Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A railway having a number of tracks with a car or cradle on which vessels or boats can be floated, and then carried overland from one body of water to an other.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Projects both for a canal and a ship-railway have at different times during last century been brought forward to traverse it.

    Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development Martin [Editor] Hume 1919

  • As usual he was willing to back up his ideas with money, and he had the most elaborate surveys made, and remarkable models prepared to show the working of the ship-railway.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • All in all he held nearly fifty patents from the United States and England for useful inventions in naval warfare, bridge foundations and superstructure, dredging machines, navigation, river and harbor works, and ship-railway construction.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • In 1885, after obtaining from the Mexican government a modification of his concession, guaranteeing one third of the net revenue per annum, he had a bill introduced in Congress, whereby, when the ship-railway should be entirely finished and in operation, the

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • And it was at Tehuantepec that Eads proposed building, not a canal, but a ship-railway.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • While sick there, he was still at work on improvements for his ship-railway.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • A few months later he went to Mexico, where the government gave him, besides a very valuable concession for building the ship-railway, its cordial assistance in his surveys.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • Lesseps, who was advocating the Panama Canal, he stated his plan for the ship-railway.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • The next year he proposed to Congress to build the ship-railway at his own risk, and to give the United States special privileges, which had been arranged for in his Mexican charter, provided the government would, as he proved the practicability of his plan by actual construction and operation, guarantee part of the ship-railway's dividends.

    James B. Eads Louis How 1910

  • Captain Eads afterward had a scheme which always seemed to me very feasible for a ship-railway across the Isthmus of

    Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 George Frisbie Hoar 1865

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