dead man's switch

[Dan Goncharoff]

Well, we know it wasn't Casey Jones, who had his fatal accident in
1900, after the Illinois Central had moved the main line to NOLA from
Jackson to Memphis, although Jones did a lot of his railroading around
Jackson. Mainly freight, though.


DanG



On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 7:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: dead man's switch
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There is an intriguing item in an 1898 newspaper:
>
> "One little slip of manilla paper, says the Citizen Ledger, is likely
> to be worth $25,000 to the Illinois Central Railroad. Last June a
> freight wreck occurred on the road near Dead Man's Switch, about
> three miles north of Jackson, in which J. M. Quinn was killed."
>
> The article continues to sketchily describe the accident, a suit for
> $25,000 by the "dead man"s widow (I don't think there's a connection
> here) against the railroad, and the potential significance of the
> paper, which contains the engineer's instructions, on the widow's suit.
>
> The Daily Picayune, (New Orleans, LA) Friday, March 11, 1898; pg. 14;
> Issue 46; col C.  [19th C. Amer. Newspapers]
>
> Since "Dead Man's Switch" is here a place name, the meaning is not
> evident.  It may merely be a place where if someone doesn't switch
> something, someone is likely to be dead soon after.
>
> (This is the only hit in this database for any of Victor's various
> combinations.)
>
> Joel
>
> At 8/16/2011 05:51 PM, victor steinbok wrote:
>>Unless I missed something in the search (for which I blame the editors, of
>>course), the expression is not in the OED in any variation (dead man switch,
>>dead men switch, dead men's switch, deadman switch, etc.).
>>
>>...
>>
>>The earliest for "dead man's handle/knob" in the OED is 1908 (includes both
>>knob and handle). Ironically, the switch makes its appearance in the same
>>year.
>>
>>http://goo.gl/1aOh4
>>Bulletin of the International Railway Congress Association (English
>>Edition).
>>Volume 22 (9). September 1908
>>Electric Traction by Simple Alternating Current on European Railways. By H.
>>Marchand-Thriar. VIII.--The Thomson-Houston Company's System. p. 1023
>>
>> > The master-controller is fitted with a safety handle (dead man's switch) so
>> > arranged that if the driver fell or fainted, his releasing the handle would
>> > ensure the current being cut off automatically from all the vehicles.
>>
>>Volume 22(11). November 1908
>>Notes Taken During a Journey of Enquiry in the United States. By Em.
>>Uytborck. p. 1217
>>
>> > The cars are equipped with the system of control known as the "Sprague
>> > General Electric"; the controller is fitted with a dead-man's switch (i.e.
>> > it returns to neutral if the driver releases the handle).
>>...
>
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