Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Gil, I could well be wrong, but my recollection is that some of the very earliest locomotives did have governors, but very soon it became apparent that with grades and curves and varying loads, governors were found to be impractical and actual impediments to the realities of steam locomotive operations.

On another note, it seems member Jasper correctly identified the original source of the term "Highball", as one of the earliest forms of semaphore signals used on some of the early eastern railroads was a fairly large ball that was hoisted up and down a pole by a halyard to signify train orders to the engineer of an oncoming train. Lowball for stopping at the station for orders, Midball for proceed slow with caution, and Highball for clear track ahead, proceed at speed. Likely there were other intermediate positions that had special meanings as well.

How that translates into the classical cocktail, I'll leave to your own imagination.   ;c)