Wort des Tages
21 March 2026
gadgetbahn
A public transportation scheme based on modern technology which seems to be infeasible or unnecessary.
Warum dieses Wort
The mock German construction (gadget plus bahn, railway) is the joke: it dresses a novelty up in the vocabulary of serious rail. The complaint is rarely about the technology itself but about proven track and buses being passed over for it.
In use
Council wants pods on a guideway down the high street; it's gadgetbahn, and a bus lane would move more people by Christmas.
Written by our editors to show how the term is used, not a recorded quotation.