on the rails

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.

Anagrams

• hortensial, lionhearts