why did railroads give locomotives names?
dh28473why did railroads give locomotives names?
Because they wanted to.
To pay honor to some person, place or anything that the owners felt like paying honor to.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
dh28473 why did railroads give locomotives names?
Gets tiring saying "hey, you!" all the time.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Rock Island 4376 was named "P. H. Kuyper" because if Pete Kuyper had not started what today is Pella Corp. (windows), the branch line that was being rebuilt at the time would not even be there. I found out that if you write a letter to the railroad president, make the suggestion and tell them why, they actually read their mail and will call you and tell you they accept your suggestion. Alas, the railroad no longer runs to Pella (you can buy the depot from Walthers) and 4376 became Grand Trunk 5858.
Ken Vandevoort
If you're talking about names like Stourbridge Lion and Jupiter, as found on 19th century steam locomotives, the traditon carried over from sailing ships. Owners needed some way keep track of which engine was which. Eventually they figured out numbers made record keeping a lot easier.
However, you may be referring to names for wheel arrangements, like Consolidation and Pacific. That's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish. This thought prompted me to pull out my copy of A History of the American Locomotive, It's Development: 1830 - 1880, by John H. White.
In the earliest days from 1830-1842, the most popular engine type in the US had four pilot wheels and two drive wheels, and someone named Walter Lucas suggested this be called the "Jervis type", after John Jervis, who designed the first example.
I think as soon as mutiple wheel arrangements were being built, it became clear they needed names, since noone wants to waste time referring to "an engine with four pilot wheels and two drive wheels." Mr White notes that some railroaders referred to this as a "Six-Wheel engine", the problem there being a Six-Wheel engine could also have six drive wheels and no pilot wheels, so Jervis was better.
The Whyte Classification system we all know and love (which would identify the the two engines above as a 4-2-0 and an 0-6-0) wasn't developed until 1900, by Frederic Whyte of the NYC. It quickly became the industry standard, but old habits die hard, so new wheel arrangements continued to be named until the end of steam.
As far as applying names of places and people to specific engines, it's interesting that with some exceptions that pretty much died out in the U.S. by c.1900, while it lasted well into the diesel era in Britain.
Fairbanks Morse did apply names to two specific models: "Train Master" (H24-66) and "Speed Merchant" (P12-42).
Are we talking about giving hte whole class a name (Train Master) - or individual locomotives (I call this SD40-2 'Bob')?
On the NH, their mainline electric classes all had nicknames:
EP-1 “Pony” - Due to the addition of pony trucks to improve tracking.
EP-2 “Tiger” - First loco to get the ‘catwhisker’ stripe paint scheme.
EP-3 “Flatbottom” - The carbody had a long flat bottom.
EP-4 “Streamliner” - First streamlined electrics on the NH.
EP-5 “Jet” - The cooling fans sounded not unlike a 707 taking off.
EF-1 “Jeep” - Probably named after the strong but ugly Popeye character.
EF-2 “Cadillac” - They rode very smooth due to their nose hung traction motors vs. the bouncier quill drive on other NH electrics.
EF-3 “Warbaby” - Arrived during WWII.
EF-4 “Virginians” - Came from the VGN.
EMD units without isolated cabs are often called "Thundercabs" by crews, as opposed to the "WhisperCab" brand name for the isolated cab.
Older GE's are "Rattlecabs", for reasons obvious to anyone who rides in them.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.