Before you walk the rails, learn how the road talked. These are the words you will meet in every room that follows.

Glossary of the road

The men and women who rode the freights built a working language of their own. It named the people they met, the places they slept, the ways they boarded a train, and the ways they found a meal. This glossary comes first so that the rest of the museum can use those words plainly, the way the travelers themselves did.

Most definitions here follow period memoirs and studies, especially Jack London's The Road (1907), Josiah Flynt's Tramping with Tramps (1899), and Nels Anderson's The Hobo (1923). Road slang changed by region and decade, so a word used in 1907 might mean something slightly different to a rider in 1934. Where usage was loose or disputed, the entry says so.

People of the road · Places · Riding the rails · Food and getting by

People of the road

hobo

A migratory worker who traveled, usually by freight train, to find work: harvests, logging camps, railroad and construction jobs. The word's origin is uncertain. In the distinction popularized by Ben Reitman, the hobo travels and works, the tramp travels but avoids work, and the bum stays put and does not work. See Hobo, tramp, and bum.

tramp

A wanderer who lived on the road without seeking steady work. Earlier writers such as Josiah Flynt and Jack London often used "tramp" for all road travelers, so older sources do not always keep the distinction.

bum

In road usage, a non-traveling idler, often tied to drink and the city skid row. Hoboes considered it an insult.

bindle stiff

A traveler who carried a bindle, especially a migrant farm or camp worker. "Stiff" meant a working man.

profesh

Jack London's term for a seasoned, professional road traveler, the opposite of a beginner.

gay-cat

An older road word for a newcomer or tenderfoot, used by London and Flynt. It is not related to the modern meaning of "gay."

punk

A boy or young novice traveling with an older tramp, often exploited by him. London used it this way in The Road.

moniker

A road name, such as Steamtrain Maury or Connecticut Slim, often carved or chalked with a date and direction. See the Moniker wall.

bull

A railroad police officer or special agent hired to keep riders off trains and out of yards. Some were notorious for violence.

shack

A brakeman. Brakemen sometimes collected bribes from riders, sometimes threw them off.

gandy dancer

A track laborer who laid and maintained rail, one of the jobs many hoboes worked.

Wobbly

A member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the radical union that organized migratory workers in harvest fields, camps, and boxcars. See The IWW and the rails.

Places

jungle

A camp near the tracks, often by water and a junction, where travelers cooked, washed, slept, and traded news. Jungles had unwritten rules: leave the pots clean, keep the fire small, share what you can.

main stem

The street in a city where migrant workers gathered, lined with employment agencies, cheap lodging, missions, and saloons. Chicago's West Madison Street was the most famous. Also called the main drag.

flop

A place to sleep. A flophouse was a cheap lodging house on the main stem, where a cot or floor space cost a few cents.

mission

A religious shelter offering a meal and a bed, usually after a sermon. A "mission stiff" was someone who relied on them.

yard

A rail yard where freight trains were assembled and split apart. Riders waited near the yard to catch out, and bulls patrolled it.

tank town

A small town where trains stopped mainly to take on water, a common place to get on or be put off.

Riding the rails

catch out

To leave town by boarding a freight train.

flip

To climb onto a moving train. It was one of the most dangerous things a rider could do, and it cost many people their legs or lives.

side-door Pullman

A boxcar, joked about as a luxury sleeping car you entered through the side door.

reefer

A refrigerator car. Riders sometimes hid in its empty ice bunkers, at risk of being trapped or frozen.

gondola

An open-topped freight car with low sides, used for coal, gravel, and scrap. Riders were exposed to weather and shifting loads.

riding the rods

Riding beneath a car on the truss rods that braced older freight and passenger cars, inches above the track. Steel cars made it rare by the 1920s.

riding the blinds

Riding the "blind baggage," the closed front end of a baggage car right behind the engine, where the crew could not easily see a rider. London describes it often.

decking

Riding on top of a train car.

hotshot

A fast, high-priority freight train that made few stops. Good for distance, hard to catch.

Food and getting by

mulligan

A stew cooked in the jungle from whatever each person could contribute: a potato, an onion, a bit of meat.

hand-out

Food given at a back door, usually wrapped to eat elsewhere.

set-down

A meal eaten sitting at a table inside a house, rarer and more prized than a hand-out.

throw the feet

London's phrase for going out to beg or hustle for food or money.

bindle

A bedroll or bundle of belongings, carried on the back or over the shoulder. The stick-and-handkerchief bindle is mostly a cartoon image. Working travelers usually carried a rolled blanket tied with cord.

hobo sign

A chalked or scratched mark meant to tell later travelers what to expect at a house or town. How widely the code was actually used is debated. See Signs and symbols.

See Sources for works and archives cited in this room.