I’ve been no this Trains forum for a while and I was just wondering what Highball or highballing is. I was looking at railpictures.net all their pics and a lot of them had phrases like “this train awaits a highball” and stuff like that and I have no idea what that means. Thanks
The word refers to an early form of fixed signal, a ball, sometimes lit internally at night that was supported by a rope and pulley from the signal post. At stop, the ball was either low on the post or not visible, inside a shroud or container. The clear signal was the ball raised to the top of the post, becoming clearly visible. Thus a “high ball” was a signal to depart. The term has become one word, and is still used although ball signals are obsolete. There was a recent cover story in “Classic Trains” about late surviving (into the 1960s) ball signals in Vermont. Some signals had more than one ball for specific signal meanings.
Peter
In the early days of railroading the was a type of signal that used a ball on a pole to signal trains.
It was on a rope and if it was down the train had to stop but if it was up the train was cleared to proceed. So when a engineer saw that the ball was up he would go.
So the term high ball came in to the slang of railroaders at meaning that the track was clear and they could proceed. It also used to say that they had clear track and could keep going down the track or “High ball” down the line. It also came to mean fast running.
Indeed. There was, for years – well into my time – a lovely ball signal in Bellows Falls on the CV where the Rutland and B&M (as it was in those days) all more or less collided… it could give 4 (four![:D]) different indications! three or four balls involved, as I recall.
Opposite of a Milk Run.
FT, we recently had some discussion of the term highball. You might find this conversation helpful.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?&TOPIC_ID=19999