HOLDIAY TOURS 2009

LOCOMOTION ~ Trains and Railroads of Northern New York

RAILROAD VOCABULARY

Air brakes

(A)Board(a train) “All Aboard!”

(Box)(Rail)car -A boxlike enclosure for passengers and freight on a

conveyance:

Club car - A railroad passenger car equipped with lounge chairs,

tables, a buffet or bar, and other comforts. parlor or lounge car,

Caboose - a car on a freight train, used chiefly as the crew's

quarters and usually attached to the rear of the train

(Day)Coach car - ordinary railroad passenger car

Coal car

Conductor -an employee who is in charge of the train and its

passengers, collects fares or tickets

Coupler Hook

Crosstie - a crossing timber forming a support for railroad rails

Dining-car

Dome car

Engineer -the person who operates (drives) the locomotive

Flatcar

Freight (car) - shipment, cargo or load

Gondola(car) open railroad freight car with low sides, for

transporting bulk freight and manufactured goods

Hopper car - freight car, usually open at the top and containing one

or more hoppers (funnel-shaped bin in which loose material,

as grain or coal, is stored temporarily, being filled through the

top and dispensed through the bottom)

Hotbox (smoke) - axle box on a railway car

Locomotive -a self-propelled engine, powered by steam,, diesel, or

electricity, for pulling or pushing railroad cars.

Passenger Engine - a locomotive - a machine that converts energy

into mechanical force or motion.

Platform -the raised area alongside the tracks of a railroad

station, from which the cars of the train are entered, or the open

area at the end of a railroad passenger car

Porter -A railroad employee who waits on passengers in a sleeping car

or parlor car and carries baggage at a transportation station.

Rail(s) -steel bars that provide the running surfaces for the wheels

of locomotives and railroad cars.

Roundhouse -a building for the servicing and repair of locomotives,

built around a turntable in the form of a circle.

Signal lights

Sleeping Berth

Spike

Station -a stopping place for trains or other land conveyances, for

the transfer of freight or passengers.

Switch(man) -a person who assists in moving cars in a railway yard who

has charge of a switch on a railroad

Tank car

Terminal -Either end of a railroad line with repair facilities at

which trains originate or terminate, or are distributed or combined.

Track -a pair of parallel lines of rails with their crossties, on

which a railroad train runs.

Train -a self-propelled, connected group of rolling stock

Transcontinental

Trestle -a bridge

Tunnel

Whistle(chain)

 

  

 

EXHIBITION TOURS:

Above: Students from Lawrence Avenue Elementary School visit the museum for the Spinning and Weaving Program.

We offer tours of our exhibitions and will work with teachers, paretns, students and community groups to set up custom tours at the museum.

We also offer tours of Bayside Cemetery and Historic Walking Tours of Potsdam as well as tours of Sandstone architecture and The Sandstone industry including a walk down stone valley to see the outcroppings of stone and old sites of the quarries.

Call us for more information at (315) 265-6910. Thank you! 

SPINNING and WEAVING:

 

 

 

In the spring each year, the museum offers a Spinning and Weaving program to to grade school students. The museum has 5 floor looms and two table looms that are operational and used for demonstrations and participation. 

 

    Weaving with Lawrence Avenue Elementary School students in the museum in the spring of 2008.