Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a pack of cards.

1880		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 7 Feb. 7/6: ‘Well, what in thunder have you got in the way of literatoor?’ ‘A pack of cards.’ ‘Ah! That’s just what I wanted [...] Bring on your railroad bible, and get me a congregation of three’.
1909		(ref. to 1880) in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see yard bull under yard n.²

see yard bull under yard n.²

(US) a generic for the poor Irish working class.

1854		Plymouth Advertiser (OH) 19 Aug. 2/6: No less than sixty houses, Irish doggeries of the lowest class were destroyed [...] A large force of railroad Irish assembled ready to march over.
1858		Athens Post (TN) 26 Feb. 2/5: The largest amount distributed would not buy the vote of a single railroad irish-man.
1867		Jackson Standard (OH) 10 Jan. 1/3: The negroes in our midst know how to vote as well as the railroad Irish.
1885		Waco Dly Examiner (TX) 17 Sept. 3/2: Two drunks reported at the city court yesterday [...] They belong to the fraternity called railroad Irish.
1892		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 4 Jan. 2/5: They had heretofore alluded to them by calling them low-down railroad Irish.
1902		Blue-Grass Blade (Lexington, KY) 3 Aug. 1/3: A gang of railroad Irish will eat the 2 cents worth of hard tack.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘The Revenge of Kid Morales’ in Taking the Count 267: He attended a public school where the ‘railroad Irish’ predominated. ‘Licking the greasers’ was a daily diversion. [Ibid.] 275: No railroad Irish goin’ scare me.
1922		N.Y. Herald 24 Feb. 10/1: The Duffeys of California were mostly railroad Irish.

(drugs) marijuana.

1977		S.N. Pradhan Drug Abuse.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 17: Railroad weed — Marijuana.

(US black) cheap wine, esp. Santa Fe Tokay.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 187: Santa Fe Tokay was wryly referred to as railroad whiskey: ‘Santa Fe Tokay, all d’ way. It don’t taste too swift, but it do d’ job.’.