| Beginning With: "F" |
| FAMILY DISTURBER |
Pay car or pay train |
| FAN |
Blower on a locomotive boiler |
| FIELD |
Classification yard |
| FIELDER or FIELD MAN |
Yard brakeman |
| FIGUREHEAD |
Timekeeper |
| FIRE BOY |
Locomotive fireman |
| FIRST READER |
Conductor's train book |
| FISH WAGON |
Gas-electric car or other motorcar equipped with an air horn (which sounds like a fishmonger's horn) |
| FISHTAIL |
Semaphore blade, so called from its peculiar shape |
| FIST |
Telegraph operator's handwriting. This script, in the days before telephones, typewriters, and teletypes, was characterized by its swiftness, its bold flowing curves which connected one word with another, and its legibility. Ops were proud of their penmanship |
| FIXED MAN |
Switchman in a hump yard assigned to one certain post from which he rides cars being humped |
| FIXED SIGNAL |
Derisive term for a student brakeman standing on a boxcar with his lamp out and a cinder in his eye |
| FLAG |
Assumed name. Many a boomer worked under a flag when his own name was black-listed |
| FLAT |
Flatcar. Also called car with the top blowed off |
| FLAT WHEEL |
Car wheel that has flat spots on the tread. Also applied to an employee who limps |
| FLIMSY |
Train order. (Standard practice is to issue these on tissue paper to facilitate the making of carbon copies) |
| FLIP |
To board a moving train. The word accurately suggests the motion used |
| FLOATER |
Same as boomer |
| FLY LIGHT |
Miss a meal. Boomers often did that; hoboes still do |
| FLYING SWITCH |
Switching technique in which the engine pulls away from a car or cars she has started rolling, permitting them to be switched onto a track other than that taken by the engine. The switch is thrown instantly after the engine has passed it and just before the cars reach it. This procedure, common in bygone days, is now frowned upon by officials |
| FOG |
Steam |
| FOOTBOARD |
The step on the rear and front ends of switch or freight engines. Many casualties were caused in the "good old days" by switchmen missing these steps on dark slippery nights |
| FOOTBOARD YARD MASTER |
Conductor who acts as yardmaster in a small yard |
| FOREIGN CAR |
Car running over any railroad other than one that owns it |
| FOUNTAIN |
That part of a locomotive where steam issues from the boiler and flows into pipes for lubrication, injection, etc. |
| FREEZE A HOB or A BLAZER |
Cool a heated journal |
| FREEZER |
Refrigerator car. Also reefer or riff |
| FROG |
Implement for rerailing cars or engines. Also an X-shaped plate where two tracks cross |
| FUSEE |
Red flare used for flagging purposes. Its sharp point is driven into the right-of-way and no following train may pass as long as it is burning, although on some roads it is permissible to stop, extinguish the fusee, and proceed with caution in automatic block-signal limits |
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