The Collaborative International Dictionary
Switching \Switch"ing\, a. & n. from Switch, v.
Switching engine, a locomotive for switching cars from one track to another, and making up trains; -- called also switch engine. [U.S.]
WordNet
n. a locomotive for switching rolling stock in a railroad yard [syn: donkey engine]
Usage examples of "switch engine".
They remained motionless there on the roof of the container, holding the air-conditioning panel as the guards' armored car was uncoupled and pulled away by a small electric switch engine.
In a freight yard with seven parallel tracks he had a switch engine shifting boxcars.
The superintendent took one to run down to Laurel, and the other's in the shops, been there for weeks, and the switch engine jumped a rail this morning, they'll be working on her till tomorrow afternoon.
The diesel switch engine would deposit the flatcar back on a siding and retrieve the next missile.
I got goose bumps watching the switch engine pushing the car over our siding and into the warehouse.
His throat was cut and his body left on the tracks, where a switch engine ran over it.
It is humiliating, when you should know better, to become victim of the timeless story of the little brown dog running across the freight yard, crossing all the railroad tracks until a switch engine nipped off the end of his tail between wheel and rail.
Besides, what does the army need with some one who can run a switch engine?
He heard a switch engine in the Southern Pacific yards discharging steam in shrill dry spurts.
He had covered part of the distance by hopping a New York Central switch engine, but afterwards he had slunk along endless blocks of silent, sleeping residential streets, ducking to cover when anyone hove into view.