I have often seen references to a number of wagons or carriages being referred to as a 'rake'. I have just had a quick search on t'internet and can only find references to the garden implement or things like raking a comb through hair - so, why is it called a 'rake'.   . (Or is it so obvious, I am missing it  ).

I've never really used "rake" specifically for train formations.  To me it's meant (possibly wrongly!) some similar items organised together in a line, like for me I might say "a rake of 4 pressure dials".  Just checked Dictionary.com says "to gather or collect abundantly" followed by "in" some form of following description?

I never really thought about it before and I may be wrong, good question

I wonder if it's one of those questions...

All I can think of is that a garden rake has a row of teeth/prongs?
so a row of carriages becomes a rake of them ?

tenuous ?
Good question though !!

I asked this a while back and I think they' re just called a rake.

This from the Oxford Dictionary (the usual arbiter in such matters)

'Pronunciation: /reɪk/; noun; British: A number of railway carriages or wagons coupled together:
'we have converted one locomotive and a rake of coaches to air braking'

Origin

Early 20th century (originally Scots and northern English): from Old Norse rák 'stripe, streak', from an alteration of rek- 'to drive'. The word was in earlier use in the senses 'path, groove' and 'vein of ore''.

FWIW, I would question the 'Early 20th century' pronouncement as the term was used on at least one New Zealand gold-mining tramway before the end of the 19th Century, indicating that the word had a 'railway' use before the date noted  in the 'Oxford.

Hope that this helps...

Many thanks for the replies - Komata seems to have sorted that one out 

Must admit I thought the railway use of the word was out there already on dictionary so I never listed it.  I thught the use of the word "rake" more intersting.

Also sung about by Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention "I fear you are some rake" where rake means a male of dubious morals.

Now how would you know about that then   

So what's the collective noun for several locomotives ?

BobB, that depends on whether they are diesel or steam, and which group of aficionados you belong to!

Quote from: BobB on March 26, 2016, 06:28:24 AM
So what's the collective noun for several locomotives ?

If they're DCC sound fitted diesels on an MPD layout, is an "annoying whistle"... 

Quote from: BobB on March 26, 2016, 06:28:24 AM
So what's the collective noun for several locomotives ?

A stud?

Rake is the collective noun for clouds. Just thought I should add that for etymological completeness!

I think the use of 'rake' of rolling stock and 'stud' of locomotives is accepted use in the correct context when talking about them in the sense we do.

But I think the use of 'staith(e)' is mis-used these days, especially by modellers; the word derives from Old English and is defined as 'a wharf; a structure for shipping coal; an embankment'. Therefore, it should only refer in railway terms to the vast structures in places such as Blythe, where an inclined pier was built on the quayside to enable trains of loaded coal to be emptied by gravity into colliers for onward transport by sea.

What should we use for the coal structures in older goods yard to receive coal? I'm not sure; 'coal drop' should really refer to again, especially in the North, where wagons were unloaded into pits under the rails by gravity from hoppers. Perhaps they should be coal pens, or better, bunkers, for the coal merchants of times past?

Pedantically

Martyn