Elephant Style

"Jiffy" from a railroaders mouth is right up with "elephant style".... same goes for "fancy".

I've started saying "jolly good" alot lately , as soon as i say it i wish i didnt .specially when dealing with farmers etc .

slchub wrote:I did actually see a memo from CNOC in Delaware in regards to turning the California Zephyr in Reno and in Denver. It was mentioned that the units would be back-to-back on certain runs and elephant-style on others due to the train make-up in other terminals. This was brought about as a result of the turn-around point having or not having a wye or turning facility. The preferred method on the long-hauls is "elephant-style" so that if the leader cannot be used any longer en-route, the second motor can switched around in a jiffy.

Are you implying that CNOC is staffed, with foamers............... hehehe

It should also be noted that the term "elephant style" is a common term used often to mean one behind another all facing the same way. It is definitely a proper discription of E or F or Alco cab units mu'd with cabs all facing the same direction. It would also hold true for road units of today with all "front" or cab facing the same direction. I remenmber seeing such lashups on PC, EL, CR, as well as pics of most other roads. It may not be in the book of rules, or even the employee timetables, but it is an apt discription. Pick it apart if you wish, but it works.

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:

slchub wrote:I did actually see a memo from CNOC in Delaware in regards to turning the California Zephyr in Reno and in Denver. It was mentioned that the units would be back-to-back on certain runs and elephant-style on others due to the train make-up in other terminals. This was brought about as a result of the turn-around point having or not having a wye or turning facility. The preferred method on the long-hauls is "elephant-style" so that if the leader cannot be used any longer en-route, the second motor can switched around in a jiffy.

Are you implying that CNOC is staffed, with foamers............... hehehe

Hmmmm, well, you never know!

So now I must be a non-railroader for not using the "right words" huh? LOL. That's okay. I've also been known to highball stations by saying "now would be a swell time to highball Verne!"

henry6 wrote:It may not be in the book of rules, or even the employee timetables, but it is an apt discription. Pick it apart if you wish, but it works.

Henry6 and Rockingham Racer,

Please don't take offense at the replies posted here; I certainly didn't try to ridicule the OP's question.

"Elephant Style" is just one of those phrases that evolved somewhere other than day-to-day operations. Like locomotive "phases" ... no such animal of that color either in the day-to-day grind. Locomotives are "tools" used to get a job done, and whether the "tools" are lined up one way or another, or have slight visual differences based on date of manufacture makes no difference to the tool's "user" as long as it works. Some tools have nicer handles, some have a chrome finish instead of brushed aluminum, and some make less noise while being used. Most guys and gals "on the job" know that "...7700's are rated for 4000 HP ...those 9100's wheel slip alot ...the 3200's have better seats than the 2900's ... we can't take six axles down that track..." and so on. When confronted by a railfan about "...they've got you elephant style today, huh? Isn't your second unit 1 of only 4 Phase 3's your railroad owns...", the fan is perplexed by the puzzled look and indifference exhibited by the "user" of the tool...

Some of the phrases used to describe equipment or operations sound "cute", "funny", or even absurd to the employee; since those phrases don't exist where the employee "is coming from" so to speak. If the railroad doesn't use that term or phrase, it simply doesn't exist in the employee vernacular. The railfan-employee may know what the phrase means, but WILL NEVER USE IT at work since the employer doesn't use the phrase or term. Please excuse the sometimes "jaded" responses; the work enviroment does that to people.

EXAMPLE: There's a local freight that works out of a home terminal, #H93, and goes west. The actual job number, H93, has changed over the years as different managers feel the need to make changes and "leave their mark". But the job has been known informally by crews for 100 years as "the west wayfreight". Along comes a relatively new employee, he marks to the job, and works it regularly. After a week or so, he starts calling "his" new job "... the west way...". HUH? What job? WTF are you talking about? What job are you working? He says "...the west way, that's what WE call it..." Who's WE? The guy used HIS new phrase for awhile, refusing to add the word "freight" to the job's known description. He'd say "west way" this, "west way" that, instead of "H93" or "west wayfreight". For 100 years and countless employees it was always "the west wayfreight"; and now somebody decides to use some non-standard made up phrase ... it just didn't work. The guy eventually relented and started saying "west wayfreight" again after some not-so-subtle "prodding". Moral of the story is the workforce is adverse to non-standard terms and phrases; and such phrases are met with confusion, and sometimes ridicule.

No personal harm intended, the phrase "elephant style" itself was "under scrutiny".

No offense taken. Just that no one seems to acknowledge the long standing facts about United States English in general, and Universal Raiload Language in particular in that regionalisms are rampant. In railroading, terms are different on adjacent properties. How many names for caboose, dog house, hack, cabin car, van, wagon, bobber, etc.? Or how about drill, merry go round, roustabout, local, way, or turn to describe a job that does the set outs and pick ups along a given segment of line before returning home or back to terminal usually on the same day? In this case, elephant style, is a good dictionary term which aptly fits the application, and in fact was known to be used on certain railroads. And it was a term published in the professional and fan press. But just because one or another never heard of it does not mean it doesn't or never existed. Nor should anyone who uses the term be derided.

All quite true. No matter HOW much a railfan wants to use words he thinks "helps him fit in", many of the "cutesy" sayings do not exist inside the industry! Like was said, we don't CARE about what engine is facing which-a-way so long as it gets the job done. Another example of this, I keep hearing the term "speeder" or "track speeder" used by people. Folks, at least on MY railroad, that instantly identifies you as a rail buff and not an employee! If you said "speeder", I almost guarantee you will get a puzzled look and a "WHAT????????????"!! I posted in another thread about a Norfolk Southern "speeder". Just as info, the actual nomenclature of this machine is Fairmont, Model M-19 MOTOR CAR. Never did we call this "putt-putt" (LOUD!) thing a "speeder". I only heard this term when used by railfans who hung around our crossing. Our shop was the one that rebuilt the motor cars thru the mid-90's when hundreds were brought to the shops for scrap or sale. We had a yard FULL of these things, and I was *usually") the guy that loaded these up on trucks. People were buying them as fast as we could bring them in. Some went to other roads, some went to people I most certainly thought were foamers, (or crazy) because I could not imagine what people wanted with them! What do you DO with an M-19 motor car since you have to have rails to run it on, and a place to play with them. And most railroads ain't gonna abide having a bunch of people running up and down their ROW on motor cars!

So if fans call 'em "speeders", then what do they call Hi-Rails? LOL!

No one means to deride anyone. It's just we shouldn't be surprised if the term YOU think the railroad uses is quite strange to the employees!


Gadfly

Haven't seen any "proof" it was used on the job, here. A mention of it, in a railfan mag, and maybe someone thought it might have been used on the EL? A memo from a TM on an Amtrak train not making it "official" either. (I have the AMT-3 here, as well as all of the other stuff. I see no mention of elephant herds, on the points of trains. note: not directed at Sclubs!) Doesn't matter what we called hacks or switchers. We aren't talking about them. Some vague recollection of someone maybe using a term, doesn't make it an industry term. Railfans using it describing trains they saw, writing articles or just chatting, doesn't make it so. It might be a local thing, but you haven't shown just where that locale is. Kinda like a "mixed consist". That's what they are called, a mixed consist. On the Valley, they were called "dog packs". It's a regional thing, experienced by every railroader on the Valley, and well known, through documentation since the term was first coined, by some unahppy engineer, trying to get the dogs to "play nice" together. Show us where that term was used, by any railroad. Elephant style, is a railfan term. My collection of operating manuals from boxcabs to ES 44DC/AC and SD-90MAC's doesn't support this, either. It seems to be a buff thing, that might have been repeated, by a few railroaders. Foamer isn't a real word, but we all know what that means....... Deriding the Op wasn't the intent. The intent is to stop perpetuating railfan myth, as railroad fact. No matter what the railfan communtity wants to call it, ultimately, it's OUR industry, and we have right to call it what it is. Just my .02 cents. Your actual mileage may vary.

"The intent is to stop perpetuating railfan myth, as railroad fact. No matter what the railfan communtity wants to call it, ultimately, it's OUR industry, and we have right to call it what it is."


WELLLLLL, EEEXXXKKKUUUUZZE MEEEE! Nobody is trying to tell a railroad or railroader how to think or act nor trying to intrude on YOUR INDUSTRY. Nor is there any "railfan myth": terminology and language cross all kinds of bounderies and come from dictionary definitions and local idioms. Just because you never ran across the term where you worked doesn't mean no one else ever used it. So what if it wasn't in your's or any rule books or timetables. Neither are the terms dog house, shack, hog head or hogger, pin puller, etc. This is a common, English language term used to denote a formation. It is applicable to the situation whether it is or isn't the the Code or NORAC. You seem to be more offended by it than anyone. Who cares if a railroad or railroader or a fan used the term! It is the proper English description of the situation or formation. It has nothing to do with "railfan myth" or whether or not you used it where you worked. Nor is it seomething for you to get all hot under the coller about and rant at anyone else on this forum. It is, it was, what it is, what it was; accept it, don't take it out on anyone else, and move on.

The only ones that seem offended are railfans who are upset that their terms aren't used in real life. And it is not "the proper English description of the situation or formation" if the people who actually work in the industry don't use it. It's like talking to a medical doctor and calling the cranium the 'head bone', yeah he knows what you mean but that's not what he calls it.

RearOfSignal wrote:The only ones that seem offended are railfans who are upset that their terms aren't used in real life. And it is not "the proper English description of the situation or formation" if the people who actually work in the industry don't use it. It's like talking to a medical doctor and calling the cranium the 'head bone', yeah he knows what you mean but that's not what he calls it.

That's a good one. Little did I know the thread would go this long. I got my information. And as a rail would say, "Let's take it ot the barn."

RearOfSignal wrote:The only ones that seem offended are railfans who are upset that their terms aren't used in real life. And it is not "the proper English description of the situation or formation" if the people who actually work in the industry don't use it. It's like talking to a medical doctor and calling the cranium the 'head bone', yeah he knows what you mean but that's not what he calls it.

This statement above is totally not true. The term "elephant style" is perfect English and discriptive of the situation. It is not a railfan's term, nor a railroader's term. Agreed. Someone in the industry apparently has taken offense to its use but has also condemned everyone who has ever used it. It's origin and legitimate usage was pointed out and both the posters and the writers were attacked.

The term is not used on freight railroads, but is very common on passenger railroads were locomotives like F units E units and other newer carbody type locomotives are used.

I think we're all set here............