jerkwaters

Noun

jerkwater (plural jerkwaters)

1. (US, historical) A train on a branch line.
   • […] by bailing from near streams with buckets, (the brake-man called this operation jerking water) and from this the road gets its name of jerkwater road.1975 Mar, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana Magazine of History, volume 71, number 1, page 355
2. A jerkwater town.
   • Twenty-five miles down the narrow arid highway, there is another town like Napoleon, a little smaller. And then twenty-five miles further, another. This chain of jerkwaters stretches for a lazy afternoon, until you finally encounter a cluster of people that almost resembles a modern civilization...2016 April 19, Rex Sorgatz, “The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof.”, in Wired

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