Word.ws English Dictionary

stack talk

UK/ˈstæk tɔːk//ˈstæk ˌtɔk/

stack talk noun: the sound made by the exhaust of a steam locomotive.

stack talk: the sound made by the exhaust of a steam locomotive
Image: James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

stack talk (uncountable)

  1. (US, slang) The sound made by the exhaust of a steam locomotive.
    • […] Father [Clement C.] Kubesh began making long dashes after trains to insure the correct pitch of sound or the proper placing of his car for the approach of a locomotive. He soon had recorded the "stack talk" of every type of locomotive on the Great Northern, Chicago and North Western, Northern...1956, Railway Progress, volume 10, Cleveland, Oh.; Washington, D.C.: Federation for Railway Progress, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23
    • [T]he priest [Clement C. Kubesh] makes highly stylized recordings of train sounds. […] To him, every steam engine whistle has a recognizable quality and each puffing stack has its own "talk." […] One October, Father Kubesh spotted a potato warehouse about a quarter-mile from Drayton, N.D., on the...1956 October, “Railroad Hobby Club”, in Freeman [H.] Hubbard, editor, Railroad Magazine: The Magazine of Adventurous Railroading, volume 67, number 6, Canton, Oh.: Popular Publications, →OCLC, page...

Examples of stack talk in a sentence

  • He soon had recorded the "stack talk" of every type of locomotive on the Great Northern, Chicago and North Western, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific.1956, Railway Progress, volume 10, Cleveland, Oh.; Washington, D.C.: Federation for Railway Progress, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23:
  • Plugging in his recorder, he caught No. 13, a passenger train, and recorded the whistle, stack talk, and bell, while the train was rounding a bend and while rushing by the warehouse.1956 October, “Railroad Hobby Club”, in Freeman [H.] Hubbard, editor, Railroad Magazine: The Magazine of Adventurous Railroading, volume...
  • Enjoy the action as this giant 4-8-4 steam locomotive pulls heavy passenger trains over Christianburg Grade and Blue Ridge Grade. […] Highlights include […] Long, heavy trains with great stack talk2022, “Norfolk & Western 611—On Home Rails—Train Blu-Ray”, in A-Trains.com, Greenwood, Ind., archived from the original on 24 Feb 2025:

Origin of stack talk

From stack (noun) + talk (noun). Stack is a clipping of smokestack (“conduit atop a structure (such as a steam locomotive) allowing smoke to flow out”).

Questions about stack talk

What does stack talk mean?
Stack talk means the sound made by the exhaust of a steam locomotive.
How do you use stack talk in a sentence?
He soon had recorded the "stack talk" of every type of locomotive on the Great Northern, Chicago and North Western, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific.
What part of speech is stack talk?
Stack talk is a noun.
How do you pronounce stack talk?
Stack talk is pronounced /ˈstæk tɔːk/ (UK).

Words near stack talk in the dictionary

  1. stack ranking
  2. stack ranks
  3. stack room
  4. stack rooms
  5. stack smashing
  6. stack talk
  7. stack the cards
  8. stack the deck
  9. stack trace
  10. stack traces
  11. stack truck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stack talk (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-stack talk.wav.

Cite this entry: “stack talk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stack_talk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.