Railroads were, and continue to be, in competition with each other for passengers and freight. Retailers today entice customers with a well-presented shop front or with an easy to use website. Before the turn of the 19th century, locomotives were part of the 'shop front'. They were highly visible (and audible) advertisements for your business. Subsequently, the railroads took pride in their locomotives making sure they were kept clean and shiny. Naming locomotives was a way of adding personality and a story to your business. Accordingly, names often involved some form of superlative image of elegance, strength or speed.
As railroad empires grew in size, the practice of naming locomotives became increasingly difficult. Administration could become confusing if a name was reused. Perhaps grand names were open to the possibility of ridicule if they didn't live up to their name. For example, if a passenger locomotive named Cannonball came in late or a freight locomotive named Goliath failed to make it up the grade the irony would not be lost on the public at large. Eventually, naming locomotives was dropped in favour of simple numbers, along with their colourful victorian era liveries, which were exchanges for the all too familiar black.
I have six locomotives, and while from what I can see naming locomotives seemed to have fallen out of favour by 1895, I like the story it tells and the personality it brings to the railroad. So I continue the practice, arguing that the Thoroughfare Gap Railroad is small enough for naming locomotives to continue to be practical.
All the locomotive names on my railroad were once used by the Central Pacific Railroad, and are taken from a copy of their 1968 locomotive roster, which I've included below. (Full resolution can be found at the CPRR Museum website here. You can see that towards the end of the roster they started to run out of inspiration for new names and began using slight variations of the same name!
I decided to pick names from this list to try and keep a degree of authenticity in naming conventions for that period. Ultimately, I picked names that appealed to me, but there was some personality involved in the choices.
- Jupiter - This was an actual Central Pacific engine (as seen as promontory), so she keeps her name.
- Firefly - I just like this name. It didn't sound too grand and didn't want too many locomotives with names from mythology.
- Leviathan - While in reality, the reak Leviathan locomotive was a sister of Jupiter, I chose this name because the image of strength it carries and bestowed it on my ten-wheeler which is at home at the head of passengers or heavy freights.
- Mountaineer - I love the mountains and mountain railroading. My railroad edges around steep cliffs and ravines to create a sense of drama. A mountaineer is nimble and surefooted, characteristics of my fast large drivered 4-4-0.
- Griffin - The powerful and ancient mythical creature that rises from the ashes. What could be more appropriate for a locomotive kitbashed from a number 'dead' locomotives?
The only locomotive not named is, of course, 119. I have not been able to determine if at any point the Union Pacific named its locomotives. But certainly, by 1869 they were using numbers. As my model represents 119 as we think she looked, I've simply retained her number.
Have you named the locomotives on your railroad (officially or unofficially) or can you recall seeing or riding any named trains like the 20th Century Limited (USA) or the Night Limited (NZ)? Please feel free to share in the comments below.
