Saturday Slanguage: Deadhead

A deadhead is not something that is unique to the railroad, although the railroad uses deadheads frequently.  While the specifics of a deadhead can vary widely, the general idea of the word basically the same in all applications.

Deadhead:
A non-revenue movement of equipment, supplies, or personnel.  Usually a deadhead is used to put people, equipment, or supplies in a location where they will be needed in the near future.

Most commonly on the railroad, train crews are dead headed.  On the Forsyth Subdivision, when nearly all the crews end up away from home, they are dead headed home so that they can work away from home again.  Sometimes locomotives need to be moved to pull another train from a different location.  Usually they will be run on a train headed in the direction they need to go, but they will not be pulling the train.  If the weather is warm enough, locomotives will be shut down while they deadhead.  On colder days, they will be left running, but isolated, so that they only idle.