Amtrak

Question

Have you seen "amtrak" mean "amphibious vehicle" under military context?
illustrative sentence:
That's BMPs - maybe BMDs. It's an infant vehicle, like an amtrak. (T.Clancy)
context: The speaker is observing from away with glasses to see the enemey's movement.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Have you seen "amtrak" mean "amphibious vehicle" under military context? illustrative sentence: That's BMPs - maybe BMDs. It's an infant vehicle, like an amtrak. (T.Clancy) context: The speaker is observing from away with glasses to see the enemey's movement.[/nq]
Google for amtrack (with a "c") amphibious for the skinny on this.

Gary

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you seen "amtrak" mean "amphibious vehicle" under military context?[/nq]
It could certainly mean amphibious. To my mind, the "trak" part refers to its having at least 2 wheels on each side linked by something resembling a tank's tracks.
Do you know what a snowmobile's tracks look like? A "lugged", or cleated belt goes around the rear wheels, providing more traction than just the wheels would provide.
The same is true of the tank's tracks. "Amtrak" isn't a military vehicle that I am familiar with, but a "halftrack" was a multi-terrain vehicle, that had front wheels as in a normal "jeep", but 2 back wheels on each side connected by such tank "tractor" belts.
On my printer, the power goes to rollers that fit inside rubber "tractor" belts, which have rubber studs that fit into the perforated holes on the margins of the paper, so as to pull the paper through the machine.

Amtrak

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