A segment of railroad track that has been intentionally heated in a fire and wrapped around a tree or twisted into a knot. This historic sabotage tactic ruins both the rail and the ties, rendering the line impassable and preventing the steel from being salvaged and relaid.
Heard on the job
They found old Sherman neckties buried in the brush near the right-of-way, left over from the war.
Insider tip
While strictly a historical term from the Civil War, track gangs still occasionally use the phrase when dealing with severely bent or mangled rail pulled from a derailment site.