I have noticed the Brits (mostly) tend to name their locomotives, either real, model or freelance model. Is there any rhyme or reason to this? or rules (e.g. boy vs. girl loco?). Just wonderin'   

 

-Brian

Brian,

 

If you look at early American locomotives, most of them were named.  I think that early locomotives bore the name of the driver.  As more locomotives and engineers were aquired, that feature was gradually dropped. 

 

Unlike ships, it seems the locomotives are not necessarily considered feminine.

 

I name my engines and cars based on people and things that are important to me.  Therefore, I have a locomotive named the MB Supermodel, Jerome, and Lucia.  Only the MB Supermodel has a label, the others are just nicknames. 

 

I find that giving the locomotives names is all part of the fun!

 

Mark

I think they were often named after places of interest on the line or noteworthy people or RR officials.

I name mine after the women in my life: Susan (Wife - Bachmann Shay), Paige (daughter - Accucraft Shay), and Little B (daughter's knickname - Regner Vincent).

 

The Great Western Railway celebrated Castles, Kings, Halls, Manors and Stars, as well as the odd furry item like the unique pacific 'Great Bear'.

 

The LNER commemorated derby winners, african antelopes, former parts of the empire or famous people  - 'Dominion of Canada' and 'Dwight D Eisenhower', birds of prey and the odd duck 'Mallard' as well as 'Kingfisher', but never 'Turkey' or 'Pigeon', as well as a whole scad of other things.  The LMS had patriots, duchesses, cities, heroes and warriors and many other names.

 

In these days of diesel and electric traction most locomotives are named, too.

 

I like the idea - it personalises the loco and honours the person or organisation it is named after. 

 

As for naming models. well, the habit of naming things dies hard here.  Our many thousands of tiny model steam locos all tend to be named, in both the real world as well as the model world.  The practice of naming a loco has nothing to do with sexism though.  The names 'Bertie' or 'Mildred' are not there to imply either masculinity or lack of it.  A friend of mine has just wo locos on his line - a Welsh-type very short line.  One is called 'Owain 'Bach' [Welsh for little or small Owen], and the other 'Owain Fawr' - Big Owen.  Named after him and his dad. 

 

I have two tiny 32mm gauge battery dismals of the open type.  One is called 'Cwprinol' and the other is called 'Sadolyn'.  When asked what the names mean, I say that the first is Welsh for the imaginary season between spring and summer, and the the other a similarly imaginary season between fall and winter.  Most English speakers over here would see ttrough the ruse pretty quickly after giving therm a moment's thought.

 

tac

Oh,  I forgot one. 

 

When a 3 year old visitor was here last year, I ran a LGB 2017D for him.  That's the green  "Americanized" LGB 0-4-0 tender locomotive, with a diamond stack and red cowcatcher, right?  The visitor named him Percy.  I need to get a very useful blue engine soon, I think.

 

Isn't it interesting that names of dogs were not chosen for names of locomotives?  There's no Rex's, Cocoas, Fidos, Fifi's, Champ, Lucky, etc..  I guess dog's get a bad rap for generally running only as fast as necessary,  but they are reliable and loyal, aren't they?  I did name my Bachmann 4-4-0 after my dog.  So far, "Estelle" has lived up to her namesake.  Runs only as fast as necessary to get the job done, but does it with grace!!

 

Mark

Naming of Diesels is still carried on today.

 

CSX Dash 9 # 602 is know as the "Spirit of Maryland" 

 

CSX AC44W # 1  Spirit of West Virginia

 

Scott

Richard,

 

As long as it is not the hair of the dog that bit me, I'm not worried about splitting them!!

 

So, Fido was used as a name of a locomotive.  Excellent! I stand corrected!

 

Mark

The traveling public, especially children, always love knowing a locos name.

 

On my Heritage Railway we have one 4-6-0 loco (7827 Lydham Manor) with tender that always carried this name given to it when built at Swindon in 1950 (BR days). Another ex BR loco 75014 gained the name Braveheart when running in Scotland before our line purchased it.

 

However our other locos 2-8-0T and 2-6-2T were never named by the erstwhile Great Western Railway.  We have named them Hercules, Goliath and Warrior.   Our diesels are  Ajax, Titan and Trojan.  This is to the delight of our passengers but frowned upon by purists.  Purists make noises but don't pay the bills. 

 

 

 

Yes, those are names of Passenger trains..the entire train, not the locomotive itself..

(I know you knew that..im just clarifying!)

 

many many passenger trains had names..and still do to today.

I think most of Amtrak's trains still carry historic names..here in NY we have Amtraks "Lake Shore Limited" and "Maple Leaf"

still running..which are names that date back to New York Central train names..although the Amtrak versions are but a shadow

of their namesakes..

 

all kinds of famous passenger train names:

 

20th Century Limited

Broadway Limited

Phoebe Snow

Empire Builder

City of New Orleans (memorialized in song by Arlo Guthrie)

about 50 more "City of ....." trains!

all the Zephyrs..

 

etc etc..we could name hundreds of them! " align="absmiddle" border="0" />

 

Most american locomotives carried names until about the 1890-1900 timeframe, when the practice started to disappear..

I know the LV gave up all the names in 1905 when they did a system-wide renumbering and reclassification of all locomotives..

every locomotive name disappeared at that time.

the individual names just got too unwieldy especially as railroads started getting really large..

 

 

Scot