Term for walking forward on a train.

[Swank]

I looked it up, and the proper terminology is "caboosian" for moving toward the rear of the train, and "anticaboosian" if moving toward the front.

This terminology is only for the northern hemisphere, due to the Coriolis effect.

 

[Ursa major]

I looked it up, and the proper terminology is "caboosian" for moving toward the rear of the train, and "anticaboosian" if moving toward the front.

Is that true even for passenger trains, which don't (and didn't) usually** have a caboose (even in the long-gone days when freight trains did)?


** - A mixed train (i.e. one carrying both freight and passengers) might.

 

[Pyan]

In the UK, then, it should be "guardcompartmentsian" and "antiguardcompartmentsian"...

 

[Swank]

Is that true even for passenger trains, which don't (and didn't) usually** have a caboose (even in the long-gone days when freight trains did)?


** - A mixed train (i.e. one carrying both freight and passengers) might.

Yes, just as we still "dial" phones that lack rotary dials, the gentle caboose shall live in our hearts, and in our dialect, until time immemorial.

 

[Snicklefritz]

Yes, just as we still "dial" phones that lack rotary dials, the gentle caboose shall live in our hearts, and in our dialect, until time immemorial.

Just a bit off-topic but near me there is a wonderful Caboose Motel -- 38 cabooses, a baggage car and a mail car, all decorated in the schemes of America's most famous railroads.

 

[Yozh]

The passengers, perhaps....

Oddly enough, in the US**, North, South, East, and West don't necessarily mean the same, depending on the railroad concerned, and not only because even quite short railway routes are never dead straight over their entire lengths (for all sorts of reasons).

I can't recall the details, or the book in which I read them, but some railroads define their trains as travelling either east or west (or, alternatively, north or south) on every part of their (often widespread and complex) systems. So, say, one of those "transcontinental" railroads that run between one or more cities on the Pacific Coast and one or more cities on or near the Mississippi might have trains that are said to be westbound as they head (more or less due) north from LA to the Bay Area.


** - I don't know about other countries, but in the UK, we did (and, perhaps, still sometimes do) use the terms Up train and Down train, with "Up" meaning "heading for London" and "Down" meaning "heading from London".

We do this with the Interstate Highway system, too. Even numbered highways go cross-continent east/west, and odd ones go cross-county north/south. The directional designation is always the end point direction, regardless of the orientation of any particular stretch of road. Case in point, I-90 is practically oriented north/south in Chicago as it bends around Lake Michigan, but it still has only “westbound” and “eastbound“ lanes.

 

[Yozh]

More to the point of the OP, on the trains here the announcers use the term “in the direction of travel” to describe face the front of train.

 

[Wayne Mack]

We do this with the Interstate Highway system, too. Even numbered highways go cross-continent east/west, and odd ones go cross-county north/south. The directional designation is always the end point direction, regardless of the orientation of any particular stretch of road. Case in point, I-90 is practically oriented north/south in Chicago as it bends around Lake Michigan, but it still has only “westbound” and “eastbound“ lanes.

I'll top that. I-64 (east-west road) in Virginia beach makes a complete U-turn. East bound I-64 goes south before turning and heading west.

 

[Danny McG]

So I'm in a carriage on a train that's being pulled along by an engine at the front, I walk through said carriage to get nearer to the engine - but I decide to walk backwards while heading towards that engine.

What then is the term?
(Apart from being a total f***wit)

 

[CupofJoe]

Isn't it just "up" the train [in the direction of travel] and "down" if you are going the other way [against direction of travel]?

 

[ColGray]

Ok, question for those reading. If I used the existing terms "Prograde" and "Retrograde" would you kind of follow? It actually doesn't even matter if you know that prograde means to the front of the train, all that matters is that, when introduced in conversation you'll catchon that prograde is one direction and retrograde is the other.

Maybe if you were talking about orbits? But not relative to a train movement.

 

[paranoid marvin]

So I'm in a carriage on a train that's being pulled along by an engine at the front, I walk through said carriage to get nearer to the engine - but I decide to walk backwards while heading towards that engine.

What then is the term?
(Apart from being a total f***wit)

An accident waiting to happen.

 

[THX1138]

So I'm in a carriage on a train that's being pulled along by an engine at the front, I walk through said carriage to get nearer to the engine - but I decide to walk backwards while heading towards that engine.

What then is the term?
(Apart from being a total f***wit)

'Reverse-Retrograde' because you are seeing where you came from while moving further away from it but going in a forward direction relative to the movement of the train with your back turned so you can't see what is about to happen.... Or something like that...

 

[msstice]

In the UK, then, it should be "guardcompartmentsian" and "antiguardcompartmentsian"...

I'll keep this in mind when I write a Gulliver's travels type book.

Up-train and down-train seem to be the most promising. Thanks all!