Mike Lehman is running an interesting thread on Operations, and there is a link on that thread to four very interesting videos on yard operations.
But, the terminology gets confusing.
What are lifts, drops, spots, cuts?
What other terms are used that I haven’t listed?
Rich
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of “Lifts”; but, to “Drop” means to temporarily leave a car and might be the same action as to “Spot”. I use to “Spot” to mean placing a car at a specific place where it will be used to load; or, unload. Maybe we would “Drop” the end of the train, so we could “Spot” a box car at the Fright House. A “Cut” of cars would be similar cars; or, dissimilar cars, destined for the same location. So, lets drop the caboose out on the branch and “Spot” a “Cut” of hoppers down the mine branch at the tipple. We might have to “Lift”? "Pick-up"a cut of loaded hoppers, first?!?
It will be funny/interesting to se how “Fouled” up I have this?
Lift : (n) a pickup or pull or (v) the act of picking up or pulling cars.
Lift : to load or unload a piggyback or container with a crane.
Pickup : to add cars to a train.
Pull : to remove a car from industry.
Drop : to remove cars from a train.
Drop : to switch using momentum.
Spot : (n) a specific location where cars are placed or (v) the act of placing a car at industry.
Cut : a group of cars coupled together that is not part of a train.
The midwsetern railroads I have been associated with use pick up/pull and set out/spot rather than lift and drop. If you tell me you have 5 lifts, I’m thinking you are going to load 5 trailers with a piggypacker. Location, location, location.
There are hundreds, look at the Op-Sig web site or Kalmbach site for glossaries.
Ok…I use the terms we used.
Lift? Lifting the uncoupling bar to make a uncoupling? Never heard of it.
Drop-never heard of that term either in 9 1/2 years.Unless its another term for setouts.
spots-that is where the car is to be left-spot the car at door 7 or in yard talk on another track…We would simply say Santa Fe 445666,PRR 224433,C&O 76551 goes to track 5 for the N&W transfer make up.
cuts…A block of cars going to the same destination and we classified cars into destination cuts or blocks…
Modelers seem to use terms we never used.
Your switch list is your friend that tells you what needs done and each yard track has a reason for being and is used for that reason.Nothing is done haphazardly or needlessly-unless you want to get on the bad side of your conductor in a hurry.
I mention those four specific terms because they are used in the videos, but without explaining them.
Rich
It’s been my experience that you can never define things as they are written in blood. How things may be defined in one location, may not be how they are/were defined in another; or, may not even be used. The American English language is in a constant state of flux and what is used on the right coast might not be what is used on the left coast. Then there is us poor folks in the middle who speak absolutely correct English attempting to understand what the rightys and lefties are trying to say, it is a mess!
I think there’s a lot more regionality and personal preference out there in terms of how language is used than people often realize. Both English as a global language (one world, divided by a common language) and the internet as the great leveler of what people actually use language for are factors.
Much of my prototype reading involves western lines, so there’s going to be some regionalism creeping in there, although I make no claim to any precision in use there, either, simply noting its likely influence. As a writer, I get bored trying to constrain language use too closely by making it overly repetitive in being precise.
On the other hand, it’s also the case that I neither use a style sheet or have an editor to keep me on the straight and narrow. Just like most of us, I suspect. And since I write here in part as a way to avoid the stuffiness I am constrained by in working on the diss, frankly I don’t sweat precision in language in informal writing too much so long as its readable and the gist of the message gets across.
But that’s all more about my flexible approach to informal writing than about railroad-specific terminology. I’d only suggest about that word use probably varies more than people realize in any occupation. But in terms of my philosophy about operations, my relaxed point of view fits with my admittedly simplistic view that ops discussions often turn more on trying to dot particular i’s and cross particular t’s than they do on simply having fun. My approach to ops is have fun now and we’ll figure something out more specifically as we encounter it if it causes confusion.
Ops discussion are often treated like they represent the same life-or-death awareness and use of a specific set of rules and language necessary in 1:1 operations. If that’s the kind of pressure you want when you’re trying to relax by running a few trains, I understand that and the desire for precision that is part and parcel of the needed mindset if your
Thanks, Dave, that helps a lot.
Rich
Larry,
Many times these terms ‘you never heard of’ are ‘regional’ or specific to railroad. When I worked for the ‘Q’, we had some terms that other railroads in the area did not use:
Motor- A locomotive. I think this went back to the gas-electric or ‘motor car’ days. The CGW also used the term ‘motors’ for their diesel-electric locomotives.
Puzzle Switch - What most modelers call a Double Slip Switch
Way car - Caboose.
‘Pot’ signal - Dwarf signal. The Milwaukee Road guys called them ‘Bugs’ or ‘Dummy’ signals.
Business Track - Team Track
Jim
Railroad speak differ between PRR/PC(66-69) and later Chessie(C&O)('78-84) however,there is one thing both had in common…It was easy to understand and follow.We did not speak in code or have a secrete hand shake.Our lives depended on understanding the orders in which we did our job.
Now that’s not to say we didn’t use things like “that man”,the Newark man or the Jamesville train.We knew those were trains we have to meet.
Example…We’ll meet the Newark man at Gibbs and after that man clears we need to wait on the Jamesville train that will run around us.In other words time for coffee and a sandwitch while we wait…
That was on the PRR.
On the C&O it wasn’t as colorful…Signals ruled our train and train numbers replaced the colorful names the old timers used on the PRR…
Jim,We used ‘Pot’ signal" on the PRR.
Cabin-PRR speak for caboose.
Stink hole-locomotive’s toilet area-to be avoided.
Overtime run…A full day’s work for a local-on the PRR Alco assigned to a train.
Idiot shack/loony bin-yard office.
Fool’s paradise-the General Offices.
Plus a host of unprintable names for various worn thin GEs and EMD locomotives and all Alcos.
Junker-A Alco.
Still no lift.
I agree that had to be a regional term.
Cabin can be a caboose or its the little house that contains the relays and electrical gear for the signal system.
I was once told that on the PRR a locomotive was a steam engine, and engine was a diesel and a motor was electric.
I think the lift/drop is more a Canadian thing.
If I told a crew to drop five cars they would make a “dutch drop” or “flying switch” and move the cars to the other end of the engine.
The hard part about discussing trains is we are covering 100+ years of operations across one or more continents. Rules are different by railroad and era. Terms are different by railroad and era. Procedures are different by railroad and era. Standard stuff really isn’t. Then add in all the misunderstandings and mispelling and other noise and its quite a colorful mess. 
For example, sometimes I read about things in the “toe path”, meaning walk way. Really that’s a misstatement of the term “tow path” which was the walkway alongside a canal that the tow mules walked to pull the barges. You can read stories or articles about the “triple valve” on a freight car. Actually the triple valve was a specific type of air brake valve that was obsolete and banned in the 1920’s or 1930’s. Now people use it for any type of air brake valve.
If I may make a comment, a Lift that is being talked about in this thread, is indeed a term used in railroading… But it is only used in the Intemodal side of railroading… Every time a crane,and or side packer, loads a container from a tub car or trailer from a flat car or spine car that is called a lift. The railroads do not have their own people load or unload their trains, that is accomplished by contractors, Like Pacific Rail Services. Based in seattle Wa. I worked ror them in Bedford Park in Ill. to unload CSX’S intermodel trains… THE LIFT COUNT per man hour is how they got paid… There is also a term, Live Lift, I won’t get into now…
Cheers.
Frank
Not universally. A number of retired railroaders with whom I have operated use “lift” to mean picking up cars, as Dave H. has noted. It may be something that varied regionally and especially by era.
Larry, I see often on these threads your insistence that the way you did it or said it is the only prototypical way. But in fact, it seems that these things varied by region and by era on the real railroad. I have operated with retired railroaders who use “drop”, sometimes to denote setting out cars, but often in reference to a momentum switch, as in “Dutch Drop”.
Indeed it is…Unit is one more term for a diesel.
Modelers like to use the term lash up…In railroad speak its a locomotive consist.
A switch-to the operating crews its what you throw…To the engineering office its a turnout and points.Same thing different speak.
We called the cars in the train the consist…
I suspect you could call a engineer a “hogger” on the PRR and gotten by it since most was old steam locomotive engineers…On the C&O I suspect you would be picking yourself off the ground.
On the PRR when the caller called I was called for such and such train and Mr.Franks would be my conductor…On the Chessie I was told I was called for this or that train and John Franks would be my conductor.I had to know who to report after signing in.
Not sure how they do today with computers or computerized phones.
Anybody?
I’ve noticed this too, and it does seem to be a regional thing (i.e. the railroaders I hear using it seem to be more from the northeastern US or Canada). Others typically use “pick up” for the same process - to pick up/lift from a yard, as opposed to “set out” for leaving a car or block in a yard (or interchange track, company track used for block swaps, etc.). This also contrasts with usage of spot and pull for industry work.
I just watched a couple of the You-Tube videos Rich referenced in his original post. My distinct impression is that the guy running the camera and the speaker, are our good Canadian neighbors to the North, Ah!
These are the four terms that I was most interested in.
Can we all agree that these are valid definitions for Operations on a layout?
Rich
Unfortunatley that depends. There are variations on these terms. Not disagreeing with Dave H.'s definitions above, but adding alternates:
Crews won’t necessarily make all these distinctions, but some do, and many of those can get quite militant about observing their definitions. This despite the fact that somebody working for another railroad, or in another era, would use different terms for the same thing.