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To be run out of town on a rail was to literally take a 4x4 fence post, make the person straddle it (by literally thrusting him onto it), boost it up about five feet into the air (usually on the shoulders of a group of men) and march (jostled and bumped as much as possible) to the edge of town and dump him with dire warnings not to return.
After that kind of "man handling" you weren't in a hurry to retaliate and if you could you limped away, assuming tarring and feathering wasn't involved."
What does run out of town on a rail mean