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Railroad   /rˈeɪlrˌoʊd/   Listen
noun
Railway, Railroad  n.  
1.
A road or way consisting of one or more parallel series of iron or steel rails, patterned and adjusted to be tracks for the wheels of vehicles, and suitably supported on a bed or substructure. Note: The modern railroad is a development and adaptation of the older tramway.
2.
The road, track, etc., with all the lands, buildings, rolling stock, franchises, etc., pertaining to them and constituting one property; as, a certain railroad has been put into the hands of a receiver. Note: Railway is the commoner word in England; railroad the commoner word in the United States. Note: In the following and similar phrases railroad and railway are used interchangeably:
Atmospheric railway, Elevated railway, etc. See under Atmospheric, Elevated, etc.
Cable railway. See Cable road, under Cable.
Ferry railway, a submerged track on which an elevated platform runs, for carrying a train of cars across a water course.
Gravity railway, a railway, in a hilly country, on which the cars run by gravity down gentle slopes for long distances after having been hauled up steep inclines to an elevated point by stationary engines.
Railway brake, a brake used in stopping railway cars or locomotives.
Railway car, a large, heavy vehicle with flanged wheels fitted for running on a railway. (U.S.)
Railway carriage, a railway passenger car. (Eng.)
Railway scale, a platform scale bearing a track which forms part of the line of a railway, for weighing loaded cars.
Railway slide. See Transfer table, under Transfer.
Railway spine (Med.), an abnormal condition due to severe concussion of the spinal cord, such as occurs in railroad accidents. It is characterized by ataxia and other disturbances of muscular function, sensory disorders, pain in the back, impairment of general health, and cerebral disturbance, the symptoms often not developing till some months after the injury.
Underground railroad Underground railway.
(a)
A railroad or railway running through a tunnel, as beneath the streets of a city.
(b)
Formerly, a system of cooperation among certain active antislavery people in the United States prior to 1866, by which fugitive slaves were secretly helped to reach Canada. Note: (In the latter sense railroad, and not railway, was usually used.) "Their house was a principal entrepôt of the underground railroad."


verb
Railroad  v. t.  To carry or send by railroad; usually fig., to send or put through at high speed or in great haste; to hurry or rush unduly; as, to railroad a bill through Condress. (Colloq., U. S.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Railroad" Quotes from Famous Books



... energy is the corresponding essential trait of Occidental mind? Or may these characteristics change with the social order? I have no hesitancy whatever in advocating the latter position. The way in which Young Japan, clad in European clothing, using watches and running on "railroad time," has dropped the slow-going style of Old Japan and has acquired habits of rapid walking, direct clear-cut conversation, and punctuality in business and travel (comparatively speaking) proves conclusively the correctness of my contention. New Japan is entering into the hurry and ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... multitudinous mines and miscellaneous enterprises, gas, railroad, canal, steam, dock, provision, insurance, milk, water, building, washing, money-lending, fishing, lottery, annuities, herring-curing, poppy-oil, cattle, weaving, bog draining, street-cleaning, house-roofing, old clothes exporting, steel-making, starch, silk-worm, etc., etc., ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... never concluded, for a sudden rattling and whoaing and bumping of baggage was heard. The interruption came from before the front-door. The "Railroad-Omnibus" had driven up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... think no New England summer is quite perfect unless you stay at least a day in the White Mountains. "Staying in the White Mountains" does not mean climbing on top of a stage-coach at Centre Harbor, and riding by day and by night for forty-eight hours till you fling yourself into a railroad-car at Littleton, and cry out that "you have done them." No. It means just living with a prospect before your eye of a hundred miles' radius, as you may have at Bethlehem or the Flume; or, perhaps, a valley and a set of hills, which never by ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... George Stephenson had progressed very much more than twelve miles in these three years. He had taken Mr. Pease to Killingworth, and shown him his engine; he had convinced him it would travel even faster than a horse, and drag a heavier load behind it; and he had won a promise that the railroad between Darlington and Stockton should be opened with a locomotive driven by steam, though he was made to understand that it was only an experiment, and no one ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various


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