What is a pufferbilly?

Question

What is a pufferbilly?

Answer 1

i have no idea

Answer 2

a steam engine

Answer 3

It's the genetic opposite of a bufferpilly. Everybody knows this!

Answer 4

Hoghead is right, it's a 19th century slang term for a steam locomotive, usually a yard engine. Imagine how a goat likes to butt things with its head, this is like what a yard engine does pushing cars around. Goat = billy goat; steam engines puff along, so you get 'puffer billy'.

Answer 5

redneck pot smoker.

Answer 6

I have no idea what a pufferbilly is but a pufferbelly is a fish.

Hope this helps.

Answer 7

Isn't that a small unit mounted on rail wheels which is hand operated in a pump-like action? It's therefore self propelled down the tracks (I think)

Answer 8

Just type pufferbilly into your search line or address line and hit search or go.

Answer 9

Nope.

It's very simple.  "Puffer Billy" refers to a small steam engine.  It is a slang term applied to the old time steam engines, usually, "old time" meaning the last quarter of the 19th century.  At the end of steam, the behemoths that plied the rails of that period were anything but "Puffer Billy's".

It is also applicable to small yard service steam engines, but more often than not these were called "goats", a term still used today.

Good question as well.

Addendum:  Logicalgal is logical, but is this instance, in error.  That which this answerer refers to is a "hand car".  But "small" is on the right track .  Well done !