Slang Collected by the Railway Carload

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Steve Davis from Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Hey, Steve, we’re glad to have you.

I’m glad to be on the show. My nerd heart sings.

What’s it singing?

I’m super excited. All kinds of stuff. I’m actually a singer-songwriter, so that’s funny.

Oh, that’s cool.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah.

What’s on your mind and your heart?

So just briefly backstory from Green River, Wyoming, originally, which is a town where the freight trains come through.

And as a result, in the summertime, we have a bunch of like teenagers, 21 year old people that ride the freight trains that stay in my hometown.

And when I was 19, I one time decided to go on a journey and I rode some trains with these kids to California.

And then I ended up riding trains all across America for a couple of summers.

And I picked up on some really cool lingo.

Oh, I bet.

I do share.

Basically, the first one is a word called spanging, which is maybe S-P-A-N-G-I-N-G, I suppose.

Yeah.

Yeah, but a lot of people would say it, and it just means going and holding a cardboard sign and looking for basically handouts or looking for spare change.

Yeah, spanging.

That one is used in a lot of the street cultures, right?

Spanging asking oh cool a combo of a spare change spange oh spange okay yes spange yes

Spare changing and lots of people said it people said it from new york and so like grant said you

Know a lot of people apparently use this term but i was just curious of like how old is it is it like

A guy in britain from 1872 like i’m tired of saying bad changing or is this like in the 80s

I think the farthest I found it is in the 80s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s older than that.

Okay, sweet.

And that was my kind of guess because I was like, it sounds a little more modern.

Yeah, those blends.

Blends aren’t that new, but blends became really frequent in the 80s.

So that solves that pretty briefly.

And then the other term that I wanted to talk to you guys about is when you are waiting to ride a train, you have to kind of wait nearby.

And there is somebody who works for one of the railroad companies that’s looking out to try to stop you from trespassing on private property, basically.

Oh, yeah.

But he’s referred to as the bull, he or she.

Right.

And I mean, the bull is not a police officer or a security guard.

It’s like they’re hired muscle, I suppose.

They have a lot of other responsibilities, I’m sure.

But one of their main ones is, hey, you can’t be here, you know, go somewhere else.

So I was wondering if there’s any other like I’ve thought of stowaways on ships.

And I was like, is there someone that looks out for stowaways on ships?

Are they referred to as the bull?

Well, the bull actually has a broad use. It goes back to perhaps as early as the 1850s, but definitely to the 1890s.

And it’s used definitely for train security, but also for police, prison guards, and detectives.

And occasionally for people who impersonate police officers in order to demand money from people as fake bribes.

It may have actually started as slang among people who ride trains, bull.

And if you read some of Jack London’s writings, if you know that writer Jack London,

He uses bull in his writing to refer to the railroad security.

That is awesome.

So we have really good records on that particular bit of lingo.

All right. Yeah. So that is good to know.

I guess I didn’t even think about prison, prison guard, like, oh yeah.

It’s current. Yeah. Bull is current slaying in many prisons.

Awesome. I, I just wanted to know about that. And, you know,

Just, share with you guys,

Some of those terminologies that were used while I was on the road.

It just briefly, like when you’re riding trains,

They have different names for different types of rides. Yeah.

And I thought that that would be something that you just want to hear about is the slower trains are the ones that are a mix of different types of cars, like an oil tanker, a grain, and that you would call that riding junk, which was like the slow way.

And if you say like, I’m riding junk back to Oregon or something, it means like, I’m going to take my time.

I’m not really worried about getting there fast.

And there’s another one. The pusher engine is called the Cadillac because there’s nobody in there and there’s a toilet and there’s a fridge.

And I must also say, as a disclaimer, I was a respectful train rider.

I was out there to learn different guitar techniques from different cultures and cities and write songs along the way.

So I was like gentle and kind. I wasn’t crazy.

Yeah. One thing that, Steve, I love about you in particular is that as a singer, songwriter, musician, you kind of inherit this old tradition of the travelers from the 1940s, the people who rode the rails.

Because I feel like street performers and buskers inherit some of that spirit, you know,

Of earning money as they pass through other people’s lives, of storytelling or moving from town to town.

So there’s kind of a continuation in what you do as a musician to that life of the, how shall we call this, the irregular train traveler.

Yeah. And I, and you know, also,

And I appreciate that because I did go looking for the story basically,

Or looking for inspiration and also hitchhiking is way more dangerous.

And when you’re on that, because you don’t know who’s going to pick you up,

But on the train you’re alone and you’re there with your journal and pen and

You can write down stuff. And I mean, it was a really glorious experience.

It was really awesome.

And I did learn a lot of different types of finger picking techniques from buskers because they’re some of the most talented performers in general.

And you go to New Orleans or New York and there’s different dialects of music that you’re picking up on and learning from the most talented street performers of that area.

So thank you so much for sharing your memories and this language with us.

I got to say, it sounds like you are living a great life, man.

So rock on and keep strong and stay out there.

You do your thing.

I will.

And thank you so much for having me on the show.

I enjoyed it.

Bye-bye.

Before we go, I want to recommend a book, Martha,

That I think really fits into the spirit of what Steve was talking about.

It’s called On the Fly, Hobo Literature and Songs, 1879 to 1941,

Edited by Ian McIntyre from 2018.

Just a fantastic book.

We’ll link to that from the website.

And on our website, waywordradio.org,

You can find all kinds of ways to reach us,

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