Pet hate idioms used by railway enthusiasts

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, Grizz said:

The BBC and various other deliberately ignorant media organisations…..”the freight carriages have derailed”….”the engine” (when describing any leading or front vehicle in a train, usually a unit)….”the passenger train derailed, with the wagons tipping over”….”the train driver ‘jumped’ the red light”…..”where it goes round a bend in the track” (when describing a curve).

This sort of thing annoys me.

Journalists expected to know absolutely everything about absolutely anything.

 

How many people, outside of the railway industry and enthusiasts, given a picture of a Class 91 + set and a class 800 in LNER livery would know that one is a multiple unit and the other has a locomotive and driving trailer?

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, RichardT said:

someone in RWWeb-land call a steam locomotive a "teapot", which doesn't even make sense as an insult: at least a kettle actually does boil water. 

 

Perhaps they had a fireless locomotive in mind?

[Fat Controller]

32 minutes 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).

 

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.

[101]

2 hours ago, Titanius Anglesmith said:

 

I find this one interesting. I’ve worked professionally in signalling for twenty years but I don’t recall hearing anyone ever calling it a turnout until I joined this forum. I’m not denying that turnout is the official term (at least as far as the Track department are concerned), but I’ve only ever heard them called “points”. Probably there are regional variations?

 

In my time I never heard anyone use "turnout" for a point, the pway more commonly called them crossings, which confused me when I first started, but I also heard them use switches as well. But I don't ever remember traincrew/ops staff calling them anything other than points.

Edited June 10, 2021 by 101

[Clive Mortimore]

41 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

You'd better tell the Rail Accident Investigation Branch that they've got it wrong

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c082b7d3bf7f4bd2f546d0/R032021_210609_Roade.pdf

Hi Michael

 

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

 

Life is too short to get too worked up by the extra H but calling OLE (OHEL) catenary

[Will Crompton]

15 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

About 50 years ago a friend went on a series of training courses with Philips Electrologica in Eindhoven. One of the Dutch instructors said you can dismantle anything - because someone must have mantled it! 

I once worked in a lab where we acquired a very specialised piece of testing kit from a Dutch manufacturer. The company sent over one of their engineers to train us to use it. During the course of the training day he referred more than once to 'rtf' errors. On asking him what an rtf error was he said 'read the f*****g manual errors!'

[laurenceb]

32 minutes ago, keefer said:

 

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

That is an Americanism. They refer to "the 4468" or similar which to me always looks odd.

Edited June 10, 2021 by laurenceb
posted too soon!

[St Enodoc]

12 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Michael

 

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

 

Life is too short to get too worked up by the extra H but calling OLE (OHEL) catenary

...especially if it's pronounced CATenary. When I used to work on international rail projects, one of the first things to establish with the client was whether the project language was to be English or American.

[iands]

33 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Michael

 

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

 

Life is too short to get too worked up by the extra H but calling OLE (OHEL) catenary

Years ago I used to use OHLE in documentation, simply because that was how it was referred to back then. Over time, with the introduction of more and more electrification schemes, it became OLE, I suspect originating from the Electrification engineers, so I (and others) also changed to the use of OLE. If nothing else, it does look more professional if all departments/engineering disciplines use the same abbreviations/terminology when describing the same equipment/system.

[ejstubbs]

13 hours ago, melmerby said:

Dismantle is the opposite of mantle as in to cover or cloak something.

 

Ah, mantling as in what birds of prey do with a fresh kill: https://community.rspb.org.uk/getinvolved/birdwatch/m/birdwatch-mediagallery/226888  I knew the word but never associated it with "dismantling".  Given that meaning of the word, "disassembly" seems a much more accurate description for the process of taking something apart by reversing part or all of the assembly process.

[russ p]

36 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

That is an Americanism. They refer to "the 4468" or similar which to me always looks odd.

 

I had a spat over this some years ago on the North Norfolk railway when a member of the board had the 27 named THE holt pioneer. 

What made it worse was that none of the then diesel group were informed of the naming. 

We removed the plates and put them on the B12 before refitting them . 

They weren't on long before the loco was repainted then sold

[APOLLO]

8 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Ah, mantling as in what birds of prey do with a fresh kill: https://community.rspb.org.uk/getinvolved/birdwatch/m/birdwatch-mediagallery/226888  I knew the word but never associated it with "dismantling".  Given that meaning of the word, "disassembly" seems a much more accurate description for the process of taking something apart by reversing part or all of the assembly process.

 

Railway content !!

 

Coalville - I think the box still survives (does it ?)

 

 

Brit15

[ejstubbs]

16 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

A catenary curve is a mathematically calculated one not a natural one.

 

As rodent279 said, a catenary curve is the shape assumed by an idealized (i.e. basically frictionless) hanging chain or cable when supported only at its ends.  You might argue that being "idealized" it never occurs in nature so isn't "natural", but according to Wiki: 

"The curve appears ... as a cross section of the catenoid—the shape assumed by a soap film bounded by two parallel circular rings" - so it can occur naturally.  In any case, at the end of the day all mathematical models are approximations to nature since it's basically impossible to take all possible factors occurring in nature into account.  Some are better approximations than others, and IMO the catenary curve is a pretty damn good one.

 

HOWEVER: the wire that supports the contact wire at he correct height above the rails in an OLE system actually does not assume a catenary curve, since there are discrete droppers along the length of the 'catenary' wire, so in this case it's the railway's "idiom" that is flawed.

[iands]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

 

In my time I never heard anyone use "turnout" for a point, the pway more commonly called them crossings, which confused me when I first started, but I also heard them use switches as well. But I don't ever remember traincrew/ops staff calling them anything other than points.

"Turnout" is mentioned in the MoT accident report in the derailment of 15th July 1966 at Kingham, so it has been used in at least one official report. I guess it is down to what is "fashionable" at that point (no pun intended) in time.

[iands]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

You'd better tell the Rail Accident Investigation Branch that they've got it wrong

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c082b7d3bf7f4bd2f546d0/R032021_210609_Roade.pdf

RAIB reports in the past have referenced the Ellis' British Railway Engineering Encyclopaedia as their source for abbreviations and terminology, which incidentally quotes both OLE and OHLE.

 

Perhaps we should all use the Ellis' Encyclopaedia as the base document for abbreviations.

[Oldddudders]

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

[caradoc]

Before I joined the railway points had frogs, either live or dead; Once in an operational role I never heard or saw the word again, it was always crossings ! And I agree that OLE is correct, not OHLE, simply because overhead is one word, not two. Railway terminology does change however, I recall the phrase Emergency Isolation (of the OLE) being replaced by Emergency Switch-off, because in this circumstance the overheads are not, at first anyway, earthed. 

 

[Pacific231G]

17 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi

 

I fully agree, the term that should be used is Overhead Line Equipment (OLE, there is no H in the middle). The catenary wire (with the curve ) is the support wire trying to maintain the correct height above the rails of the contact wire. A catenary curve is a mathematically calculated one not a natural one.

 

 

I'm not sure about should. Just because a term is used within a profession, where there's likely to be a greater need for precision and specifity, it doesn't follow that the commonly used term is therefore wrong. Catenary (from the Latin and French for a chain) is a pretty well established generic term for OLE that includes a catenary wire and perhaps became used to differentiate it from the simple tram type system with a single wire hung directly from poles.

 

It's perhaps interesting that my French dictionary defines caténaire as an adjective and noun used in railways (adj. et n. f. CH de F)  to describe a system of suspension which maintains the cable carrying current at a constant height from the track. There too it's used generically to refer to this type of OLE.  

 

This is different from sloppyuse of the wrong word to describe something, such as boat for ship (though "boat train" is interesting) or train for locomotive or engine. 

19 hours ago, br2975 said:

I thoroughly detest the term "disassemble" - obviously invented by someone ignorant.....................ignorant of the correct term, "dismantle".

You may detest but both words are in my 1990 OED. They appear close to being synonyms but disassemble seems to imply a greater chance of reassembly, especially when applied to machinery .  Unfortunately, if you see dismantled railway on an O.S. map, it doesn't mean that it's been prepared for relaying.  Synonyms are very common in English and most languages and you can't just declare one or more of  them to be incorrect just because you prefer to use the other. Again, this is very different from using a word that means something different.

[Steven B]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

How many people, outside of the railway industry and enthusiasts, given a picture of a Class 91 + set and a class 800 in LNER livery would know that one is a multiple unit and the other has a locomotive and driving trailer?

 

How many people, outside of the railway industry and enthusiasts, care about the difference? Most people are more bothered about if they can get a seat, a coffee and have somewhere to recharge their phone!

 

Steven B.

[Steadfast]

12 hours ago, RichardT said:

Surprised this hasn't come up yet: "kettle" as an oh-so-amusing term for a steam locomotive.  Often used by the same people who think that they are the first people ever to observe that a preserved steam locomotive is like "Trigger's broom". 

 

That said, I recently saw someone in RWWeb-land call a steam locomotive a "teapot", which doesn't even make sense as an insult: at least a kettle actually does boil water. 

One of our drivers at work regularly works steam charters, and he's a life long railway man and a keen enthusiast. He calls them teapots and kettles all the time.

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

8 hours ago, Grizz said:

The BBC and various other deliberately ignorant media organisations…..”the freight carriages have derailed”….”the engine” (when describing any leading or front vehicle in a train, usually a unit)….”the passenger train derailed, with the wagons tipping over”….”the train driver ‘jumped’ the red light”…..”where it goes round a bend in the track” (when describing a curve).

I have heard NR staff call wagons carriages many times, from staff unloading them on a spoil tip to people in worksites. 

It might cause me a light chuckle, but I know what they mean when they tell me those ten carriages are empty now.

 

Jo

[melmerby]

52 minutes 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. 

Quite

The GWR in the 1930s calls them Points but points themselves are formed of switches, crossings and elbows etc.

No mention of turnouts or frogs.

Edited June 10, 2021 by melmerby

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

HOWEVER: the wire that supports the contact wire at he correct height above the rails in an OLE system actually does not assume a catenary curve, since there are discrete droppers along the length of the 'catenary' wire, so in this case it's the railway's "idiom" that is flawed.

Fair point, but how significant a deviation is it? After all vacuum brakes don't operate at a true vacuum either. Life's full of such approximations (the Earth being spherical - try using that one for accurate navigation!)

[St Enodoc]

56 minutes 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. 

Spoken like the true operator you are.

[Clive Mortimore]

22 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I'm not sure about should. Just because a term is used within a profession, where there's likely to be a greater need for precision and specifity, it doesn't follow that the commonly used term is therefore wrong. Catenary (from the Latin and French for a chain) is a pretty well established generic term for OLE that includes a catenary wire and perhaps became used to differentiate it from the simple tram type system with a single wire hung directly from poles.

 

It's perhaps interesting that my French dictionary defines caténaire as an adjective and noun used in railways (adj. et n. f. CH de F)  to describe a system of suspension which maintains the cable carrying current at a constant height from the track. There too it's used generically to refer to this type of OLE.  

 

Catenary is the wrong name for overhead line equipment. Knitting is a more appropriate name for it.

 

As for what the French call it has no relevance, як і імёны, якія ён называе на іншых мовах.