railroad train
- noun
- /ˈreɪlˌrɔrd treɪn/
- US
- In 1996, the first railroad train ever to cross the frontier between Iran and Turkmenistan crawled to the center of the border-marking bridge over the meager Tedzhen River and stopped to give children in ornate costumes an opportunity to present flowers to the government leaders in the first car.
Examples
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Have you ever been on a railroad train?
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Frank dreamed of hitching rides on the Pennsylvania Railroad trains that thundered past his kitchen window, bound either for Philadelphia and New York or for St. Louis.
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Let's go, I will be the one with a cup of coffee and a silly smile on my face, riding the Disneyland Railroad train over and over.
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It was a railroad train, The Golden Spike Limited, the fastest long-distance train in the Rootabaga Country.
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I took a scenic ride on a railroad train through the mountains last summer.
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The railroad train left the station on time, filled with excited passengers heading to the fair.
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Many tourists prefer to travel by railroad train to enjoy the beautiful countryside views.
Synonyms
A long set of connected cars that carries people on rails
A long train that carries goods instead of people
A train that carries people who travel regularly between home and work or school in a city
A train that carries people, not goods
A train that runs under a city to carry people
A very fast passenger train that runs on special tracks like those in Japan
A train that carries letters and packages for the post
A train that carries people and their cars
A train that stops at many stations and takes a long time
A train that takes people to a port to catch a ship
A very long freight train that carries many containers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a train that runs on a railroad' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'railroad' (tracks/network) with 'train' (series of carriages). This noun–noun composition follows a common, compositional naming pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Railroad train paints a simple picture: railroad means the metal rails and train means a line of cars hooked together and pulled by an engine. That's why it means 'a connected series of cars on rails that carry people or goods'.