puffing Billy

English

Noun

puffing Billy

1. (slang, obsolete) A steam locomotive engine.
   • 1969, Allen V. Ross, Vice in Bombay, London: Tallis Press, page 148:

     The temple, halfway up the Matheran hills, was approached by a 'puffing billy' train on a zigzag railway from Neral, two miles from Bombay.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary