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Trivia: Named locomotives that can't visit the city they are named after

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fgwrich

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In the case of Class 66s;

66501 Japan 2001 - Needs a ship to get there
66594 NYK Spirit of Kyoto - See above
66714 Cromer Lifeboat - Can't actually get to the RNLI station
66752 The Hoosier State - See the Japan ones but for Illinois
and all those named after football clubs, since they can't actually get into the grounds.

Likewise for the 57/6 fleet of both GWR and West Coast, though 605 Totnes Castle probably comes closest. 603 might have more of a problem crossing the bridge to Tintagel though!

57313 will have more than a few issues attempting to visit Tracy Island
I like that one :lol:
 

Taunton

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A good number named after cities were unveiled there by local dignitaries, even if it was their only visit. Electric locos would be dragged to and fro, while large locos visiting small places would have various special arrangements, even if it meant dismantling extremeties or dragging steam locos with the boiler empty.
 

zwk500

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West Countrys ‘Wadebridge’, ‘Sidmouth’, ‘Boscastle’ and ‘Braunton’, and Battle of Britains ‘Tangmere’ and ‘Manston’ would have difficulty reaching ‘their’ towns nowadays. ‘Boscastle’ and the two BoBs never could have under their own steam.
Although neither of the Battle of Britain's could visit their namesake Airfields directly, both have run on lines that pass within a mile of the perimeter fence (West Coastway to Chichester and the Ramsgate-Dover line)
Most GWR named locos would probably struggle to get to the various buildings they were named after, and as for Lode Star…
If we've got this far from the Original Topic, then presumably both the 9F and 66 incarnations of 'Evening Star' qualify?
 

Grecian 1998

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It's scrapped now but Lyme Regis would never have been able to visit the town due to not being one of the limited class of tank engines permitted on the branch.

Watersmeet would have struggled to get anywhere nearby unless things went badly wrong. Shaftesbury might have found the lack of rails and the hill tricky. Westward Ho! Clovelly, Lynton and Combe Martin would also have found the going tricky.
 

D6975

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DRS have a host of locos that are extremely unlikely to ever visit the gas giants and their moons.
 

zwk500

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Were all the Southern Railway Schools class locomotives named after schools on the Southern?
Ironically, the 3 preserved Locos are all named outside the region! Stowe is with the Bluebell, Repton is with the NYMR and Cheltenham is part of the National Collection.
I would imagine most Locos could get to a station sharing a name with the school but the school itself would be distant from the railway.
 

Cowley

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At least one was briefly named Uppingham after the school in Rutland, although the name was changed after the school

30932 ‘Blundells’ was firmly in GWR territory (Tiverton).
 

xotGD

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50046 Ajax never attended a football match in Amsterdam.
 

Energy

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87032 "Kenilworth"
Not only has the line never been electrified but the (now re-opened) station was closed in 1965, they started building the 87s in 1973.

BR must have been pretty desperate for names.
 

AlexNL

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In Germany, an ICE 3 electric multiple unit was named after the town of Goslar in Lower Saxony. The train was baptised in the station. However, the railway there isn't electrified so the EMU had to be brought there by a diesel locomotive.

A German television programme, Realer Irrsinn ("real madness"), made an item about this:
 

Millisle

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Not only has the line never been electrified but the (now re-opened) station was closed in 1965, they started building the 87s in 1973.

BR must have been pretty desperate for names.
I suspect the idea in mind was the novel Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott for the Cl 87 Anglo-Scottish connexion.
 

Energy

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I suspect the idea in mind was the novel Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott for the Cl 87 Anglo-Scottish connexion.
Probably, the book is still named after the place it at least its castle though.

The class 87 naming still seems a bit mad, William Shakespeare seems an odd choice in name.
 

apinnard

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Whilst not a locomotive, therefore slightly out of sync with the thread title; there was a class 321 (334 I believe) that was named “Amsterdam” in the 90’s. Saw it many times at my local station.
 

Ayman Ilham

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47793 was for a while named Saint David - the city of that name has never had a railway station.

Not a city, but 37403 is named Isle of Mull. Even more extreme, a number of the 37s adapted for Night Star duties were named after constellations - Cassiopeia, Andromeda etc!
FUN FACT (sorry if I'm going off on a tangent) St Davids is the only city in Britain that was never served by trains (the other cities that don't have railway stations; Ripon, Wells and St Asaph; previously did before Beeching Axe came in) - back to the topic, it's possible 47793 was named after the saint himself rather than the city
 
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