DCHP-1 Online

head of steel

• 1 the most recently laid tracks of a railway under construction; the farthest point to which tracks have been laid.

  See also: end of steel (def. 1b)  railhead (def. 1a)  

  • 1912  (1914)  The head of steel is the point where, for the time being, the actual steel rails end.
  • 1963  For a week or so, the survey party to which I was attached worked around the gang laying the head of steel at about Mile 30. The steel gang lived in railway cars, pulled up by a locomotive along one or two miles of the track they had laid that day.
  • 1963  To a man who has seen labor gangs living in boxcars at the head of steel . . . these rooms still looked comfortable.

• 2 the farthest point to which railway service extends; the terminus of a railway.

  See also: end of steel (def. 1a)  

  • 1939  From this post the letter will go out by dog team with the rest of the winter mail to Moosonee and the head of steel.