Terminology puzzle
 

Hi,

I'm new to the site, so apologies if I've posted this in the wrong forum.

I'm trying to come up with the correct terms for the following - if anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

1. A diesel railcar which also has its own heating unit. Heat-engine railcar? Heat-engine traction unit?
2. Railcar - is that the right term, or is motor coach/motor car better?
3. Multiple heading v. multiple traction - which is better?
4. Are the terms 'hauled', 'towed' and 'pulled' interchangeable, or is there a preference for a particular one?
5. Ditto for 'banking' v. 'pushing'.
6. A locomotive that recovers a train from the track - recovery locomotive, breakdown locomotive or emergency locomotive?
7. The name for a trackside winch unit (housed in a cabinet) which is used to manually operate switches/section insulators on an overhead line (may be obsolete technololgy, I'm not sure).

Sorry for the odd jumble of questions. If anyone can help, that would be fantastic!

OK
I'll try some off them

1/ - ????? don't understand the term ALL multiple units have heating /or air con

2/ Railcar is an OLD term (pre 1960's) for a single car unit (a Coach with driving cabs and motor or pick-ups) a single car of the multiple Unit type also called Bubble Car

3/ Multiple header - - is more than one power unit of the same type ie. diesel or Electric
Not heard of multiple power being used too often but it would be Diesel AND Electric working together but you normally see an electric loco being hauled by a diesel

4/ Hauled is the term ther others do not normally get used on UK railways

5/ Banking always this designates a train being given extra help up an incline by a loco at the rear slowly approaching it then applying power slowly to assist it to the top

6/ Now-a-days the term Thunderbird is used since Virgin had a fleet of Class 57 loco's named after the characters from the TV puppet series Thunderbirds

7/ Where have you been ??? you mean a Signal box what a very strange question but some of the items you question were never housed in them

I suspect he may mean the electrical sub-stations you get near neutral sections.

Banking is helping a train up a gradient as noted. On other occasions a train may be 'propelled', for example, a rescuing locomotive, approaching the rear of a failed train, could propel that train to clear the line.

Overhead lines aren't switched in the UK and I'm not aware of any need for a winch.

1. Diesel railcar which also has its own heating unit. - You're not thinking of generator vans/coaches by any chance used to provide heating or lighting to passenger carriages when the locomotive itself was not so equipped? But these were always unpowered units - in the sense that they had no traction to their own wheels. As far as I know they were very rare in the UK - though not in Ireland and other countries.

2. Railcar - I would say this is the correct and more elegant term for a single car multiple unit. Motor coach/motor car sound like road vehicles. Bubblecar is just a nickname.

3. Multiple heading v. multiple traction - which is better? Double headed (or triple-or even quadruple-headed) would be the best terms I would venture. You might need to use terms like multiple-traction in the US where there can be up to ten locos on a train and not all of them at the head end.

4. Are the terms 'hauled', 'towed' and 'pulled' interchangeable? - 'Hauled' and 'pulled' sound like normal operation; towed suggests to me rescue of a breakdown or movement of a 'dead' loco.

5.Banking/pushing - banking/banker has always been the UK term; I've never heard pusher used by railwaymen though I'm sure it's the term that would spring to mind for most lay people. In the US they say helping/helper, I think.

6. A locomotive that recovers a train from the track - recovery locomotive, breakdown locomotive or emergency locomotive? Historically, I don't think there were locos in the UK specifically dedicated to recovery of breakdowns. The so-called 'Thunderbird' is a relatively recent development. There would of course been spare locos/links at various motive power depots.

7. The name for a trackside winch unit (housed in a cabinet) which is used to manually operate switches/section insulators on an overhead line (may be obsolete technololgy, I'm not sure).
Not heard of this myself. It sounds a little bit like the devices used to tension overhead wires but these were simple weights on pulleys rather than switches.
Would there have been a need to separately switch out different electrical sections on the early overhead electrification schemes such as the Brighton Line in the 1920s or the Woodhead Route in the 1940s/50s? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

AH forgot them - but not got any wires where I live so not up on the OHL kit

Thank you so much everyone, all your comments have been extremely useful and educational.

Perhaps I should have provided some context - the terms all relate to the Italian railway network, and may sound a little old-fashioned since part of the document dates from the 1960s.

Regarding the 'winch unit' - I'm definitely looking at a photograph of a cabinet mounted on a gantry support which contains (according to the description) a handle which is turned to open and close switches on the overhead line, so that power can be turned on and off. I was hoping there would be a nice, neat term for this mechanism, but perhaps it doesn't exist in English.

With the "heating unit" term, this is being used to describe units like the Trenitalia ALn 669 or 668. There's a picture of the 668 here http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=328852. The term in Italian is "automotrice termica" - I'm now wondering if this actually means an "internal combustion engine railcar", which presumably has a diesel engine which generates electricity to power the electric motors.

I'm guessing that some of this will be specific to Italy, but if anyone can help with the "winch unit" and "heat-engine/internal combustion engine railcar" terms, that would be great!

NOW why didn't you say
My Missuse is half Italiano so just checked and yes the terminology is very old school Italian. It's not heating unit it's heated engine unit a very old term for diesel which works by compressing diesel oil vapour in a heated cylinder--
and the 668 class is actually quite modern considering some Italian rolling stock but the considering others it's positively ANCIENT. I mean consider the 663 photo attached these are diesel multiple units and the translation Railcar is probably the nearest to English you will get

Wow, thank you - great to have a definition at last, I've been scratching my head over that for weeks!

Terminology puzzle
 

I have a question about terminology, but not related to the previous question.
I have been extracting information from a Working Timetable in order to run my model railway to an actual timetable. Although I know what locomotives to use in most cases from my own observations, I am stumped by some of the terminology in the WTT as to loco type. The references are D1364; D140; D210; D280; D315; D420; ED350. I believe D420 is a class 47 and am certain that ED350 is a class 73, however, I am not sure about the rest which should include class 33 and class 31. Any help would be most appreciated.

Hello Railwayman 26

This is a bit of a test of memory. The diesel loco nombers were the original numbers given to the ones listed. They were changed in the TOPS scheme about 1975.

D 1363 Not recognised .Certainly not a mainline diesel.
D 140 One of the 'Peak' class diesels of which there were 193. Wheel arrangement
was 1Co-Co1. It became Class 45/46. Was built at Derby with Sultzer engine.
2300 B.H.P
As I was pulled by this one in 8/1976 between Gloucester and Exeter and in
1980 between Exeter and Gloucester. It was allocated at Bristol bath Rd at the

D 210 This as one of the named English Electric Class 4s built by English Electric from
1958. 200 were built mostly for Eastern and Midland. D 210 was allocated to the
Preston division. Wheel arrangement as class above. Name not known.

D 280 Another of the English Electric Class 4s became Class 40. recognised by a high
pitched sound E in musical notation. A North eatern allocation which pulled me
from York to Doncaster in 8/1972.

D315 Yet another EE class 4 from the Manchester Division. It was a D 3?? which
pulled a mail train stopped by the big bank robbers of August 1963 I think.
Include that train in you layout!

D 420 Known by train spotters as the Hoovers. Built at Crewe in the late 60s to haul
Scottish Expressess particularly from Crewe when he West Coast mainline
electrification ended at Crewe.When electrification from Crewe to Glasgow
was opened in May 1974 they were transferred to the Western region and
became the forerunners of the HSTs B.h.p.2700 I think. Another English Elec.

ED 350 Not known and wouls query duplication of number given to a class 40

Re1363 It is the number of a great Western 0-6-0 saddle tank of 1361 class which I believe is preserved. Was used at Plymouth docks possibly.

No doubt others will fill the gaps and correct any errors I have made

Chris Dent

Hello Railwayman 26.
What year is the Working Timetable you are using and are these numbers actually printed or have they been written in by someone?
Whilst I agree totally with what Chris has said a genuine WTT wouldn't have individual loco numbers printed in it.

D1364; No idea no mainline loco in that number series
D140; = 46003
D210; = 40010
D280; = 40080
D315; = 40135
D420; = 50020
ED350 = ??? possibly ex LMS departmental shunter

Hi Railwayman26, the numbers you refer to are trailing tonnage D is for diesel and E for electric, I have only got LMR WWT's so I would assume that ED is Electro-Diesel.
I will scan the index pages and upload them later.

Cheers John

Here is the index page from a London Midland Region mandatory WWT from 1974

Cheers John

I hope this conversion chart from the same WWT will also help you, of course it is in relation to the area the timetable covers though in does include all the diesel classes in operation at the time except the Deltics.

Cheers John

Further to what Chris Dent states:
D210 named Empress of Britain. Good picture on Flicker leaving Glasgow.
D326 pulled the mail train which was robbed.
Cheers
Stuart

Thank you all, especially John, for your response to my query. Mystery solved.

If my memory serves me correctly, the term 'railcar' didn't just apply to single coach units. First-generation DMU's were generally referred to as railcars. For instance: "...on this occasion the service was provided by a Cravens 2-coach diesel railcar."

Some of the "single coach" units (not all) were known as "rail Buses"

Nowadays many of us tend to refer to single unit railcars as "Bubble Cars" especially Classes 121/122. Iris however is often refered to as a railcar.

Best wishes,

John H.T.

The ones I am on about only had 4 wheels and were not fitted on bogies.

You mean this lot that in the late 50's, British Rail tested Railbuses, produced by a variety of manufacturers.
These proved to be somewhat unreliable. The lines they worked on were mainly closed and, being non-standard, they were all withdrawn, before being allocated TOPS classifications. In addition BR ordered three for departmental service.

The full list of passenger and departmental units is set out below.
Number Range Builder Introduced No. Built Region Withdrawn
79958-59 Bristol / Eastern Coach Works 1958 2 Scotland 1966
79960-64 Waggon und Maschinenbau 1958 5 Eastern Region/London Midland 1967
79965-69 D Wickham & Co 1958 5 Scotland 1966
79970-74 Park Royal Vehicles 1958 5 London Midland / Scotland 1968
79975-79 AC Cars 1958 5 Scotland / Western Region 1968
999507 Elliot Wickham 1958 1 Departmental 1997
998900-998901 Drewry 1950 2 Departmental 1990
Number W79978 is preserved

Unreliable ?

I remember reports of passengers at Maldon having to push the railbus along the platform to "bump start" the engine.:D

I see the Colne Valley Railway have one (or more) railbusi (plural of railbus ? :))

Nice try, but the plural of railbus can only be railbuses.

Some words derived from the Latin and ending in -us can be made plural by changing the ending to -i, so railbus would be railbi; but railbus is not a Latin noun. It is formed from the prefix rail- and the suffix -bus, which is itself a contraction of omnibus, being the dative plural case of omes, all, and meaning for all. So while railbus may sound like a Latin noun of the second declension, it ain't, and can't be declined like one.

The benefits of a classical education... :confused: