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Bridgerton and the Duke...


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News out today that the leading man in this popular Netflix series will not be returning for the next series of Bridgerton, and SWMBOs up and down the land are left feeling distraught...

 

Perhaps Hornby could leap to their aid, and bring out 71001 “Duke of Hastings” to lessen their pain?

 

Actually, this news did make me think to myself - supposing 71000 Duke of Gloucester had been a success, and more of the class were constructed (I did read somewhere on RMWeb that an old magazine article had said there were 50 proposed to be built?), what would their names have been?

 

Dukes that spring to (my) mind are:

Duke of Lancaster (HRH The Queen!)

Duke of York (HRH Prince Andrew)

Duke of Cornwall (HRH Prince Charles)

Duke of Cambridge (HRH Prince William)

Duke of Westminster

Duke of Essex

Duke of Hastings (Bridgerton!!)

 

I think Duke of Hazzard would be a bit silly!

 

Does anybody know what those names might have been? (I’m becoming more and more attracted to the “imaginary” side of modelling!!)

 

Steve S
 

Edited by SteveyDee68
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Andrew and William were not born when your proposed Duke class would have been built, though of course that doesn’t prevent York or Cambridge being used as names. 
 

I have never heard of any proposal to build 50 of these, but it’s a fine imaginary possibility.  There was no work for more 8P locos at the time; one might argue that a development of 71000 into a mechanical stoker 4-8-4 capable of going up Shap and Beattock at line speed with trains that could exploit the full length of platforms at Euston and Glasgow Central like an 87 would have been a good idea, but nobody would have listened to it after the 1955 Modernisation Plan

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A hasty instruction from the Super to get the paintbrush out after a member of the Board got a call from the Palace regarding 71010.

 

71010.jpg

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71000 was going to be Prince Charles.

 

They stopped the idea as it was thought bad luck after 46202 Princess Anne was involved in the Harrow crash.

 

The names would have been ones at the time. So you are looking at Royal titles from the 1950s.

 

I seem to recall it had Prince Of Kent and Duke Of Kent as they were different people. A clue would be the Duchesses and Princesses as they were named after their wives (or with it being a few years after, their mothers)

 

Duke Of Sutherland

Duke Of Atholl

Duke Of Buccleuth

Duke Of Montrose

Duke Of Abercorn

 

Plenty to play around with here.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dukedoms_in_the_peerages_of_Britain_and_Ireland#Dukedoms_in_the_Peerage_of_the_United_Kingdom,_1801–present

 

I somehow don't think the Duke Of Windsor would be getting the honour. :prankster:

 

 

Jason

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On 07/04/2021 at 12:18, Steamport Southport said:

Plenty to play around with here.

 

I did have a look on there after posting here - and discovered that The Duke of Hastings is as fictional as Bridgerton itself!

 

On 07/04/2021 at 11:46, The Johnster said:

I have never heard of any proposal to build 50 of these,

 

I'm not sure if the original poster referencing the old magazine article said that it was a speculative article in the first place - I think the post was buried in amongst the many pages discussing Hornby's model of The Duke, the shortcomings, differences between the Railroad and "detailed" versions (I think the concensus was that 'design clever' resulted in low-fat and semi-skinned models, and not a full-fat model comparable with eg the Britannias).

 

For Broadchurch, I plan on having a 'Golden Arrow' style boat train but with a different (imaginary) title, so a successful* 'Duke' to pull it as a further (imaginary) member of the class is attractive. From the peerage website I can see that a class of 50 locos would be difficult (there's not that many Dukes as far as I can tell) but if I numbered and named the locos in order of precedence, I could always add "Hastings" and "Ellington"** at the end of the list!

 

HOURS OF FUN!

 

* Imagining that none of the errors were perpetrated when 71000 was originally built!

** As a musician, it would be wrong not to! :lol:

 

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Duke Of Gloucester was I believe. I think he was also Colonel In Chief of The Royal Corp Of Transport (or whatever it's predecessor was called).

 

Many of the BR Board already had locomotives though. There was the GWR Earls and some of the Castles named after the GWR heirarchy and many of the LNER locomotives were named after directors and shareholders. Many of those had titles.

 

 

 

There was a list. It was in one of the magazines such as Railway Magazine or Railway World a few years ago. 1980s? Possibly Steam World or Backtrack.

 

Had a list of the locomotive names that had been allocated, but not used.

 

Loads of GWR such as the 20 Granges and 70 Manors. More Halls and Castles. LNER Pacifics, V2s and B1s. More LMS Cities but I think they were running out of names. The one often used on live steam models City Of Westminster was one of them.

 

But it also had the unused names for Britannias, Clans and the unbuilt Class 8P. It is debatable that the 8P was going to be like Duke Of Gloucester though. A BR version of the LMS Duchess following on from the Ivatt type is more likely.

 

There was only about ten names for the 8Ps though. Not fifty.

 

As for whether there was a need for more 8Ps, the LNER A1/A3s were getting on, as were the GWR Kings. They weren't going to last another ten years. Forty odd years was the lifespan of a top link loco. This was all before the 1955 Modernisation Plan.

 

Brand new locomotives were also a great publicity tool.

 

 

Jason

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Further investigation reveals there have been 15 "royal" duke titles for the United Kingdom (16 if you include Duke of Windsor, but as already mentioned that was probably a name quite rightly (IMHO) never considered) which are more than enough to name a class of ten locomotives. However, when you examine which titles were actually in use in 1954, that narrows down the choice to only seven, four of which were generally known by other titles!

 

The following royal dukes were extant in 1954:

 

Duke of Bedford (1953, His Grace Ian Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford)

Duke of Cornwall (1952, HRH Prince Charles)

Duke of Edinburgh (1947, HRH Prince Phillip)

Duke of Gloucester (1928, HRH Prince Henry)*

Duke of Kent (1934, HRH Prince Edward)

Duke of Lancaster (1952, HM Queen Elizabeth II)

Duke of Rothesay (1952, HRH Prince Charles)

 

* This would have been the highest ranking "royal duke" title by birth in common use in 1954 (as

Duke of Lancaster was/is HM The Queen, the Duke of Cornwall/Duke of Rothesay was/is HRH Prince Charles more commonly known as The Prince of Wales, and HRH Prince Phillip was/is Duke of Edinburgh only by marriage) - was that why the name Duke of Gloucester was selected for 71000?

 

The following royal duke titles were not in use in 1954:

 

Duke of Albany (title forfeited in 1919)

Duke of Cambridge (title extinct since 1904)

Duke of Clarence (title extinct since 1892)

Duke of Connaught & Strathearn (title extinct since 1943)

Duke of Cumberland (title extinct since 1765)

Duke of Sussex (title extinct since 1843)

Duke of Ross (title extinct since 1515)

Duke of York (title dormant since 1936 - Prince Albert succeeded to become King George VI)

 

An interesting rabbit hole to dive down for a few hours (and also discover how 'the establishment' is made up of a whole bunch of inter-related families who seem to amass titles and fortunes like the hoi polloi collect speeding fines and parking tickets!)

 

HOURS OF (OFF-TOPIC) FUN!

Edited by SteveyDee68
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So, here's what I would consider a logical naming sequence for the 8P class (or "Royal Dukes" as they became known):

 

A) Royal Duke titles commonly in use in 1954, in order of seniority

B) Royal Duke titles extant in 1954, but otherwise commonly known by other titles, in order of seniority

C) Royal Duke titles not in use in 1954, in reverse chronological order

 

That would give us -

 

Group A

71000   Duke of Gloucester

71001   Duke of Kent

71002   Duke of Bedford

 

Group B

71003   Duke of Lancaster

71004   Duke of Cornwall

71005   Duke of Rothesay

71006   Duke of Edinburgh

 

Group C

71007   Duke of Connaught & Strathearn

71008   Duke of York

71009   Duke of Albany

71010   Duke of Cambridge

71011   Duke of Clarence

71012   Duke of Sussex

71013   Duke of Cumberland

71014   Duke of Ross

 

There are 31 or so duke titles in existence in total, but the above list deals with the Royal Dukes only, and makes for a believable set of names. Take out the four Group B names and you have - perhaps - the names of the theoretical ten members of the loco class (simply minus 4 from the loco numbers of Group C).

 

Which means 71011/71015 could be Duke of Ellington (for me) and 71012/71016 could be Duke of Hastings (for the ladies! :lol:)

 

Steve S

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