The Railroad Vernacular

My dad was a steam engine driver (locomotive engineer) in the UK on the Great Western Railway (GWR), one of the “Big Four” railways in Britain, and on British Railways (Western Region) after the UK railways were nationalized in 1948. He started as an engine cleaner in 1918 then progressed through passed cleaner, registered fireman, passed fireman, and driver at the outbreak of WWII in 1939. He worked all the different classes of steam locomotive on the GWR (of which there were many), except for engines of the “King” (60XX) Class. He worked engines sent over from the US to help with the war effort and engines from the other British railway companies. He retired in 1965 and his last year was on the Class 37 Diesels (called Type 3s back then) built by English Electric, one of the types that was replacing steam. I remember some of his railway terminology from back in those far off days.

General engine cab terminology, some might be specific to the GWR:
footplate - cab
lights - front and side windows in cab
glass - water gauge glass, as in glass two thirds full
regulator - throttle
ejector - steam ejector for creating vacuum in train pipe to release brakes
blowing brakes off - using the steam ejector to release engine and train brakes
pep pipe - hot water line from injector to hose footplate clean and keep dust down
ATC - Automatic Train Control apparatus in cab of GWR