Glossary
Railroad Signal Technician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential railroad signal technician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key railroad signal technician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in railroad signal technician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Blue flag
- Protects workers on track.
- Call-out
- Emergency response.
- Crossing gate
- Road barrier.
- FRA
- Federal Railroad Administration.
- Insulated joint
- Separates track circuits.
- Job briefing
- Daily safety meeting.
- Main line
- Primary track.
- PTC
- Positive train control.
- Relay
- Electrical switch.
- Shunt
- Train wheels shorting rails.
- Signal house
- Equipment bungalow.
- Switch machine
- Moves track switches.
- Track circuit
- Detects trains on track.
- Wayside signal
- Signal beside the track.
- Yard
- Rail switching area.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Railroad Signal Technician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Railroad Signal Technician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.