Prompted by material in several recent RailUKForums threads: a thing which can contribute to the appeal of our hobby, is the sometimes delightfully bizarre railway-undertaking names an element in what Bryan Morgan calls the crazy poetry of it. Names of railway outfits can sometimes be wonderfully weird and enticing (or sonorous / evocative) mostly from the largely private-enterprise past, rather than bureaucratic / Admass modern times; though the present day can come up with the odd splendid one. Somewhat in the spirit of the ongoing Most evocative station names thread: a few favourite colourful railway names of mine from various parts of the broadly English-speaking world, set out below.
The one which first inspired this thread, is mentioned in the End of steam thread: the originally preserved, turned serious Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railway in Illinois, USA.
Another from the US: the attempted but ultimately abortive 3ft gauge preservation project on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, after the closure of most of the Oahu Railway of that gauge at the end of 1947 a name which deserved better fortune than came its way: the Hibiscus & Heliconia Short Line Railroad.
In the British Isles: the Bideford, Westward Ho ! & Appledore Railway (per Morgan, surely the only railway ever to have an ! in its name); the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Light Railway; the Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway; and the monorail Listowel & Ballybunnion (this last name sounding more comical in its English form, than per its Irish-language original, meaning the town or place of the Bunnion family). Also in Ireland, the Dundalk, Newry & Greenore listing (like the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch) the names of the places served, in the wrong geographical order, presumably for the sake of sounding better.
In pre-independence India: the Madras & Southern Mahratta, and Oudh & Rohilkund, Railways.
And once more in the USA: the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes; Narragansett Pier; and Tonopah & Goldfield, Railroads.
Others favourites on this scene, are invited.
The one which first inspired this thread, is mentioned in the End of steam thread: the originally preserved, turned serious Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railway in Illinois, USA.
Another from the US: the attempted but ultimately abortive 3ft gauge preservation project on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, after the closure of most of the Oahu Railway of that gauge at the end of 1947 a name which deserved better fortune than came its way: the Hibiscus & Heliconia Short Line Railroad.
In the British Isles: the Bideford, Westward Ho ! & Appledore Railway (per Morgan, surely the only railway ever to have an ! in its name); the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Light Railway; the Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway; and the monorail Listowel & Ballybunnion (this last name sounding more comical in its English form, than per its Irish-language original, meaning the town or place of the Bunnion family). Also in Ireland, the Dundalk, Newry & Greenore listing (like the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch) the names of the places served, in the wrong geographical order, presumably for the sake of sounding better.
In pre-independence India: the Madras & Southern Mahratta, and Oudh & Rohilkund, Railways.
And once more in the USA: the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes; Narragansett Pier; and Tonopah & Goldfield, Railroads.
Others favourites on this scene, are invited.