rack railway

American

noun

cog railway.

rack railway British

noun

Also called: cog railway. a steep mountain railway having a middle rail fitted with a rack that engages a pinion on the locomotive to provide traction

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of rack railway

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In high season, the rack railway takes thousands of tourists up there every single day, all of them intent on the ultimate shot.

From BBC

A rack railway carries tens of thousands of people up to the spot each year.

From BBC

Other definite links Sodor's Culdee Fell Railway is a rack railway - so steep that the trains have cogs underneath which catch on a toothed rack running up between the rails for extra grip.

From BBC

Here was the very place for a rack railway on some system like Abt's, it seemed to me.

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023