who laid the rail
adv. phr.— «If the poolrooms were to shut up tomorrow, we have enough material already in hand to keep us busy for months. That could not stop us. We are going to smoke them out for who laid the rail.» —“Policy Is Announced” Dallas Morning News (Texas) Aug. 10, 1906. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Janet in Montgomery, Alabama, reports that a day after she had surgery on her hand, the wound burst open, and a doctor noted that her wound dehisced. She’s used to hearing dehisce used in botany to mean the splitting of a plant structure to...
A Dallas, Texas, woman and her friends often use the expression All the things to mean something like and whatnot or as a way to signal a kind of mutual understanding, suggesting something similar to the phrase you know. This sense probably comes...