| Beginning With: "B" |
| 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 |
| BAIL IT IN |
Feed the locomotive firebox |
| BAKE HEAD |
Locomotive fireman. Also called bell ringer, blackie, and many other names scattered throughout this glossary |
| BALING-WIRE MECHANIC |
A man of little mechanical ability |
| BALL OF FIRE |
Fast run |
| BALLAST |
Turkey or chicken dressing |
| BALLAST SCORCHER |
Speedy engineer |
| BAND WAGON |
Pay car or pay train from which wages were handed out to railroad employees |
| BANJO |
Fireman's shovel; old-style banjo-shaped signal |
| BAREFOOT |
Car or engine without brakes. (Many locomotives built in the 1860's and 1870's were not equipped with brakes except on the tank) |
| BARN |
Locomotive roundhouse, so-called from the building in which streetcars are housed |
| BAT THE STACK OFF OF HER |
Make fast time, work an engine at full stroke |
| BATTING 'EM OUT |
Used generally by switchmen when a yard engine is switching a string of cars |
| BATTLESHIP |
Large freight engine or interurban car, or a coal car. Also a formidable female, such as the landlady or a henpecked man's wife |
| BEANERY |
Railroad eating house. Beanery queen is a waitress |
| BEANS |
Meet orders; lunch period |
| BEAT 'ER ON THE BACK |
Make fast time; work an engine at full stroke |
| BEEHIVE |
Railroad yard office |
| BELL RINGER |
Locomotive fireman |
| BEND THE IRON |
Change the position of the rust a switch. Also called bend or bend the rail |
| BIG BOYS |
Special trains for officials |
| BIG E |
Engineer, so called from the large initial on membership buttons of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers |
| BIG FOUR |
The four operating Brotherhoods: Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Order of Railway Conductors, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers |
| 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 |
| BIG HOOK |
Wrecking crane |
| BIG O |
Conductor; so named from first initial in Order of Railway Conductors. Sometimes called big ox and less complimentary terms |
| BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAINS |
Hobo's paradise, as described in song by Harry K. McClintock. (See Indian Valley Line) |
| BINDERS |
Hand brakes |
| BINDLE STIFF or BLANKET STIFF |
Hobo who totes a blanket and uses it wherever night finds him. (Bindle is a corruption of "bundle") |
| BIRD CAGE |
Brakeman's or switchman's lantern |
| BLACK DIAMONDS |
Company coal. Diamond cracker is a locomotive fireman |
| BLACK HOLE |
Tunnel |
| BLACK ONES |
Railway Express refrigerator or boxcars having no interior illumination pressed into mail service during the Christmas rush |
| BLACK SNAKE |
Solid train of loaded coal cars |
| BLACKBALLED |
black-listed, boycotted |
| BLACKJACKS |
Fifty-ton Santa Fe coal cars painted black |
| BLAZER |
Hot journal with packings afire |
| BLEED |
Drain air from. Bleeder is valve by which air is bled from auxiliary reservoir of a car |
| BLIND BAGGAGE |
Hobo riding head end of baggage car next to tender, where no door is placed; commonly called riding the blinds |
| BLIZZARD LIGHTS |
Originally the lights on either side of the headlight that served in emergency when the oil-burning headlight blew out. Now they indicate the train is nonschedule or extra |
| BLOOD |
Old-time engine built by Manchester Locomotive Works. Mr. Aretas Blood being the builder's name |
| BLOW 'ER DOWN |
Reduce water in a locomotive boiler when carrying too much |
| BLOW SMOKE |
Brag |
| BLOW UP |
Use the blower to increase draft on the fire and thereby raise the steam pressure in the boiler. Also quit a job suddenly |
| BO |
Hobo. Bo chaser is freight brakeman or railroad policeman |
| BOARD |
Fixed signal regulating railroad traffic, usually referred to as slow board., order board., clear board (for clear tracks) or red board (stop). Do not confuse this with extra board or spare board, colloquially known as slow board or starvation list, usually containing names of qualified train or enginemen not in regular active service who are called to work in emergencies. These names are listed in order of seniority, the man hired most recently being the last one called to service |
| BOBTAIL |
Switch engine |
| BOILER ASCENSION |
Boiler explosion |
| BOILER HEADER |
Man riding in engine cab |
| BOILER WASH |
A high-water engineer |
| BOOK OF RULES |
Examination based on facts in rulebook |
| BOOKKEEPER |
Trainman who makes out reports; flagman |
| BOOMER |
Drifter who went from one railroad job to another, staying but a short time on each job or each road. This term dates back to pioneer days when men followed boom camps. The opposite is home guard. Boomers should not be confused with tramps, although they occasionally became tramps. Boomers were railroad workers often in big demand because of their wide experience, sometimes blackballed because their tenure of stay was uncertain. Their common practice was to follow the "rushes"-that is, to apply for seasonal jobs when and where they were most needed, when the movement of strawberry crops, watermelons, grain, etc., was making the railroads temporarily short-handed. There are virtually no boomers in North America today. When men are needed for seasonal jobs they are called from the extra board |
| BOOTLEGGER |
Train that runs over more than one railroad |
| BOUNCER |
Caboose |
| BOWLING ALLEY |
Hand-fired coal-burning locomotive. (A fireman throwing in the lumps of coal goes through motions that resemble bowling) |
| BOXCAR TOURIST |
Hobo |
| BRAIN PLATE |
Trainman's cap or hat badge |
| BRAINS or THE BRAINS |
Conductor; sometimes called brainless wonder, a term also applied to any train or engineman or official who does things his fellows consider queer |
| BRAKE CLUB |
Three-foot hickory stick used by freight trainmen to tighten hand brakes. Sometimes called sap or staff of ignorance |
| BRASS |
A babbitt-lined blank of bronze that forms the bearing upon which the car rests. To brass a car is to replace one of those bearings |
| BRASS BUTTONS |
Passenger conductor on railroad or streetcar line |
| BRASS COLLAR or BRASS HAT |
Railroad official. Term may have originated from gold-braided collar of conductor's uniform and brass plate on his cap |
| BRASS POUNDER |
Telegraph operator |
| BREEZE |
Service air |
| BRIDGE HOG |
Bridge and building carpenter of the old school antedating steel and concrete |
| BROKEN KNUCKLES |
Railroad sleeping quarters |
| BROWNIES |
Demerits. This system is traced back to George R. Brown, general superintendent of the Fall Brook Railway (now part of the New York Central) in 1885. He thought the then current practice of suspending men for breaking rules was unfair to their families and substituted a system of demerit marks. Too many demerits in a given period resulted in dismissal. The Brown system, with many variations, has since been widely adopted by the railroad industry. A superintendent's private car is called brownie box or brownie wagon |
| BUCK THE BOARD |
Working the extra board. (See board) |
| BUCKLE THE RUBBERS |
Connect air, steam, or signal hose |
| BUG |
Telegraph instrument or trainman's or switchman's light, which is also called bug torch. Bug may also be a three-wheeled electric truck that carries mail and baggage around terminals |
| BUG LINE |
Telephone connection between engine house and yard or telegraph office |
| BUG SLINGER |
Switchman or brakeman |
| BUGGY |
Caboose; rarely applied to other cars |
| BULL |
Railroad policeman. Also called flatfoot or gumshoe, but the distinctive railroad terms are cinder dick and 'bo chaser |
| BULL PEN |
Crew room |
| BULLGINE |
Steam locomotive |
| BULLNOSE |
Front drawbar of a locomotive |
| BUMP |
Obtain another man's position by exercising seniority. When a crew is deprived of its assignment, as when a train is removed from the timetable, its members select the jobs they wish from those held by others with less whiskers |
| BUMPER |
Post at end of spur track, placed there to stop rolling stock from running onto the ground |
| BUNCH OF THIEVES |
Wrecking crew |
| BUST UP A CUT |
To separate the cars in a train, removing some that have reached their destination, assigning others to through trains, etc. |
| BUTTERFLY |
Note thrown (or handed) from train by an official to a section foreman or other employee, so called because it may flutter along the track, although it is usually weighted down when thrown from a car |
| BUZZARDS' ROOST |
Yard office |
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