jerk water

Definitions

1. 1

   To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a…

   To fill a steam locomotive water tank manually from natural water supplies (a hypothetical process whose use has been discredited).

   • The Santa Fe, called the Jerk Water route because they "jerked" water from ponds and wallows for the engine, still frayed out at the Kansas line.
   • […] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.
2. 2

   To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank…

   To scoop water from a track pan mounted on the tracks directly into a steam engine's tank without stopping.

   • The early, crude "jerk water" device applied by the New York Central is shown in figure 8.24.
   • Towns with track pans no longer had as many trains stop there, and they became derisively known as “jerkwater” towns, where the trains would jerk water and just keep on going.
3. 3

   Of inhabited places, small, insignificant, isolated, backwards

   • c. 1920, Ring Lardner, The Real Dope But any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that […].

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