Saturday Slanguage: Introduction

Steven and I have been talking about starting a new weekly series about railroading language.  Railroads and railroaders tend to have some unique words and phrases, which are usually quite unfamiliar to the non-railroading world.  We already have a glossary on our website, which covers many of the proper terms for various railroad things.  If you want definitions for anything on this blog, you can always check the glossary.  The goal behind this series is to present some of the improper terms of things, or the railroad slang.  If you have ever wondered what it means to "set out a trainmaster," what exactly a "hogger" is, or how "Fred and Lucy" have anything to do with trains, this series will tell you all that.  The slang you find here will not appear in our glossary, as that is more reserved for proper railroading terms.  We hope you enjoy the new series, and if you have any word or phrase suggestions, please let us know!

Today we kick off the series with the word "highball."

Highball
Highball is used so often it does not even feel like a slang word.  It tells the crew of a train to proceed in the authorized direction at the maximum authorized speed.  It is often used on passenger trains, when work at a station is finished, or on freight trains to let the engineer know that it is safe to go.  It is also used to let a train crew know they do not need to stop.  On freight trains this is used most often after the crew of one train gives a roll-by inspection to another train.  Once the train has passed and the inspection was good, the inspecting employee will tell the crew on the other train to "Highball," letting them know it is safe to keep going.

Examples:
On Amtrak, you may hear the Conductor tell the Engineer, "Amtrak five, highball Denver."  This means that all the passengers are safely aboard, the doors are closed, and the train is ready to depart.
On a freight train, you might hear, "BNSF 6031, good roll-by, highball Blatchford."  This means that a crew member on another train inspected the BNSF 6031 and found no problems, and is letting the crew of the 6031 know that they can continue on their way.
You could say that Steven gave me the highball to write this post and start the series.