Switchback
a term applied to a "switchback" railway originally meant mode of progression up a slope. A mode of progression up a slope.
A one where the ascent is up a steep incline simplified by curving the track backwards and forward (and upward) on the face of the slope.
Afterward the term came to be applied to a railway where (as at Mauch Chunk, Pa.) the movement of the cars is largely effected by their own weight alone, the descents by gravity and the ascents by a stationary engine. Hence ary engine. Hence the application to the the public at watering places, fairs, and exhibitions: a short length of elevated railway with a series of rounded inclines, so that the car gains enough momentum descending the first steep incline to asone or more smaller inclines till it gradually and more slowly works its way to the original level at the far end of the course. Thence it returns in the same way. Sometimes these switchbacks are made circular, called "Russian Mountains. tains." They were introduced into Paris as a popular amusement about 1815.
The latest forms of this kind of amusethe "toboggan," the "steeple-chase" and ment in the United States are known as "loop-the-loop." of Winchester from 852 to 862. He was