Word.ws English Dictionary

pilotman

pilotman noun: a railway employee who directs operations over a section of railway line temporarily reduced to single track, e.g. during maintenance work, or within an unsignalled area or over a line unfamiliar to the engine crew.

Noun

pilotman (plural pilotmen)

  1. (UK) A railway employee who directs operations over a section of railway line temporarily reduced to single track, e.g. during maintenance work, or within an unsignalled area or over a line unfamiliar to the engine crew.
    • Driver G. A. Rowett, of the North Eastern Region's Neville Hill shed, now joined the locomotive as pilotman, and actually took over the regulator, Fireman Wheddon continuing to fire.1958 December, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 852
    • However, as soon as they are inside the dock territory, at the Canute Road crossing in the case of the Old Docks and Millbrook in the case of the New Docks, incoming main line trains must slow down to take on a pilotman, who directs the train on the instructions of Operational Control, either to...1959 February, G. Freeman Allen, “Southampton—Gateway to the Ocean”, in Trains Illustrated, page 92

Forms of pilotman

pluralpilotmen

Origin of pilotman

From pilot + -man.

Questions about pilotman

What does pilotman mean?
Pilotman means a railway employee who directs operations over a section of railway line temporarily reduced to single track, e.g. during maintenance work, or within an unsignalled area or over a line unfamiliar to the engine crew.
What part of speech is pilotman?
Pilotman is a noun.
What is the plural of pilotman?
The plural of pilotman is pilotmen.

Words near pilotman in the dictionary

  1. pilotings
  2. pilotis
  3. pilotism
  4. pilotless
  5. pilotlessness
  6. pilotman
  7. pilotmen
  8. Piloto
  9. Pilotos
  10. pilotries
  11. pilotry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilotman (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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