Most people do not know that the Railroad has its own language. Coming from an airline back ground learning to communicate with other workers was one of the hardest parts of railroading.
Here are some examples:
BACK TO THE FARM—Laid off on account of slack business. When a man is discharged he is given six months twice a year.
BAD ORDER—Crippled car or locomotive, often called cripple. Must be marked at night by a blue light when men are working around it.
BAT THE STACK OFF OF HER—Make fast time, work an engine at full stroke.
BEANS—Meet orders; lunch period.
BIG HOLE—Emergency application of air-brake valve, causing a quick stop. Big-holing her, the same as wiping the clock, is making an emergency stop.
CHAIN GANG—Crew assigned to pool service, working first in, first out.
COLOR-BLIND—Employee who can't distinguish between his own money and the company's.
COON IT—Crawl.
CROAKER—Company doctor.
DOGCATCHERS—Crew sent out to relieve another that has been outlawed-that is, overtaken on the road by the sixteen-hour law, which is variously known as dog law, hog law, and pure-food law.
DOPE—Order, official instructions, explanation. Also a composition for cooling hot journals.
GLORY—String of empty cars. Also death, especially by accident.
HIGHBALL—Signal made by waving hand or lamp in a high, wide semicircle, meaning "Come ahead" or "Leave town" or "Pick up full speed." Verb highball or phrase 'ball the jack means to make a fast run. Word highball originated from old-time ball signal on post, raised aloft by pulley when track was clear. A very few of these are still in service, in New England and elsewhere.
WEED WIESEL- Supervisor hiding in the weeds to catch you doing something wrong.
These are just a few of the slang words used on the railroad. The first time I heard lets "Cut Up Our Dope" I almost freaked out. Weed Wiesel is my Favorite.
4 comments:
When I was about 10 in Decatur TX we went down to the tracks near Cocanauer (sic?) feed and threw snowballs at the train. The engineer stopped and called us to the train and instead of getting us in trouble let us operate the controls and back the train into the store siding to load/unload feed.
Amazing- I will carry that memory to my grave.
99% of Railroaders I have worked with would do the same today. We really are a great group of guys that enjoy what we do. UP has been a great company also to work for.
Hardest part for most is getting over traffic accidents. Some men have had over 30/40 fatalities in thier careers.
A couple of years ago, A train stopped in front of a Newark subdivision. The crew was waiting for the dogcatchers. Well they parked in front of the only entrance to the subdivison. OMG people were pissed. They sent me for crowd control. I thought there would be a couple of fatalities that evening.LOL
" Some men have had over 30/40 fatalities in thier careers"
Wow, I knew it would be too many but, wow.
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