Prototype Nicknames for Jobs/Areas

[basementcalling]

Looking for cool, unusual names crews gave to stretches of railroad similar to ones like UP's Drawbar Alley on their Blue Mountain grade in eastern Oregon, or the Patch on ATSF in the LA Basin. I know there are others in my brain I can't dredge up just before bedtime, but what are ones you know?

[ednadolski]

The Buck Local?

[Missaberoad]

There's a sad little trailer park with maybe 6 trailers on the Red Deer Sub that the crews use as an identifiable location called "8 mile"

There's definitly lots of unofficial names, finding the stories behind them can be fun.

[C855B]

"Skin Ranch" - Cajon Pass locale immediately north of Devore, former location of a nudist resort. SP slang only, ATSF never had a decent (or indecent) view.

"Buttermilk Curve" - UP main just east of North Platte. Reverse curve at Brady, a surprise deviation from miles and miles and miles and miles of tangent track:

[Missaberoad]

We had a local that served a gas plant on a 42 mile branch line that was 25mph (often on a 10mph slow order) called the "Rimbey Rocket"

Lots of switches named after streets nearby. One switch called farmers in the middle of edmonton. Why? Cause when they built lampton park it was in the middle of a farmers field.

There is one tiny stub track in Red Deer yard probably about 8 cars long called the "Paul Martha Spur" or PMS for short.

When the old yard was downtown there was all sorts of extra tracks and spurs that the maintenance workers could store their track machines out of the way. In the early 1990s they moved the yard to the edge of town and didn't have any extra tracks.

Paul Martha was the Road Master at the time and advocated to have a little track built. He's long retired and passed away but that is still the official name for it.

[C855B]

... When the old yard was downtown ...

You reminded me... "Bullring". Small SP yard in downtown Los Angeles, an extension of Taylor Yard just RR east of Dayton Avenue Tower. All the preceding are long gone. Never got an authoritative answer about the provenance.

[chessie system fan]

Don't forget Southern's Rathole.

[lock4244]

I believe the west end of the old N&W (west of Portsmouth) was called 'The Peavine'. The southern most track at the summit of PRR's climb over the Allegheny's was called 'The Slide'.

There's a grade on CP's Havelock Sub in Ontario (branchline from Agincourt to Havelock) around Dranoel that was known as 'Maryanne's Hill' on account of a train hitting Maryanne's cow and their refusal to compensate her for her loss. Not long after trains began stalling on the hill account grease being applied to the rails, and this operating difficulty remedied itself shortly after the CPR gave in and reimbursed her. Oh, and Dranoel is Leonard spelled backwards... named in honor of a member of CPR's engineering department.

CP's nightly run between Lambton (Toronto) and the TH&B's Aberdeen yard (Hamilton, ON) was called 'The Starlight', and CP's Lambton (later Agincourt) to Owen Sound nightly freight was called 'The Moonlight'.