railroading

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of railroad.

   The committee was accused of railroading the appointment past its critics.

   Railroading legislation through a divided chamber rarely produces durable law.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. After be it is the progressive (they were railroading the bill), and on its own it works as a verbal noun. Without an object it covers running, working for or riding a railroad, or pursuing it as a hobby. With an object it means either shipping by rail or, figuratively, forcing a law or resolution through approval. Through and past are its usual partners in that figurative use.

2. 2
   nounfigurativelyuncountable

   A procedure carried out hastily, without giving it the careful consideration it requires.

   Like a train that won't stop at any station: once it gets moving, there's no getting off.

   Critics condemned the railroading of the legislation, voted on before anyone had read it.

   The board's railroading of the merger brushed aside every objection raised.

   Similarrushing, forcing, bulldozing

   Note

   The figurative use borrows its picture from running a railroad: a train on fixed rails goes only where the track goes, whatever stands beside the line. The noun usually takes no plural, as in "the railroading of" a bill or merger. It can also describe another noun, as when Dave Hill warned in 2014 that cycling schemes at City Hall risked becoming a "railroading" exercise.

3. 3
   nounUSuncountable

   The operation of a railroad: moving its trains and maintaining its track and services.

   Railroading demanded enormous investment in track, engines, and skilled crews.

   She devoted her career to railroading, rising from clerk to division manager.

   Note

   The working railroad as a trade and a discipline belongs, like railroad itself, to American usage. It normally takes no article. A 1981 National Transportation Safety Board report speaks of "the most feared event in railroading." The hobby borrows the word whole as model railroading, as in Marty McGuirk's N Scale Model Railroading (1999), where beginners are warned that its terminology is among the toughest things to learn.

4. 4
   nounUSuncountable

   The collective people, equipment, terminology, and lore connected with railroads.

   Railroading carries a rich body of slang, ritual, and folklore passed between generations of crews.

   Enthusiasts immerse themselves in railroading, collecting old timetables and learning the trade's lingo.

   Note

   Here the word widens from the work to the world around it: the crews, the rolling stock, the jargon and the stories handed down. It shares the American setting of the operating sense. The line between the two is often thin, so let the company the word keeps decide. Lore, culture and history of railroading point here, while safety, costs or careers in railroading point to the job itself.

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