Word.ws English Dictionary

sand drag

sand drag noun: a pile of sand or earth at the end of a siding or bay platform, intended to stop trains that overrun or pass through trap points set for a siding.

sand drag: a pile of sand or earth at the end of a siding or bay platform, intended to stop trains that...
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Noun

sand drag (plural sand drags)

  1. (UK) A pile of sand or earth at the end of a siding or bay platform, intended to stop trains that overrun or pass through trap points set for a siding.
    • Sand drags are usually laid in as an extension of trap sidings or of lines from catch-points. The rails are boxed in for some distance on either side, and the box is filled with sand, or, preferably, coarse gravel, the intention being, as the name implies, that the sand will act as a drag, and help...1941 August, “The Why and the Wherefore: Sand Drags”, in Railway Magazine, page 382
    • The brakes were applied immediately, but the engine ran into a sand drag at approximately 20 m.p.h., plunged down the embankment, and turned over on its side at the bottom.1952 October, “Notes and News: Derailment near Shawford”, in Railway Magazine, page 710

Examples of sand drag in a sentence

  • Sand drags are usually laid in as an extension of trap sidings or of lines from catch-points.1941 August, “The Why and the Wherefore: Sand Drags”, in Railway Magazine, page 382:
  • Should any driver attempt to pass the Belmont starter signals at danger, he would find his train in the sand drag.1978, Alan A. Jackson, London's Local Railways, David & Charles, page 154:

Forms of sand drag

pluralsand drags

Questions about sand drag

What does sand drag mean?
Sand drag means a pile of sand or earth at the end of a siding or bay platform, intended to stop trains that overrun or pass through trap points set for a siding.
How do you use sand drag in a sentence?
Sand drags are usually laid in as an extension of trap sidings or of lines from catch-points.
What part of speech is sand drag?
Sand drag is a noun.
What is the plural of sand drag?
The plural of sand drag is sand drags.

Words near sand drag in the dictionary

  1. sand dollar
  2. sand dollars
  3. sand dome
  4. sand domes
  5. sand down
  6. sand drag
  7. sand drags
  8. sand dune
  9. sand dunes
  10. sand duning
  11. sand eel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sand drag (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: “sand drag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sand_drag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.