I was just having a yarn with Ed, and he explained to me what a “hostler” did, and we were both wondering where the term “hogger” for an engineer originated.
Apologies if it has already been discussed [:I] but I may been [zzz] in my totally different time zone…heh heh
Ed was wondering if it referred to a practice of hogging the throttle in the old days…hmmmm…
Dave
When I asked the same question years ago, I was told “hogger” is short for “hoghead” and that steam engines were refered to as 'hogs." Since the engineman is the “head of the hog” he is called the “hoghead or hogger.” The ole hogger that told me this said he believed the steam locos were called hogs because of the “snorting sounds.” As to who started it and where, or even how accurate that is, I don’t know. Hope that helped a bit. Thanks for all you add here Kozzie. [:)]
Thanks Rick. Sounds like a reasonable explanation.
Dave
The engine was a “hog”; the smartest part of the hog is the “head”. Hence, engineer=hoghead. You can look it up.
Dave,
I’ve always heard it pretty much as above but with one exception: A hog was always a freight locomotive, therefore a Hoghead, or Hogger, was a freight engineer. Can’t vouch for the accuracy of that, but that’s what the old timers always told me 30 plus years ago. I wonder if the term varied with geographical location or railroad?
JD Nomad
Dave,
I had always assumed that the “hog” name for locomotives came from the basically cylindrical shape of the locomotive boiler, although the appearance of many locomotives with centrally placed headlights gives a similarity to the snout of a pig.
On the New South Wales Railways, the 1925 built C36 class 4-6-0s were called “pigs”. These had narrow firebox round top boiler, unlike earlier locmotives with Belpaire fireboxes, and this may have influenced the adoption of the name (although numerous problems with the fireboxes when new probably influenced the name).
In the Royal Australian Navy, submarines with their basically cylindrical hull shape, were known as “pig-boats” although one story was that they would roll on wet grass given a chance!
So with that background, I’m going with the shape.
Now, why do motorcycle riders, particularly Harley Davidson riders, call their bikes “Hogs”. Is this using an analogy with locomotives?
Peter
The 1st time I had heard the term “hogger” was in the movie “Emperor of the North” in the scene where A#1 caused the brakes to lock up and the cab crew got bounced around. Now I know… 
Emperor of the North… that was a great movie.
I just had to watch it again this past weekend…the wife and daughters were headed to the mall and I didn’t have to hear “you’re watching THAT movie again!!” hehehehe [:p]
No argueing with you choice of fine culture (translation: A man looks at what is important on his own with or with out permission). Your choice is one that I happen to agree with.