ............ which makes me want to jump onto the track to get out of its way !

[Oldddudders]

35 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

In most places the phrase would "on platform three" ............ which makes me want to jump onto the track to get out of its way !

"The train now entering platforms 3,4,5 & 6 will be coming in sideways. Stand well clear, please!"

[corneliuslundie]

That presumably is only needed occasionally at Paddington, and for sleeper trains.

I was working in publishing in London at the time and the printer's van driver would be on the platform to collect the nightly Red Star package from Cornwall. That day, he was there to see it.

Jonathan

[St Enodoc]

25 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

"The train now entering platforms 3,4,5 & 6 will be coming in sideways. Stand well clear, please!"

The old ones are the best... aren't we.

[Oldddudders]

36 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

That presumably is only needed occasionally at Paddington, and for sleeper trains.

I was working in publishing in London at the time and the printer's van driver would be on the platform to collect the nightly Red Star package from Cornwall. That day, he was there to see it.

Jonathan

Richard Morris was the Area Manager, and it was a pretty tough week, he told me about 20 years later. Such things took quite some tidying up, even in the halcyon days when it was all one firm. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Oldddudders

[iands]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I’m sure I read somewhere that, unlike all the other bridges on the network, it does not have a number..... 

Yep, checked yesterday on the 5 mile diagrams and it doesn't have number. 

[Clive Mortimore]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Clive

Obviously it doesn't but I think the clue is in "the catenary structure" in the IEEE paper. Clearly the author is  using "catenary" as shorthand for the whole structure of catenary wire, droppers and contact wire, (possibly for more of the knitting than that)  but definitely not in reference to the catenary wire alone. I assume the electical engineers writing IEEE and IET papers aren't ignoramuses and that usage of the word catenary to mean the whole thing that a catenary wire is part of seems pretty common.

It's a bit like a "catenary bridge" which means a suspension bridge supported by chains or cables from a catenary  chain or cable. It doesn't mean that the bridge itself is a catenary.

 

Where is does go wrong  is when any OLE system is referred to as a catenary even if the contact wire is not supported in that way as in many tramways and slower speed OLE systems.

That is why it is called Overhead Line Equipment.

 

But I give in it must be catenary if that is what the French call it. Off to le gare to do some train-repérage.

 

 

[roythebus1]

Ignoramuses or ignorami?  Pacific 231G.

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by roythebus1

[phil-b259]

19 hours ago, Reorte said:

But one of them must be the fourth! Fourth one upstream looks to be disused, no idea which was the fourth to be built. Although the Second Severn Crossing is, of course, the first upstream and definitely not the second one to be built.

 

Across the river or the Estuary / Firth?

 

Which of course bergs the question where does a mere river, even a tidal one become something grander?

 

 

[Oldddudders]

22 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Ignoramuses or ignorami?  Pacific 231G.

 

Surely he can't be both?

[Wickham Green too]

23 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

........ ignorami? .............

That's something to do with folding paper isn't it ??!?

[caradoc]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I’m sure I read somewhere that, unlike all the other bridges on the network, it does not have a number, simply being known as THE bridge.

 

That's correct, and as befits its magnificence it has all sorts of special conditions; For example, wheelskate moves are not allowed over it (due to the type of rail used) and one of the first things I learned on being trained for the Freight desks in Glasgow Control was that it is RA8, but up to 4 vehicles of RA9 or 10 can be conveyed as long as no more than two are marshalled together. Information I have not needed since 1994 but still somehow remembered ! 

 

Despite its length, every now and again a trespasser would decide to walk across the bridge, usually resulting in traffic being stopped while the Police dealt with the situation. 

 

[The Johnster]

13 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

That's something to do with folding paper isn't it ??!?

I didn’t realise that hippopotomotamuseses could fold paper!

[Pacific231G]

32 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Ignoramuses or ignorami?  Pacific 231G.

 

According to my OED "ignoramuses". Ignoramus in Latin is a verb form meaning  "we do not know" and was a 16th Century legal term for when the prosecution in a trial presented insufficient evidence. It was the title of a 1615 farce by George Rugle and that seems to have led to it becoming a noun meaning an ignorant person. Since it was only a noun in English its plural takes the English form.   

[The Johnster]

19 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Across the river or the Estuary / Firth?

 

Which of course bergs the question where does a mere river, even a tidal one become something grander?

 

 

The Bristol Channel, which you’d have thought was a channel to Bristol, or at least Avonmouth, becomes the ‘Mouth of the Severn’ at Brean Down near Weston-Super-Mare, and I think the Severn Estuary starts between Beachley and Aust, under the M48 ‘old’ Severn Bridge.  I would consider that it ceases to be an estuary and becomes a tidal river at Over or Lower Parting, but there may well be different definitions.

[rodent279]

11 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I didn’t realise that hippopotomotamuseses could fold paper!

I feel we're drifting back to trigonometry and hyperbolic functions!

[The Johnster]

Just now, rodent279 said:

I feel we're drifting back to trigonometry and hyperbolic functions!

And we don’t want hyperbole!