Glossary of North American Railway Terms - T

T

• T-Hog: Nickname for a Reading Railroad T-1 4-8-4 steam locomotive.

• Taco Belle: Nickname for the new Southern Belle-inspired paint scheme on Kansas City Southern Railway locomotives assigned to subsidiary KCS de Mexico.

• Toaster: Amtrak AEM-7, New Jersey Transit ABB ALP-44, or GE P42DC locomotives, due to its visual appearance and tendency to emit sparking and clicking sounds when idling. Also sometimes used to refer to any GE locomotive, due both to their tendency to shoot flames out of the exhaust stack during Turbo Lag and to General Electric's historic involvement in the manufacture of household appliances.

• Trops: Tropicana, Reefer, Boxcar. Shortened from Tropicana, referring to the orange or white refrigerated boxcars used to haul frozen concentrated orange juice to packaging facilities north of Florida. Term is specifically used by CSX crews in Cincinnati Terminal where a large such packaging facility is located.

• Tunnel Motor: Southern Pacific EMD SD40T-2 / EMD SD45T-2. Named for the lower-located air intakes to prevent the locomotive from pulling diesel exhaust in with the clean air while traveling through a tunnel.

• Turbo Lag: Characteristic of Alco and GE diesel locomotives, where the turbocharger lags behind the throttle-up of the engine, shooting dense clouds of black smoke and/or flames from the exhaust stack when initially throttling up.

• Turn: A local freight train that makes a round trip, returning to originating station.