I noticed yesterday when I took a trip from Bordentown via Riverline to Long Branch via NJT, that some of the Arrow II’s Stemman pantographs have been replaced with the red Faiveley pantographs! Does anybody know why this is happening? Are those the ones that got damaged during hurricane sandy?
It might be a parts issue. Pantographs can get damaged for any of a variety of reasons and parts for Faiveley pantographs may be easier to obtain.
What I wonder is why they are called pantographs. What I know as a pantograph is a mechanical device consisting of 4 adjustable flat rods that is used to draw an enlarged picture from an existing print or photograph. I don’t suppose they are used much any more in these days of computerized images but they were for many years.
Here is a picture of a pantograph: http://www.ies.co.jp/math/java/geo/panta/panta.html
I always figured it’s because they looked like pantographs from the side, and their up and down movement was similar to a pantograph. At least the older ones did; the newer ones are more like half pantographs.
Paul,
If you don’t examine them closely they do look kind of like pantographs from the side. And I guess you are right about the origin of the name since a true pantograph is an engineering tool.
John
Definition 2 from Merriam-Webster: ": an electrical trolley carried by a collapsible and adjustable frame "
Houghton-Mifflin definition similar.
The word is derived from Greek through French; etymological derivation of its use for electrical application unknown.
The electrical pickup device was named by visual analogy with the drawing device (both being seen from the side, and operating along similar lines to keep the ‘tip’ aligned with the movement of the other pieces. The actual function at the joints, where the ‘action’ happens in a drawing pantograph (the name meaning just what you’d expect the instrument to be credited with doing, “draws everything” or to every size).
Many other examples of things being named for what somebody once thought they resembled. Horn, for one. Or throttle.
The term continues in use by further analogy, now being a ‘continuation’ of the sense of ‘overhead current collector’ regardless of whether the actual geometry is that of the drawing pantograph. There is a very long, very detailed coverage of this in English etymology. (All you guys with ‘interest in this subject’ ought to go to:
and let the resident philologiste …ah… train you in the right skills.
RME
Perhaps we should call an electric locomotive engineer a pantographer.