on the rails

Prepositional phrase

1. (idiomatic) In working order, functioning properly.
   • To The wineplace.com and Chris, Marshy and Chris for keeping me on the rails.2000, Paul Clarke, Learning Schools, Learning Systems, →ISBN, page vii
   • Logic is nothing other than methods we have learned that keep thinking on the rails.2001, Frederick Ferre, Living and Value: Toward a Constructive Postmodern Ethics, →ISBN, page 4
2. In a train or on trains.
   • For several Saturdays after he'd seen a film about men who lived on the rails, he left home with a Spam sandwich in a paper bag, a compass and a ball of twine (though he wasn't sure why he included the twine).2005, Dan Gerber, A Voice from the River: A Novel, →ISBN, page 14
   • And then over two months of hitch-hiking' and trekking in Banff and Jasper National Parks, and a few hundred miles on the rails.2012, Meynardie Blanchard, Rails Trails and Other Tales, →ISBN, page 31
3. Racing toward the inside, near the fence that bounds the track.
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, rail.
   • The larger the wheels, the less will any dust, twigs, or inequalities on the rails affect them.1830, Thomas Earle, A Treatise on Railroads and Internal Communications, etc, page 54
   • Now we lounged on the decks all the time, feet up on the rails while a string band played for us.2013, Reg Twigg, Survivor on the River Kwai, →ISBN