Railroading

[fredpuli47]

What's the origin of the American expression 'to railroad' [somebody] ? What's it to do with a railroad ?

[Totterdown]

According to a phrase book:

To hustle someone through or out of an assembly with unseemly haste with reference to the proper formalities. Dates from 19th century when American railroad companies were fiercely competitive in the race to open up the West and link the coastlines.

[Quizmonster]

The earliest recorded reference is in an edition of The American Law Review published in 1884 which described how "men are railroaded to the gallows". I imagine the significance of the word lies in the manner in which the actual railroads were driven rapidly and ruthlessly across the USA.

[rccatnap]

An American friend told me that in the early days of the US railroads that certain undesirable people were actually exiled from towns, not because they were criminals, but had rather high hopes and exceedingly low morals. Therefore their influence or behaviour, very often towards the young, was eventually tolerated no more and they were asked (told) to leave the town. Some were even tied up and thrown onto a train, very often in a cattle truck. If they came back, life was made very difficult for them, so many chose to start their new lives elsewhere. I suspect also that many were itinerant types anyway.

[Quizmonster]

I wonder whether Rcc above is thinking of the idea of someone being "run out of town on a rail", a punishment often associated with tarring and feathering. This...ie banishment by being carried astride a wooden rail to the edge of town and advised never to darken its doorways again...was sometimes meted out to miscreants.

[fredpuli47]

I give totterdown three stars because that was my own ,pure guess at, the answer. It's flattering to find that a guess is born out by some evidence! LOL

We don't have 'to railway'. Our railway companies had the more genteel weapon of an Act of Parliament for each and every enterprise.That enabled them to do officially, with the full force of Parliamentary democracy (!), what American railroads might do by less 'respectable' means !