footplatenoun

• 1

  rail-transportrailwaystransportThe metal plate which forms the base platform of a steam locomotive and supports the boiler and the driver's cab, particularly in the United Kingdom.

  • Unlike the earlier standard designs, in which the whole of the footplate was on the engine, fall plates are re-introduced and these are hinged from the front of the tender to rest on the rearward extension of the cab floor.
  • All the same, nearly eight hours on the footplate covering a distance of 320 miles, with an ambient temperature of up to 103° for much of the time, proved an ordeal which I would not lightly undertake again.
• 2

  The engineer's cab in any kind of train.

  • Kit had fallen into conversation with a footplate man who was deadheading back out to Samarkand, where he lived with his wife and children.
• 3

  anatomymedicinesciencesThe flat portion at the base of the stapes; pedicel.

  • The footplate of the stapes develops and ossifies in conjunction with the otic capsule and thus takes its origin from the otic placode in the embryo.
• 4

  The part of a roller skate that attaches to the boot.

• 5

  businessconstructionmanufacturingA timber in a wood frame that distributes a concentrated load.

• 6

  automotivetransportvehiclesA platform on which the driver's foot rests but which, unlike a pedal, has no effect.

footplateverb

• 1

  rail-transportrailwaystransportTo travel (or work) on the footplate of a locomotive.

  • Hard work is required from men and machines as I was to experience later when footplating Lambton No 5 on five bogies battling its way up Newtondale.