ExCon90 wrote:AmTransit wrote:PennsyJohn is correct, the Penn designated Motormen for MU's/Electrics and Engineer's for everything else. As a matter of fact at one time Penn "Motormen" wore a white jacket and white hats with a black visor to indicate how much cleaner electrics were.
A minor nitpick, but the PRR used the term "engineman" rather than engineer, but no surprise there -- the Standard Railroad of the World rarely used the same term that "non-Standard" railroads used.
That makes sense. The OED says under motor:
"3. a. An apparatus for employing the energy of some natural agent or force for the impulsion of machinery; a machine that supplies the motive power for the propulsion of a vehicle or vessel. In recent use also in a narrower sense excluding steam engines."
The "in recent use" since at least 1892, based on the etymological quotes.
Under engine it states:
"7. a. A machine, more or less complicated, consisting of several parts, working together to produce a given physical effect.
As in recent use the word has come to be applied esp. to the steam-engine (q.v.) and analogous machines (see 8, 9), the wider sense expressed in the above definition has become almost obsolete, surviving chiefly in the compounds beer-engine, calculating-engine, fire-engine, garden-engine, water-engine (q.v. under their initial elements)."
Penn used the prevailing technical words at the time, motor for electric and engine for steam (and assuming later diesel).