railroad bed
1
4.3
- noun
- /ˈreɪlˌrɔrd bɛd/
- Specialized
:
lecho ferroviario
- After years of neglect, the railroad bed was restored to allow for future train traffic.
- an old railroad bed
- an abandoned railroad bed
Examples
-
She was always setting out, it seemed, down the path which, if she went left, headed along an overgrown railroad bed.
Fiction book (2001) -
The slighter man, wiry and tough, picks up a stone from the railroad bed and hurls it at a rotting, disconnected telegraph pole.
Fiction book (1995) -
Bobo and bud are gonna walk One way down this railroad bed.
-
Buries his victim in a vintage Civil War railroad bed.
-
Before they jumped down to the railroad bed, the old men tried to decipher.
Fiction book (1995) -
Along the railroad bed.
-
A miner's abandoned railroad bed wound along the riverbed, partly in sun, partly in shadow, and from a distance, the jumble of boulders fallen from above looked like train cars lined up and moving.
Fiction book (1990) -
The workers laid down gravel to create a sturdy railroad bed for the new tracks.
-
During the hike, we followed an old railroad bed that led us to a scenic overlook.
Synonyms
2
6.7
A layer of material under a road or train track that supports it
How Stable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'railroad' (tracks/rail network) with 'bed' (a layer or foundation); together they describe the base layer that supports railway tracks. This compositional pattern (using 'bed' to mean a supporting layer, as in 'river bed' or 'flower bed') is common and readily inferable by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The noun railroad bed comes from the simple image of a 'bed' where rails rest. Builders make a flat, strong layer of stone and soil so the railroad tracks can lie on the bed. This is why it means the solid base that supports the tracks.