Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
A locomotive booster for steam locomotives is a small supplementary two-cylinder steam engine back-gear-connected to the trailing truck axle on the locomotive or one of the trucks on the tender. It was invented in 1918 by Howard L. Ingersoll, assistant to the president of the New York Central Railroad.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered driving wheels on one axle and no trailing wheels. This type of locomotive is often called a Jervis type, the name of the original designer.
In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junctions or crossings. In North America, a set of signalling appliances and tracks interlocked together are sometimes collectively referred to as an interlocking plant or just as an interlocking. An interlocking system is designed so that it is impossible to display a signal to proceed unless the route to be used is proven safe.
A moveable bridge, or movable bridge, is a bridge that moves to allow passage for boats or barges. In American English, the term is synonymous with drawbridge, and the latter is the common term, but drawbridge can be limited to the narrower, historical definition used in some other forms of English, in which drawbridge refers to only a specific type of moveable bridge often found in castles.
A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or unused locomotives stored off the main line, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. Cars or wagons are moved around by specially designed yard switcher locomotives (US) or shunter locomotives (UK), a type of locomotive. Cars or wagons in a yard may be sorted by numerous categories, including railway company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type, or whether they need repairs. Yards are normally built where there is a need to store rail vehicles while they are not being loaded or unloaded, or are waiting to be assembled into trains. Large yards may have a tower to control operations.
A buffer stop, bumper, bumping post, bumper block or stopblock (US), is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track.
Shunting, in railway operations, is the process of sorting items of rolling stock into complete trains, or the reverse. In the United States this activity is known as switching.
The City of San Francisco was a streamlined through passenger train which ran from 1936 to 1971 on the Overland Route between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California, with a ferry connection on to San Francisco. It was owned and operated jointly by the Chicago and North Western Railway (1936–55), Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (1955–71), the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. It provided premium extra fare service from Chicago to San Francisco when introduced in 1936 with a running time of 39 hours and 45 minutes each way.
This article contains a list of terms, jargon, and slang used to varying degrees by railfans and railroad employees in the United States and Canada. Although not exhaustive, many of the entries in this list appear from time to time in specialist, rail-related publications. Inclusion of a term in this list does not necessarily imply its universal adoption by all railfans and railroad employees, and there may be significant regional variation in usage.
In rail transport, guard rails or check rails are rails used in the construction of the track, placed parallel to regular running rail to keep the wheels of rolling stock in alignment to prevent derailment. They are generally used along areas of restricted clearance, such as a bridge, trestle, tunnel, or level crossing. They also help to minimize damage to the structure and allow easier post-accident cleanup.
A work train is one or more rail cars intended for internal non-revenue use by the railroad's operator. Work trains serve functions such as track maintenance, maintenance of way, revenue collection, system cleanup and waste removal, heavy duty hauling, and crew member transport.
A ballast cleaner is a machine that specialises in cleaning the railway track ballast of impurities.
On September 15, 1958, a Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) morning commuter train, #3314, ran through a restricting and a stop signal, derailed, and slid off the open Newark Bay lift bridge in Newark Bay, New Jersey, United States. Both diesel locomotives and the first two coaches plunged into Newark Bay and sank immediately, killing 48 people and injuring 48 more. A third coach, snagged by its rear truck (bogie), hung precariously off the bridge for two hours before it also toppled into the water. As the locomotive crew was killed, the cause of the crash was never proven, though the lack of a "dead man's control" may have contributed to the derailment.
The 1922 Winslow Junction train derailment was a July 2, 1922 accident on Atlantic City Railroad's Camden to Atlantic City route. Train № 33 the Owl going 90 miles (140 km) per hour sped through an open switch at Winslow Junction. 7 were killed, 89 were injured.
Englewood Railway was a logging railroad on northern Vancouver Island, Canada. Headquartered in Woss, British Columbia, the line ran 90 km (56 mi) from Vernon Lake, through Woss, and past Nimpkish Lake Provincial Park to Beaver Cove. It was the last operating logging railroad in North America. After 100 years of use, railway operations ceased on November 7, 2017, following a deadly derailment in April of that year.
Lincoln Industries Corp., also known as Progress Rail Services Corporation - Signals Division, manufactures railroad signal products sold to customers throughout North America. Founded in 1985, Lincoln Industries has been part of Caterpillar Inc. as a subsidiary of Progress Rail Services Corporation since January 8, 1998 and is organized under Progress Rail's Engineering and Track Services (ETS) group. Lincoln Industries maintains a headquarters and manufacturing facility in Louisville, Kentucky, a manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida and has access to Progress Rail facilities throughout North America for staging materials.
The CSX 8888 incident, also known as the Crazy Eights incident, was a runaway train event involving a CSX Transportation freight train in the U.S. state of Ohio on May 15, 2001. Locomotive #8888, an EMD SD40-2, was pulling a train of 47 cars, including some loaded with hazardous chemicals, and ran uncontrolled for just under two hours at up to 51 miles per hour (82 km/h). It was finally halted by a railroad crew in a second locomotive, which caught up with the runaway train and coupled their locomotive to the rear car.
The Hackensack Drawbridge was a double-track railroad movable bridge across the mouth of the Hackensack River between Jersey City and Kearny, New Jersey. It was operational until 1946, when a steamship crashed into it.
North Newark was a former commuter railroad train station in the Woodside section of the city of Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. Located at the intersection of Broadway and Verona Avenue, the station served trains on NJ Transit's Boonton Line, which operated at the time between Netcong and Hoboken Terminal. The station consisted of two low-level side platforms, accessible by stairs from Broadway. The next station to the east was Arlington in nearby Kearny, with the next station to the west being Rowe Street in Bloomfield.
