cowcatcher

plural cowcatchers · alternative cow catcher

1. principally USrail transportA plough-shaped device affixed to the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle), usually wedge or V-shaped so as to push or deflect objects on the tracks out of the way, to clear out the train's path and prevent the risk of derailment or major damage to it.

   The locomotive was black, an ungainly contraption led by the triangular snout of the cowcatcher, though there would be few animals where this engine was headed.

   2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 83

   2 more examples

   With its long tapered cowcatcher, massive headlamp and enormous diamond smokestack behind, wagon-top boiler, high running-plate above the driving-wheels reached from a front door in the square side-window cab, cylinders with slide valves mounted on top, and double bogie tender, General in its present form is typical of much earlier American locomotive practice.

   1942 February, “Notes and News: An Historic American Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 56

   It was a rural railway that served the fertile Fens of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. But because it flanked public roads and was unfenced (to save costs), it was deemed a tramway and its locomotives had to be fitted with a cowcatcher.

   2023 January 11, Richard Foster, “British Rail's weirdest railways...: Wisbech & Upwell Tramway”, in RAIL, number 974, page 46

   Synonyms: pilot

2. advertisingAn advertisement at the start of a program.

   Hitchhiker and cowcatcher plugs will be considered.

   1945, Broadcasting, volume 29, page 55

   2 more examples

   National advertisers have probably been major contributors to this practice through the use of so-called hitchhike and cowcatcher announcements.

   1945, Charles Harold Sandage, Radio Advertising for Retailers, page 185

   Sometime in the mid-40s, the Hummerts canceled Mr. Keen and Easy Aces from their early evening periods on CBS, which also killed my cowcatchers and hitchhikes.

   2009, George Ansbro, I Have a Lady in the Balcony, page 138