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Pet hate idioms used by railway enthusiasts


DY444
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22 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Dead In Tow was certainly used in the railway vernacular as was drag/dragged in the context you mention.  However as far as DIT is concerned on the Western the term officially used, and also often used in the vernacular as well, was ANR - meaning 'Attached, Not Required'

 

I'm not disputing the terms were/are used inside the industry but the question is from when.  Did the industry start using "Dead in Tow" because enthusiasts and parts of the enthusiast media did or vice versa? 

 

My theory has always been the former as the first time I saw it was in pieces involving one particular contributor to the railway media around about the year 2000.   I've always presumed the term originated as a mistaken understanding by that contributor of what DIT stood for.  My theory continues that as its use spread amongst enthusiasts so it started to be used by some people in the industry. 

 

Either way it's always struck me as an especially illogical term as, unlike most railway terms, it has no basis from the historic day to day operating lexicon which is why I think its origin is probably from outside the industry.  And no it doesn't matter but the term still irritates me :wacko:.

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2 hours ago, iands said:

One that irks me is the use of the term "relay box" for "signalling location" (or signalling loc). 

 

Yep, that's one that annoys me as well, also AWS 'Ramp' (there are not ramps, they are Magnets or Inductors) and TPWS 'Grids' (they are actually used loops).

 

Of course, people already know my hatred for using ERTMS to mean ETCS :) 

 

Simon

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2 hours ago, Wheatley said:

"Dead in train" / "Dead in tow" - I've been on the railways 34 years this year and heard both used interchangeably all that time. Similarly "drag" or "dragging" was/is in common use for diesels hauling (normally) electric sets.

 

Conversely the S&C was never referred to as 'The Drag / Long Drag' when I was working on it, it was always 'The Midland' to distinguish it from the North East, the North West, the M&C (or 'The West Line') and The Caley which were the other lines then radiating out of Carlisle.  If you were referring to the North West and the Caley as a continuous route then it was 'The Main Line'. But if you went to Newcastle 'The West Line' was what Carlisle men called 'The North East' - context being everything with geographical names.   

 

Does it really matter ? 

 

"Train station" - ok that one really matters, I'm surprised our social media team haven't blocked me. 

 

Any quirks to do with announcements on 333s is likely to be because it costs a fortune to alter anything. The auto-announcer was a unique system when it was introduced and is now completely non-standard, so it mostly says whatever CAF originally programmed it to say. Personally it annoys me more that, unless it's stopping at Kirkstall Forge, it starts announcing Leeds almost immediately it leaves Shipley or Guiseley !

That's interesting, because my dad referred to the S&C as the long drag, and he fired over it. That was going back a bit, admittedly, it was 1948. He may have picked up the phrase in later years.

Edited by rodent279
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34 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

'Frog'!

 

There is no such thing in UK railway engineering - every P-way person and official bit of documentation refers to them as a 'Crossing'

 

'Bulb' - Bulbs grow in the ground and produce plants.

 

The correct term for an illuminating device is a 'Lamp' - which can be prefixed by what method is used to create the light - i.e. 'Paraffin Lamp', 'Gas Lamp', 'Electric Lamp', 'LED Lamp',...

I always understood that as in the lamp was the entire device (sometimes qualified further as you point out), with a bulb as a component of it if one's used (probably just the bit of glass containing a filament in the incandescent electric type).

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3 hours ago, Barclay said:

Jinty - what a stupid name !

 

I understand that it was never used by railways or railwaymen in relation to the LMS 3F 0-6-0T in any case ?

Bagnalls on the S&D!

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4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I always understood that as in the lamp was the entire device (sometimes qualified further as you point out), with a bulb as a component of it if one's used (probably just the bit of glass containing a filament in the incandescent electric type).

 

As with 'frogs', you will not find the term 'bulb' in any UK railway professional document / parts catalogue / maintenance schedule.

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1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Flying from a planeport?

Nothing to do with railways, but I have a notebook that my grandfather kept during Great War training, in which there are instructions for where to keep your new-fangled armour - on a 'tankodrome' of course. Funny that never caught on!

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1 minute ago, phil-b259 said:

 

As with 'frogs', you will not find the term 'bulb' in any UK railway professional document / parts catalogue / maintenance schedule.

I'd guess because they'll never deal with just the bit of glass alone, it'll always come packaged with a filament (OK probably not nowadays), connections etc.

 

How do they differ between the entire item (including light source, housing, lens, possibly battery etc.) and just the light source itself?

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50 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

'Bulb' - Bulbs grow in the ground and produce plants.

 

The correct term for an illuminating device is a 'Lamp' - which can be prefixed by what method is used to create the light - i.e. 'Paraffin Lamp', 'Gas Lamp', 'Electric Lamp', 'LED Lamp',...

Spoken like a true Southern man Phil.

 

And of course "Lights" are panes of glass that you can look through (unless they're deadlights, in which case you can't).

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33 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

That's interesting, because my dad referred to the S&C as the long drag, and he fired over it. That was going back a bit, admittedly, it was 1948. He may have picked up the phrase in later years.

Following the 1995 Ais Gill accident, we conducted NRN coverage tests over the line (using IRIS II). The report that was produced referenced the "Long Drag". 

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1 minute ago, Reorte said:

I'd guess because they'll never deal with just the bit of glass alone, it'll always come packaged with a filament (OK probably not nowadays), connections etc.

 

How do they differ between the entire item (including light source, housing, lens, possibly battery etc.) and just the light source itself?

 

Technically the device that hold the light source is called a 'luminaire'

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_fixture

 

However in the UK railway signalling world you have, 'Signal head' to describe the casing, 'lamp holder' to hold the lamp, 'signal head transformer', 'searchlight mechanism', etc - all of which are combined to produce a signal.

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As soon as I hear or read the words "resilient" and resilience" nowadays I immediately think 'Dawlish seawall wash-out'. Network Rail started it when reporting on the events of February 2014 and their ramifications - RAIL magazine then picked up on it and the many articles which appeared in subsequent weeks were almost comical in their constant repetition of these two words.

It appears that nothing can be written on the Dawlish scenario without referring to 'resilience'. Despite working for a vehicle import company at the time, for some reason we used to get copies of 'Rail Engineer' arriving (perhaps we once advertised our pick-up truck in it) which somebody else would chuck in the recycling bin and I would retrieve for a look-through..........and an article on Dawlish was again littered with these two words. Just for fun I ringed them all, before returning it to the recycling bin (my excuse is that I was in charge of co-ordinating brochure production for 17 years and proof-reading everything was, and still is, automatic!!)

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4 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Spelling "Kadee" as 'Kaydee'.  :shout:  :nono:  :punish:

 

Guilty as charged; it is one I always try to get right and end up getting wrong.  I will promise to try to do better but I've promised this before.  Kadee, Johnster, Kadee.

 

2 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Well it will always be single or double amber for me, yellow is for diesel front ends !!!!

 

Brit15

 

 

 

Amber lights are what were traditionally on road traffic signals, traffic lights; railway signals are green, red, yellow, or double yellow, never amber, ever.  I, too, used the term amber when I was a spotter, but was told off for it as soon as I joined the railway and ceased using it.  It disappeared from my life like other spotters' vernacular; for instance I never heard a Class 47 described as a 'Brush' by railwaymen, always a 'Sulzer'.  That said, railway vernacular changes from area to area; I never heard a Class 33  described as a Crompton on the WR, because Cromptons were Classes 44/5/6 and the term was used at Saltley as well.  Peaks were Class 44 only; the use of the term for Class 45 and 46 was a spotterism.  Yes, I know Crompton equipment was not used on the 46.

 

The correct (yellow/double yellow) terminology was important if you were 'calling' signals for a driver.

 

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Frog'!

 

I believe the term is used in the US for the crossing assembly, with the vee and the check rails, which sort of looks a bit like a herpetic reptile in plan drawings.  But it is not used on the real railway in the UK.

 

Kadee not Kaydee!

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8 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Amber lights are what were traditionally on road traffic signals, traffic lights; railway signals are green, red, yellow, or double yellow, never amber, ever.  I, too, used the term amber when I was a spotter, but was told off for it as soon as I joined the railway and ceased using it.

In appearance too, those on the road have considerably more orange in them than the ones on the railway. The reds and greens are more similar though, I once started to slow down (in poor weather, in the dark) for a red light that turned out to be from a signal on the railway running parallel to the road.

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5 hours ago, DY444 said:

2. "Dragged" for the hauling of a (usually electric) dead locomotive/multiple unit by a (usually diesel) locomotive.  I can only think of two legitimate railway contexts for "drag".  The S&C gradients and not fully released brakes.

 

All trains are dragged - a Drag Box (not haul box :)) connect the coupling to the vehicle it's fitted to...

 

Steven B.

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Some thirty or so years ago British Rail started to refer to the platforms at Manchester Piccadilly as gates, i.e “the 17.10 for Marple is now boarding at gate 4” This really set my teeth on edge but thankfully the term soon fell out of use. 

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44 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Spoken like a true Southern man Phil.

 

And of course "Lights" are panes of glass that you can look through (unless they're deadlights, in which case you can't).

 

Unless you are in the local country butchers, when they are the lungs of various animals or birds. When chopped up into slices, coated with a spiced batter/breadcrumb mixture and deep fried, they are very tasty. 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Amber lights are what were traditionally on road traffic signals, traffic lights; railway signals are green, red, yellow, or double yellow, never amber, ever.  I, too, used the term amber when I was a spotter, but was told off for it as soon as I joined the railway and ceased using it.  

 

The correct (yellow/double yellow) terminology was important if you were 'calling' signals for a driver.

 

Definitely yellow, at least according tohe the 1933 SR rulebook...

 

Quote

Where colour light signals having more than three aspects are provided, one yellow light indicates to a driver that he must be prepared to stop at the next signal, and two yellow lights indicate that he must be prepared to find the next signal showing one yellow light.

 

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American's don't call stations "train stations" but Railroad Station in big cities and Railroad Depot out in the countryside.

 

Braintree never use to have a bus station but a more aptly named "bus park". It was renamed at some point before 2000.

 

Frog was a term used in the past referring to the crossing V as it looked like the frog on a horses hoof.

 

Railwaymen and puffer nutters always had different names and terms for the same thing. Even railwaymen had different terms for the same thing eg on the LMR it was a D200 and on the exGER lines a 2000. The WR had pilots, the LMR jockos and the ER 350s (other names were in use as well), trainspotters they were shunters until class 08 came into use. 

 

Terms change on the real railway, within the ranks of gricers and get moaned about by those with train sets.

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Another one from me, "Vandal Proof". I think this started life by manufacturers, or at least the sales department, of lineside telephones. They are not vandal proof, nothing is, but they are vandal resistant in that they can offer some degree of resistance to vandalism. 

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1 hour ago, DY444 said:

 

I'm not disputing the terms were/are used inside the industry but the question is from when.  Did the industry start using "Dead in Tow" because enthusiasts and parts of the enthusiast media did or vice versa? 

 

My theory has always been the former as the first time I saw it was in pieces involving one particular contributor to the railway media around about the year 2000.   I've always presumed the term originated as a mistaken understanding by that contributor of what DIT stood for.  My theory continues that as its use spread amongst enthusiasts so it started to be used by some people in the industry. 

 

Either way it's always struck me as an especially illogical term as, unlike most railway terms, it has no basis from the historic day to day operating lexicon which is why I think its origin is probably from outside the industry.  And no it doesn't matter but the term still irritates me :wacko:.

Dead In Tow was definitely in vernacular use on BR well before 2000.   Probably a development of the original term 'Towed dead' which goes back a very long way and was almost certainly a vernacular corruption of the official term 'hauled dead'

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4 hours ago, Barclay said:

Jinty - what a stupid name !

 

I understand that it was never used by railways or railwaymen in relation to the LMS 3F 0-6-0T in any case ?

 

It was very widely used by railwaymen, particularly in the North West. Many also called them Jockos that is still used for the diesel shunters that replaced them. No one referred to them by their power rating as if you asked for a 3F then you would probably end up with a tender engine.

 

Apparently it referred to the boiler type of the original MR version which was something like the GT.

 

 

If it was a stupid name then why was it a popular girls name also used as a comic.....  :prankster:

 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Re6/6 said:

Bagnalls on the S&D!

 

Because they were built by Bagnall by any chance? So not really a nickname or idiom.

 

 

Jason

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7 minutes ago, Nick C said:

 

Definitely yellow, at least according tohe the 1933 SR rulebook...

 

 

The use of yellow as the universally used official term can be traced back to the early 1920s IRSE Committee looking at and making recommendations in respect of signal aspects  standardised use of yellow on the British railway network from then.  Those signals  (3 position semaphores of US origin) which had previously been described in some instances and documents as showing an amber light when in the caution position were henceforth described as showing a yellow light when at caution.

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10 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

It was very widely used by railwaymen, particularly in the North West. Many also called them Jockos that is still used for the diesel shunters that replaced them. No one referred to them by their power rating as if you asked for a 3F then you would probably end up with a tender engine.

 

Apparently it referred to the boiler type of the original MR version which was something like the GT.

 

 

If it was a stupid name then why was it a popular girls name also used as a comic.....  :prankster:

 

 

 

 

Because they were built by Bagnall by any chance? So not really a nickname or idiom.

 

 

Jason

Ah well - still think it's silly !!

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