a. and sb. [f. SWITCH v. 6. + BACK adv.]
A. adj. a. Applied to a form of railway used on steep slopes, consisting of a zigzag series of lines connected by switches, at each of which the train or car is ‘switched back’ or reversed in direction. b. Applied to a railway consisting of a series of steep alternate ascents and descents, on which the train or car runs partly or wholly by the force of gravity, the momentum of each descent carrying it up the succeeding ascent; esp. to such a railway constructed for amusement at a pleasure-resort. Hence transf. of a road having steep alternate ascents and descents.
1888. Lees & Clutterbuck, B.C. 1887, xxxiv. (1892), 373. We began the ascent of the range, which … is accomplished by what is called a ‘switchback’ railway. This contrivance is a series of zigzags, and has no similarity to the … sport lately introduced into England under the same name.
1896. Gentl. Mag., CCLXXX. 126. The effect on the infamous road we travelled was a combination of the switchback railway and ‘razzle-dazzle.’
1899. Daily News, 8 May, 5/5. The switchback road of Earlswood-common.
B. sb. A switchback railway (in either sense); also transf. and fig.
1887. A. A. Hayes, Jesuit’s Ring, 162. A temporary expedient in the way of a switch-back.
1888. Pall Mall G., 8 Sept., 4/1. The popularity of the switchback is due to the exhilaration and excitement of a jerky rush through the air at a speed over varying angles suggestive of danger.
1895. J. G. Millais, Breath fr. Veldt (1899), 129. Fortunately the switchback of human sensations brings us back again and again to the pinnacle of hope.
1897. Mrs. A. Tweedie, Through Finland, vii. 139. The Finlanders put up a Kälkbacke or Skrinnbacke, in imitation of their Russian friends…. They are really switchbacks made of ice and snow.
Hence Switchback v. intr., to take a zigzag course like a switchback railway (A. a).
1903. Blackw. Mag., April, 499/2. The railway cork-screwed and switch-backed up a rise of a couple of thousand feet in seventeen miles.
