Railway to Railroad, is there a reason to change title?

[Ohmisterporter]

I have noticed that the Lancaster and Chester Railway in SC has changed its official name to Railroad following a "restructuring". Is there any financial or legal gain to be had from this change? Now part of Gulf and Ohio Railways group, note the parent company still uses the term railway. 

[Xerces Fobe2]

Interesting that one of the railroad museums in California is called the Western Railway Museum!

[doctor quinn]

The only advantage I can think of is that the new company gets to use the brand its predecessor built up even though it is legally a different organisation which may only take on limited liabilities from the old one.

 

It is probably the smallest name change that US company registers will accept to comply with a requirement that all incorporated companies have different names.

 

Nick

[warbonnetuk]

Case in point was the Santa Fe which started as a Railroad but after it went bankrupt in the late1800's was reincorporated as a Railway

 

Dan

[Godders]

The main advantage of changing from Railroad to Railway is that Americans can learn to use another description correctly.

 

 

Cheers Godders

[jamie92208]

I think that historically the 'railways' such as Santa Fe had a cionsiderable amount of British capital behind them.

 

Jamie

[Pacific231G]

The main advantage of changing from Railroad to Railway is that Americans can learn to use another description correctly.

 

 

Cheers Godders

Correctly?

Railroad was quite widely used in the early days of railways in this country though railway became the accepted term. In the USA there are many companies with Railway in their name though apparently this was more common for street railways. In Canada they have railways, and the first time I travelled in New England, found it quite odd in Vermont and I think also in Maine to come across grade crossings (level crossings) with Railway Crossing on the cross buck. I soon discovered that these were Canadian railways that passed through US territory. 

 

Anyway its very simple to tell;  if it's a small scale model of a railway then the gauge of the track is likely (but not certain) to be considerably underscale but if it's a model of a railroad, ferrovie, chemin de fer, eisenbahn or spoorwegen then the gauge will almost certainly be either spot on or very close to it.

[Godders]

I have just "Googled" to find any reference to the use of railroad in this country and have found none. This doesn't mean that there weren't railroads here but does tend to indicate the useage was rare.

 

I do find your opinion of British finescale modellers for example P4 to be a little un generous and I think you will find that just as many of the various models of foreign prototypes you mention suffer from just as many non-scale problems. Most of the ones you mention have a special scale for coach length in H0 at least; scale 1:87, coach length scale 1:100.

 

Just to conclude; Ferrovie translates as Iron Way, chemin de fer as Way of Iron, Eisenbahn as Iron Way

 

Anyway what does it matter we can't save the Americans from themselves, ignorance is bliss they say.

[Andy Reichert]

I have just "Googled" to find any reference to the use of railroad in this country and have found none. This doesn't mean that there weren't railroads here but does tend to indicate the useage was rare.

 

I do find your opinion of British finescale modellers for example P4 to be a little un generous and I think you will find that just as many of the various models of foreign prototypes you mention suffer from just as many non-scale problems. Most of the ones you mention have a special scale for coach length in H0 at least; scale 1:87, coach length scale 1:100.

 

Just to conclude; Ferrovie translates as Iron Way, chemin de fer as Way of Iron, Eisenbahn as Iron Way

 

Anyway what does it matter we can't save the Americans from themselves, ignorance is bliss they say.

 

I note that the only research mentioned of the use of "railroad" during the past 180 years or so is apparently based solely and blissfully on checking whether it is documented on the 30 year old internet. 

 

Andy (balanced roughly half American and half British).

[pH]

Almost always as a result of a financial reorganisation, as posted above. Another change in a situation like that is to add or remove the word 'and' to or from the name e.g. the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway became the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. (I know there are other examples, but I can't think of any just now.)

 

'Railway' is still used in company titles in North America. While CPR and CNR might be expected, given a Commonwealth connection, look up BNSF!

[trisonic]

Plenty of “Railways” in the USA - as pH confirms start with the BNSF Railway.....

 

CSX is neither btw.

 

Best, Pete.

[micknich2003]

I know of a ref to "Railroad" in the Uk as late as the early 1880's.

[Pacific231G]

I have just "Googled" to find any reference to the use of railroad in this country and have found none. This doesn't mean that there weren't railroads here but does tend to indicate the useage was rare.

 

I do find your opinion of British finescale modellers for example P4 to be a little un generous and I think you will find that just as many of the various models of foreign prototypes you mention suffer from just as many non-scale problems. Most of the ones you mention have a special scale for coach length in H0 at least; scale 1:87, coach length scale 1:100.

 

I'm well aware of British finescale modellers and P4 which is why, even though the comment was light hearted, I was careful to say "if it's a small scale model of a railway then the gauge of the track is likely (but not certain) to be considerably underscale". So far as I know P4 or even EM is still very much in the minority compared with 00 and the same applies to 2mm scale versus British N scale.

I'm not so naive as to think that just because the track gauge in H0 is spot on (1435.5mm) there aren't compromises to get main line locos around 18" bends which is why I was also careful to only refer to the gauge being to scale.  By the way which H0 manufacturers are still passing off underlength coaches as scale? I know that Jouef used to do that in their "Jouet" (toy) days as did others but so did the major 00 manufacturers, and not that long ago apparently to get Mk 3 coaches round first radius curves.

 

I have found several references to railroads in British literature. This was perhaps the most interesting

 

'I won't detain you any longer then,' returned Mr Dombey, disappointed. 'Where have you worked all your life?'

'Mostly underground, Sir, 'till I got married. I come to the level then. I'm a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into full play.'

 

But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that might be rash enterprise—and then it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from a beer-shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway Eating House,

 

There was no such place as Staggs's Gardens. It had vanished from the earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces now reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a vista to the railway world beyond.

(Dombey and Son: Charles Dickens)

 

What makes this particularly interesting is that while Dickens uses railroad and railway interchangeably in his narrative throughout the novel,  the businesses he quotes all use railway in their new names. The line in question was though the London & Birmingham Railway. Dombey and Son was published in parts between 1846 and 1848 by when railway probably was the more common term. However, among the cheap editions of books aimed at rail travellers and often sold at stations I did find "Murray's Railway Reading" but "Bentley's Railroad Library" so the abandonment of railroad in British English was by no means cut and dried.

[Godders]

Hi David,

 

I'm sorry I didn't mean to hijack this topic, my comments were meant to be light hearted also.

 

The truth seems to be that the words, road and way, are interchangeable. After all we say Motorway not Motorroad. This despite calling the rest of our car networks; roads, streets, avenues and countless other names.

 

Way is usually associated with named cross-country paths, Pennine Way for example.

 

Off I go again sorry, I'll go away.

 

Bye Godders

[dibber25]

So, another thread degenerates from a sensible question into a wretched anti-American thread about language. What are we pompous Brits going to protest about next? Sidewalks? Crosswalks? or, Heaven-forbid another tedious argument over 'train station'? The beauty of language is its variety, be it regional or national variations on a theme. The Brits aren't necessarily correct, the Americans aren't necessarily wrong. We're just different - two nations divided by a common language. 

CHRIS LEIGH

[The Stationmaster]

I have just "Googled" to find any reference to the use of railroad in this country and have found none. This doesn't mean that there weren't railroads here but does tend to indicate the useage was rare.

 

Regrettably Google isn't the end of the world in research terms and no doubt lots of Victorian period books are not available on it . 

 

While 'railway' seems to have become the common term in UK legislation from a very early date the word 'railroad' was in very common usage in the early years of Britain's railway age and was presumably exported to the USA where - like many older English expressions and terms - it remained in use while it fell out of everyday use in its country of origin.

[Pacific231G]

Hi David,

 

I'm sorry I didn't mean to hijack this topic, my comments were meant to be light hearted also.

 

The truth seems to be that the words, road and way, are interchangeable. After all we say Motorway not Motorroad. This despite calling the rest of our car networks; roads, streets, avenues and countless other names.

 

Way is usually associated with named cross-country paths, Pennine Way for example.

 

Off I go again sorry, I'll go away.

 

Bye Godders

No problem Godders and it led me to some interesting research as I'd thought railroad had disappeared from British English some time earlier. The French still have both chemin de fer and voie ferrée. Chemin de fer seems to refer more to the railway as a whole as in Chemin de Fer du Nord while voie ferrée more often means the actual track with gauges referred to as voie metrique, voie etroite and voie normal. Both terms still appear in the names of railway companies.

 

As you've already noted most languages apart from English (though not Dutch) refer to the iron road or iron way which implies that when the railway arrived fully formed from its development in British its most notable characteristic was that it ran on iron not that it ran on rails. In English it was the rail that distinguished it so the Surrey Iron Railway's name distinguished it in turn from the many wooden railways and presumably conveyed an idea of solidity and capacity. 

 

I think the name and many of the words used around railways may also say something about the point where development of railways diverged from British practice with America adopting its own approach to very different conditions almost immediately, Germany fairly early but France much later. 

[trisonic]

Regrettably Google isn't the end of the world in research terms and no doubt lots of Victorian period books are not available on it . 

 

While 'railway' seems to have become the common term in UK legislation from a very early date the word 'railroad' was in very common usage in the early years of Britain's railway age and was presumably exported to the USA where - like many older English expressions and terms - it remained in use while it fell out of everyday use in its country of origin.

That’s true. For example the American use of the “Fall” relates to the pre-Victorian age (when “Autumn” overtook its use in the UK).

As I have related before sections of America have word usage (and even accents like coastal North Carolina) that are closer to the original English usage than modern day England.

 

Best, Pete.

[Pacific231G]

I know of a ref to "Railroad" in the Uk as late as the early 1880's.

Do you have it Mick ? I'm interested as that is quite late. Thanks.

 

I think it was probably the legal use of railway and so its use in the names of railway companies that made it the normal word in British English. I don't yet know whether the general adoption in the USA of railroad just happened or whether it was an example of the apparently conscious effort began by Noah Webster, he of the dictionary, to make American English distinctively different from its British parent.

 

Apparently some Americans are becoming concerned about the "Britishisation" of their language by words and phrases such as spot on, autumn, fancy (as in I really fancy her),  cheeky, flat (instead of apartment), sell by date and the long game.

[MikeHohn]

A significant number of US lines used the device of changing from -road to -way when they reorganized. A lot to this took place during the late 1800's.

 

Sometimes other changes were made with reorganization or consolidation of several ones. For instance the Vermont Central Railroad was chartered in the 1840's. It became the Central Vermont Railroad when consolidated in 1884 and then the Central Vermont Railway after receivership and reorganization in 1899.

 

The Western Maryland Rail Road was changed to Western Maryland Railway in 1910 after receivership.

 

Just a couple of examples. Sort of off topic but related I guess is that railroad was often spelled as two words in the nineteenth century.

 

Mike

[bluebottle]

The failure of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad Parliamentary Bill in 1825* may have had some influence in the use of “railway” in the UK. George Stephenson, handicapped by his lack of formal education and his thick Geordie accent, had his survey for the line taken apart by the ruthless cross-examination from the opposition's counsel Edward Alderson. The following year, after much expenditure by the L&M board in buying off objectors, and a new survey by Charles Vignoles, which the smooth, cultivated and confident Vignoles defended successfully against Alderson, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill was passed.

And so the World-famous L & M was a Railway, rather than a Railroad.

I gather that in the USA in the early/mid-nineteenth century, the word “road” usually meant a railroad, as roads in the other sense were scarce outside urban areas and distant centres of population were connected by “trails”.

I'm confident that if I'm mistaken, I will be corrected in a thoughtful and civil manner.

 

 *"The Proceedings Of The Committee Of The House Of Commons On The Liverpool And Manchester Railroad Bill: Sessions, 1825" is available from Amazon.

[Adam]

Regrettably Google isn't the end of the world in research terms and no doubt lots of Victorian period books are not available on it . 

 

While 'railway' seems to have become the common term in UK legislation from a very early date the word 'railroad' was in very common usage in the early years of Britain's railway age and was presumably exported to the USA where - like many older English expressions and terms - it remained in use while it fell out of everyday use in its country of origin.

 

Quite. I've just had a glance at the OED* via our work sub' to the online edition which cites the following from 1838:

 

Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 1 275/1   "Railway seems now we think the more usual term [in Great Britain]." Note the use of the word 'usual' and, as Mike suggests, this must be reflected in the early legislation, notably the 1840 and 1844 Railway Regulation Acts which, presumably, went some way to formalising the general usage in much of the English speaking world, including the USA to some extent and why not? Naturally, the US also went its own way and possibly because the Americans generally use 'railroad', Canada went with 'railway'. As various respondents have suggested the name change in the OP is probably a corporate ploy rather than any reflection of changing usage. All it shows is that the two words are still interchangeable in US English.

 

Adam

 

* Contrary to popular belief in some quarters, the OED records usage; it doesn't prescribe

[Pacific231G]

Quite. I've just had a glance at the OED* via our work sub' to the online edition which cites the following from 1838:

 

Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 1 275/1   "Railway seems now we think the more usual term [in Great Britain]." Note the use of the word 'usual' and, as Mike suggests, this must be reflected in the early legislation, notably the 1840 and 1844 Railway Regulation Acts which, presumably, went some way to formalising the general usage in much of the English speaking world, including the USA to some extent and why not? Naturally, the US also went its own way and possibly because the Americans generally use 'railroad', Canada went with 'railway'. As various respondents have suggested the name change in the OP is probably a corporate ploy rather than any reflection of changing usage. All it shows is that the two words are still interchangeable in US English.

 

Adam

 

* Contrary to popular belief in some quarters, the OED records usage; it doesn't prescribe

By 1840 the term railroad seems to have become established in the names of most (though not all) of the early companies certainly in the northern states and by then the USA was starting to develop its own railroad industry for locomotives, rails etc. Mathias Baldwin built his first locomotive, for the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad, in 1832.

[Pacific231G]

Regrettably Google isn't the end of the world in research terms and no doubt lots of Victorian period books are not available on it . 

 

 

Many of them are though available on Project Gutenberg complete with searchable text 

The relevant passages from Dombey and Son about the coming of the London and Birmingham Railway are well worth reading.

[EddieB]

I'm confident that if I'm mistaken, I will be corrected in a thoughtful and civil manner.

 

 *"The Proceedings Of The Committee Of The House Of Commons On The Liverpool And Manchester Railroad Bill: Sessions, 1825" is available from Amazon.

 

Perish the thought!

 

To add to the confusion, it seems that "rail-road" was sometimes hyphenated in Great Britain.  Witness "A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads and Interior Communication in General", by Nicholas Wood (first published 1825).