on the rails

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English

Prepositional phrase

on the rails

  1. (idiomatic) In working order, functioning properly.
    • 2000, Paul Clarke, Learning Schools, Learning Systems, →ISBN, page vii:
      To The wineplace.com and Chris, Marshy and Chris for keeping me on the rails.
    • 2001, Frederick Ferre, Living and Value: Toward a Constructive Postmodern Ethics, →ISBN, page 4:
      Logic is nothing other than methods we have learned that keep thinking on the rails.
    • 2012, Peter Pedersen, ANZACS on the Western Front, →ISBN:
      Menin Road got the offensive back on the rails but conditions, which had been deplorable before, favoured the outcome.
  2. In a train or on trains.
    • 2005, Dan Gerber, A Voice from the River: A Novel, →ISBN, page 14:
      For several Saturdays after he'd seen a film about men who lived on the rails, he left home with a Spam sandwich in a paper bag, a compass and a ball of twine (though he wasn't sure why he included the twine).
    • 2012, Meynardie Blanchard, Rails Trails and Other Tales, →ISBN, page 31:
      And then over two months of hitch-hiking' and trekking in Banff and Jasper National Parks, and a few hundred miles on the rails.
    • 2014, Jeri Quinzio, Food on the Rails: The Golden Era of Railroad Dining, →ISBN, page 12:
      Nevertheless, he loved traveling on the rails and became a lifelong railroad buff.
  3. (horse racing) Racing toward the inside, near the fence that bounds the track.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on,‎ rail.
    • 1830, Thomas Earle, A Treatise on Railroads and Internal Communications, etc, page 54:
      The larger the wheels, the less will any dust, twigs, or inequalities on the rails affect them.
    • 2013, Reg Twigg, Survivor on the River Kwai, →ISBN:
      Now we lounged on the decks all the time, feet up on the rails while a string band played for us.

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