Word.ws English Dictionary

running rail

running rail noun: one of the two rails of a railway track with which the wheels of a train make contact.

Noun

running rail (plural running rails)

  1. (plural-normally) One of the two rails of a railway track with which the wheels of a train make contact.
    • In order to reduce noise to a minimum, the running rails have been welded into 315 ft. lengths.1940 December, “Notes and News: Waterloo & City Tube Modernisation”, in Railway Magazine, page 668
    • The system voltage is 630 volts d.c. and the supply to the trains is by top-contact third rail with running rail return.1956 October, “Recent Changes on the Tyneside Electrified Lines”, in Railway Magazine, page 659
  2. A fence which marks the inside edge of a racecourse track.

Forms of running rail

pluralrunning rails

Questions about running rail

What does running rail mean?
Running rail means one of the two rails of a railway track with which the wheels of a train make contact.
What part of speech is running rail?
Running rail is a noun.
What is the plural of running rail?
The plural of running rail is running rails.

Words near running rail in the dictionary

  1. running out the clock
  2. running over
  3. running past
  4. running point
  5. running powers
  6. running rail
  7. running rails
  8. running rampant
  9. running rein
  10. running reins
  11. running rigging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: running rail (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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Cite this entry: “running rail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/running_rail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.