My wife asked me something last night that I didn't have a good answer for. She wanted to know where the term "wrong side of the tracks" came from. I said I suspected that it came from the fact that the depot in a town was usually on only one side of the tracks, so the town developed more on that side of the railroad than on the other. The opposite side of the tracks from the depot would be less convenient to transportation, so the land would be less valuable over there, hence that's where the "po' folks" settled. That was the only explanation I could come up with. Anybody else have a more definitive answer?

I always thought that this term came from steam locomotives and where the prevailing winds blew their smoke. From what I have read it was almost impossible to hang your laundry any where near where steam locomotives ran and that windows and houses would often get a lot of soot on them. Thus the land near the railroad tracks would often have a lower value to it and be in general a bit dirtier.

I could be wrong but that was what has been explained to me.

Adam

Adam,

You are entirely correct! Historically speaking, that is the meaning. It later took on the meaning of being from a bad part of town.

Adam - As an example. When I was about in 2nd grade or so, my folks went out to look in a place called Dolton, Illinois at some new homes. My mother says that they never saw a train on the tracks that ran just behind the houses that were being built, although they made a number of trips to look the places over. Eventually they purchased a nice little Cape Cod and on the first Monday after they moved in, my Mom hung the laundry out back. Well, you guessed it; an Indiana Harbor Belt steamer came along and got black soot all over her newly washed clothes! She was more than a bit upset!

Fortunately, the IHB dieselized not to long after we moved in, and the problem was solved.

Les

Les,

I have similar recollections. We lived in Villa Park (twenty miles west of Chicago). My mom would hang out the laundry, and if the wind was right and a CGW freight came through half a block away, she would exclaim, "Oh darn" (her strongest words), and take it all back down to the basement for a redo.

If the location of the depot is what counted, we were on the wrong side of the CGW, but on the right side of the C&NW. The C&NW seemed to go out of the way to put their station on the town side which meant the south side of a three track main running on the left. The arrangement was awkward. You bought your ticket, and hoped you could cross the tracks before the train came.

I have often heard the term, "the wrong side of the tracks", but I really never associated it with the non depot side of town.

In August 1989, Wayne Laepple (a member of this board) and I went up to Temple Station for Blue Mountain & Reading's Railfan Weekend II. We boarded a train with Reading 2102 on the point, and pretty soon the hogger had the train up to speed. As we passed through the suburbia of Leesport, PA on this beautiful sunny day, we noted that the T-1 decided to spew a load of soot on clotheslines full of laundry. Needless to say, the train didn't hang around for the reactions from irate housewives.

Sloan

Then there's the old comedy line about "the town I came from was so bad----BOTH sides of the tracks were the wrong side!"