Campaign for imaginative names

[Oswyntail]

I see from another thread that Class 68 are to be graced with the tired old string of ship names. Couldn't anyone think of anything better? The railways are not part of the armed forces, yet there is this tradition of naming these poor locomotives after obscure regiments or ships. There have been some bright spots - the original Class 60 names were magnificent, as were the mixture of names applied to Class 47. I can understand naming locomotives after commercial customers, and almost forgive that. But, if you are going to name a class en bloc, then give them interesting names, that will send people scuttling off to the library to find the background.
And while I am at it, please stop this stupid practice of renaming things on a whim. Once an engine is named, that should be it!

 

[87019Chris]

I think Trains should be named after places or landmarks that they can be found running near I know this could be harder to do with freight trains, and I wouldn't say the 68's names are bad, at least they have names and I believe that they will be cast iron name plates not just vinyl stickers. Even local famous people and People who help out in local communities who would deserve a special naming. For example naming a northern Cl.333 after Salts mill or after one of the Bronte sisters?

 

[Smudger105e]

I quite liked the idea of a theme as used by BR, for example the Westerns...

 

[sprinterguy]

I think Trains should be named after places or landmarks that they can be found running near I know this could be harder to do with freight trains, and I wouldn't say the 68's names are bad, at least they have names and I believe that they will be cast iron name plates not just vinyl stickers. Even local famous people and People who help out in local communities who would deserve a special naming. For example naming a northern Cl.333 after Salts mill or after one of the Bronte sisters?

I support this view: Express passenger locos (and, I suppose, units in this day and age) in particular should, in my view, be named after notable features and locations associated with or in the vicinity of the routes that they serve. With this in mind I was particularly fond of the series of names that once adorned the sides of GNERs’ class 91s and HST power cars. Famous local personalities from the locality are also a good choice. I note that Northern have also undertaken this in a limited way in recent times.

With freight locos, it makes sense to name them after customers and terminals that they serve, “themed” to match the type of traffic that the locos are allocated to: For instance, collieries (Not that there’s many of those these days) and power stations for locos employed on coal flows. I also agree that the range of “mountain” (for aggregate flows) names, engineers and scientists that were carried by the class 60s were inspired.

I also quite like the homogenous groups of themed names that have been applied to particular classes, such as the “Western…” names carried by the Westerns, “Virgin…” names carried by Pendolinos and the explorer names that were formerly carried by the entire 221 fleet.

 

[TheEdge]

The GWR nailed this one many years ago...

King X
X Castle
County of X
X Grange
X Manor
X Hall
City of X
And so on

Worked for them!

*Pedant note* Yes, I know there were some oddities like Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, Blenheim and so on.

 

[asylumxl]

The Class 68s have already been named. They're all called "Ugly".

This may lead to confusion, as the 70s are known as "Fugly"

 

[cjmillsnun]

I quite liked the names the 442s had when NSE and SWT.

 

[IanXC]

*Pedant note* Yes, I know there were some oddities like Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, Blenheim and so on.

Interestingly these were cases of renamed Castles. There was a much earlier class of "Earl of X", when this class began to be withdrawn the noblemen who held the titles were rather unhappy with the GWR, resulting in a some Castles being renamed. Earl of Mount Edgecumbe started out as Barbury Castle for instance. Another batch were renamed during World War 2, after types of RAF aircraft, such as Blenheim which was Cranbrook Castle. Other than other one off renamings, the Castles named for Abbeys retained their previous names when they were rebuilt from Stars.

 

[Strathclyder]

I think Trains should be named after places or landmarks that they can be found running near I know this could be harder to do with freight trains, and I wouldn't say the 68's names are bad, at least they have names and I believe that they will be cast iron name plates not just vinyl stickers. Even local famous people and People who help out in local communities who would deserve a special naming. For example naming a northern Cl.333 after Salts mill or after one of the Bronte sisters?

That's exactly what I was thinking. For example, a 334 could be named Dumbarton Castle or something.

 

[SansPareil]

I liked the names that Anglia gave to it's class 150's and 153's all named after local heroes of East Anglia, Hereward the Wake, Delia Smith, Boudicca, Henry Blogg, Michael Palin etc.

 

[Helvellyn]

The GWR nailed this one many years ago...

King X
X Castle
County of X
X Grange
X Manor
X Hall
City of X

I find something pleasing about themes like this. British Airways used to do this: -

• Counties (BAC One-Eleven)
• Glens (HS 748)
• prefix Strath- (BAe ATP)
• off shore islands of the British isles (original Airbus A320 fleet)
• Rivers (Boeing 737)
• Cities (Boeing 747)
• English Lakes/Waters (Boeing 747-100 when City names reused on 747-400 fleet)
• Castles (Boeing 757)
• European cities (Boeing 767)
• Forests (McDonnell Douglas DC-10)
• Bays (Lockheed TriStar, but fleet were originally named after varities of Rose)

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I rather liked GBRf's 're-use' of names for a few of it's 66s formerly carried by LNER B17s... Though I'm rather pleased my own namesake hasn't been re-used, as I'm sure it would be something of a jinx at the moment! :roll:

 

[59CosG95]

My favourite names were those on Virgin's 57/3s-Scott Tracy, Jeff Tracy etc.

 

[BestWestern]

My personal favourite is to use simply powerful descriptive single words. The best examples of this were the RES (postal) Class 47 fleet with the 'R' themed names such as Repulse, Resurgent, Resplendant etc. The 50s also had some superb names, which although they were of course taken from the Royal Navy, worked superbly in their own right; Fearless and so on are fantastic names.

 

[Photohunter71]

I don't mind the class 68 names at all. To be honest,I'd thought that being a Cumbrian based company,the fleet would be named after places and lakes of the Lake district. I think giving loco's names after regiments/RN warships/Grand national winners/ Place names and Mountains etc etc are a good thing,and unlike EWS who ripped the 60's names off etc etc and hardly named a 66. Good for DRS,I think it's very welcome.

 

[sprinterguy]

My personal favourite is to use simply powerful descriptive single words. The best examples of this were the RES (postal) Class 47 fleet with the 'R' themed names such as Repulse, Resurgent, Resplendant etc.

"Repulse" wasn't one of them. They were "RES" themed names (For Rail Express Systems, naturally), rather than just "R" themed names: "Resurgent", "Resplendant", "Resonant", etc. I agree that they were a very, very good range. "Irresistible" (47778) was always an interesting little anomaly!

 

[TheEdge]

Named after peaks of the Lake District,

Scafell Pike, Scafell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, that sort of thing.

 

[Welshman]

Named after peaks of the Lake District,

Scafell Pike, Scafell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, that sort of thing.

Good idea!

It seemed to work for the Cl.44 "Peaks" of yesteryear.

 

[sprinterguy]

Named after peaks of the Lake District,

Scafell Pike, Scafell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, that sort of thing.

Indeed, that would have been a very good idea for the 68s in my opinion. The class is sufficiently small that you could stick to the well-known Lake District peaks too, without having to delve into some of the more obscure ones.