cowcatcher

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Pilot (locomotive)

Wikipedia

A steam locomotive with a bright red cowcatcher

Etymology

From cow +‎ catcher.

Noun

cowcatcher (plural cowcatchers)

(rail transport, principally US) A plough-shaped device affixed to the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle), usually wedge or V-shaped so as to push or deflect objects on the tracks out of the way, to clear out the train's path and prevent the risk of derailment or major damage to it.
Synonym: pilot
- 1942 February, “Notes and News: An Historic American Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 56:
  With its long tapered cowcatcher, massive headlamp and enormous diamond smokestack behind, wagon-top boiler, high running-plate above the driving-wheels reached from a front door in the square side-window cab, cylinders with slide valves mounted on top, and double bogie tender, General in its present form is typical of much earlier American locomotive practice.
- 2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 83:
  The locomotive was black, an ungainly contraption led by the triangular snout of the cowcatcher, though there would be few animals where this engine was headed.
- 2023 January 11, Richard Foster, “British Rail's weirdest railways...: Wisbech & Upwell Tramway”, in RAIL, number 974, page 46:
  It was a rural railway that served the fertile Fens of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. But because it flanked public roads and was unfenced (to save costs), it was deemed a tramway and its locomotives had to be fitted with a cowcatcher.
(radio, advertising) An advertisement at the start of a programme.
Coordinate term: hitchhiker
- 1945, Broadcasting, volume 29, page 55:
  Hitchhiker and cowcatcher plugs will be considered.
- 1945, Charles Harold Sandage, Radio Advertising for Retailers, page 185:
  National advertisers have probably been major contributors to this practice through the use of so-called hitchhike and cowcatcher announcements.
- 2009, George Ansbro, I Have a Lady in the Balcony, page 138:
  Sometime in the mid-40s, the Hummerts canceled Mr. Keen and Easy Aces from their early evening periods on CBS, which also killed my cowcatchers and hitchhikes.

Translations

plough-like device on the front of a train locomotive

Arabic: كانسة عقبات f
Catalan: salvavides m
Czech: smetadlo m
Dutch: koevanger m
Finnish: karja-aura
French: pare-buffle m
German: Kuhfänger m, Schienenräumer m
Indonesian: penghalau rintangan
Italian: cacciapietre m
Japanese: カウキャッチャー (kaukyacchaa)
Korean: 배장기 (baejanggi)
Russian: скотоотбрасыватель m (skotootbrasyvatelʹ), путеочиститель m (puteočistitelʹ)
Spanish: deflector de obstáculos m
Swedish: kofångare c, banröjare c

References

Eugene Fred Seehafer, Jack William Laemmar (1951) “A cowcatcher announcement is one aired at the very beginning of a radio program, as soon as the broadcast goes on the air and the program has been introduced to listeners.”, in Successful radio and television advertising, page 207