Railroad Jargon

[pdx.sparky]

I'm not sure which Forum to ask this question. I've been listening to BNSF Vancouver Terminal on RailroadRadio.net. I hear the terms "Tail to Hill", "drill" & "poke" a lot, & am curious, what they are referring to...
thanks for any info...

 

[Ballard Beaver]

tail to hill is a phrase particular to vancouver, who knows maybe they have it in a couple other places, it refers to two tracks in the yard, the tail track and the hill track. you would need to be in the yard and listening on a scanner and you would see exactly which tracks they are talking about.

the drill track is like a switching lead, it is the track that unifies all the tracks in the switching yard. so a switch job that is putting cars onto various tracks will be making forward and reverse movements along the drill track as it does its switching. do a google search for 'drill track'

a 'poke' is a movement made by an engine, often while it is switching, where it just 'pokes' out past a certain signal. so say a "poke" at 39th (in vancouver) is where they only briefly need the signal at 39th so they can edge out past the signal and then reverse back into the yard.

 

[Graham Line]

useful stuff. what does the phrase "no track breach in effect" tell us?

 

[Ballard Beaver]

i think it means, to a train coming in to town on the main line, that there arent any switch engines or other folks in the way.

 

[cotton_belt]

useful stuff. what does the phrase "no track breach in effect" tell us?

That no one has track breach in effect. Track breach is used by TE&Y employees when they will be walking/working between two tracks and they are not on the field side or a roadway is between the two tracks.