contact shoe

English

A third rail contact shoe

Noun

contact shoe (plural contact shoes)

1. (rail transport) A current collector on an electric train which is in contact with the live rail.
2. A part of a pantograph on a train or tram which, when raised, maintains contact with an overhead electric wire.
   • 1963 January, “Motive power miscellany”, in Modern Railways, page 64:

     The leading locomotive of the double-headed 3.5 p.m. Manchester Piccadilly-Plymouth shed the contact shoe of its pantograph, which bounced back along the roof and hit the pantograph of the second locomotive, which thereupon lost its contact shoe also.

Synonyms

• collector shoe