Pronunciation of railway associated words.

[pH]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

Everywhere in Scotland is spelt 'Ecclefechan' and pronounced 'Kirkcudbright'.

And there’s a beauty right there!

[PaulRhB]

Can we change the thread title to the Hyacinth Bucket guide to pronunciation?

[St Enodoc]

25 minutes ago, pH said:

And there’s a beauty right there!

If you know the song "The Wee Kirkcudbright Centipede" you'll never get that wrong!

 

 

[Martino]

2 hours ago, pH said:

I thought Naw’lins was acceptable, or even NoLa.

NOLA is sometimes OK, Nawlins is frowned upon by the locals.  Crescent City is also OK.

[St Enodoc]

18 minutes ago, Martino said:

NOLA is sometimes OK, Nawlins is frowned upon by the locals.  Crescent City is also OK.

This must be the definitive pronunciation - and the definitive railroad song too.

 

 

[BR60103]

There's a BBC LP which has a few lines from a Great Western driver.  He calls his train the Cornish Ri-veer-ah.

 

[Martino]

When I went on the City of New Orleans from NOLA to Chicago, I couldn’t stop singing the song for weeks.  Great trip.  They hung a couple of Pullman cars on the back of the service train.  Quite amazing. 

[The Johnster]

What about vacuum?  When I first started on the railway I incurred the scorn of my new colleagues by saying it as ‘vack yoo um’, and being told that, on the railway, it is always ‘vack um’.  I’ve also heard ‘vack yoom’, although never on the railway.  

[billy_anorak59]

Going back to the OP, it might be of interest that I asked about the pronounciation of clerestory 6 years or so ago (as well as 'bow' , as in 'bow-ended' carriages):

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by billy_anorak59
spelling

[Wickham Green too]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

... ”Bulleid rhymes with succeed; Maunsell with cancel.” ...

I suspect that's a slight over-simplification - unlike ( so far as I know ) Richard Mansell, Richard Maunsell hailed from just north of Dublin so I suspect he pronounced his 'a' slightly more softly ... perhaps like Marnsell ........ certainly not Monsell that you hear too often ( Isn't that a viaduct ? ).

 

As for Mr.Bulleid - he came from New Zealand so the application of any vowel sound would be totally random !

[Ohmisterporter]

A town with strong railway connections is Shrewsbury, however you pronounce it. Having been there several times it seems even the locals can't agree.

[wombatofludham]

11 hours ago, br2975 said:

What about Welsh place names ?

.

Where there is

.

(i) The correct Welsh pronunciation

(ii) The 'bastardised' local pronunciation

(iii) The way the poor saes (English) visitors try to pronounce it

.

I give you a few for starters

.

Penycoedcae

Ynysybwl

Radyr

Tondu

Gelli Tarw

Gwaun cae gurwen

Pontyclun

.

Then there's the dodgy one.....Portmadoc

Having learned Welsh when I moved to Meirionydd, I'm afraid I get very irritated when certain English tv and film people have to pronounce Welsh place names.  If I hear "Clandudno" one more time I swear I will go postal, and as for "Pontcysyllte"...

The one that is like dragging a nail down a blackboard for me though is when one well known UK actress kept calling "nuclear" "newcolour" when narrating a documentary on Sellafield.  Newcolour?  Does she sing "I can see colourly now, the rain is gone" at Karaoke?

[wombatofludham]

13 minutes ago, Ohmisterporter said:

A town with strong railway connections is Shrewsbury, however you pronounce it. Having been there several times it seems even the locals can't agree.

Amwythig

[Wheatley]

9 hours ago, pH said:

And there’s a beauty right there!

 

I claim no credit; Victoria Wood  ! ("Dinnerladies" I think).

 

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

If you know the song "The Wee Kirkcudbright Centipede" you'll never get that wrong!

Brilliant, thank you ! Not heard that before. 

[LMS2968]

44 minutes ago, Ohmisterporter said:

A town with strong railway connections is Shrewsbury, however you pronounce it. Having been there several times it seems even the locals can't agree.

On the railway it's pronounced Salop.

[big jim]

The signal box on the independent line in crewe where the junction heads off toward shrewsbury is even called ‘salop goods’  

[Nick C]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

What about vacuum?  When I first started on the railway I incurred the scorn of my new colleagues by saying it as ‘vack yoo um’, and being told that, on the railway, it is always ‘vack um’.  I’ve also heard ‘vack yoom’, although never on the railway.  

In my experience, usually 'vac'...

 

Another railway place name that causes a lot of confusion is Horsted Keynes - which to a local is 'orsted Kaynes, never Keenes. Alresford is Alls-ford too, not Al-res-ford - and isn't spelt Arlesford!

[russ p]

Wymondham,  is Wyndham but if going by train over the Syton and Peterborough you also pass over Wymondham crossing which is pronounced how its spelt 

Also in Norfolk is Happisburgh which is hays boro

 

 

[Simon Lee]

Borough Green and Wrotham, pronounced "Rootham", when I moved to Kent from Yorkshire it was easy to wind the locals up pronouncing it 'Rotham"

 

One old character driver we had had an verbal spat with bowler hat and brolly commuter when he was berated on the platform at said location for late running.

 

Sydney look the man up and down and came out with

 

"Late ? Your lucky we stop here at all facking hole"

 

[Wickham Green too]

27 minutes ago, Nick C said:

... Alresford is Alls-ford too, not Al-res-ford - and isn't spelt Arlesford!

That'll be the one in 'Amsher ......... the one in Essex IS pronounced Arlesford !

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

A town with strong railway connections is Shrewsbury, however you pronounce it. Having been there several times it seems even the locals can't agree.

 

1 hour ago, LMS2968 said:

On the railway it's pronounced Salop.

Both Shrewsbury & Shropshire are from the same root word, something like Scrobbesbyrig (sir)

In modern English Shrubsbury (shire)

Edited November 25, 2022 by melmerby

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

Another railway place name that causes a lot of confusion is Horsted Keynes - which to a local is 'orsted Kaynes, never Keenes.

I come from that part of the world, indeed my great grandmother was born in ‘orsted Kaynes, but now live in Milton Keynes, which is of course Keenz.
 

The two villages were owned by the same family at some stage in the dim and distant, I think after the Norman conquest*, so were presumably pronounced the same way, and Milton Keynes was written in some medieval documents as Middletun (its Saxon name) Canes or Kaynes (name of landlord) which suggests that the Sussex version is closer to the original.

 

* Not quite. The villages were granted to Hugh de Cahaignes by King Henry II, not William I. 
 

PS: I give up, this is confusing! Alternative sources say that the grant was by William I to Gillaume de Cahaignes. Maybe Henry II gave the villages to the family for a second time! Or, more likely, William I gave the family Horsted, and Henry II gave them Middleton. They seem to have collected villages all over the place.

 

PPS: The de Cahaignes family still exists at the Keynes, their most famous son being the economist John Maynard Keynes, pronounced “Kaynes” of course, which seals it.
 

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Michael Hodgson]

14 hours ago, br2975 said:

What about Welsh place names ?

.

Where there is

.

(i) The correct Welsh pronunciation

(ii) The 'bastardised' local pronunciation

(iii) The way the poor saes (English) visitors try to pronounce it

 

 

Penyffordd - which (before decimalisation) my father used to pronounce Pennyfortuppence.

 

13 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

 

 

David Jenkinson never, in my hearing, referred to Oh Gauge (and certainly not to Gauge Oh). It was always Nought Gauge.

Obviously, not to be confused with Gauge One or Gauge Two

 

15 hours ago, Martino said:

If you go to New Orleans in the US, they have a street called Burgundy.  Not said how you would in France but Bur-GUN-dee. 

 

The French pronounce it differently because they spell it Bourgogne.

Just as the Russians pronounce  Moscow as Moskva and spell it Mockba.

 

13 hours ago, Wheatley said:

York station had an announcer a few years ago who never did get her head around Ker-nairs-borrow.

 

And Kings Cross announced the Aberdeen service as stopping at Burntizland and Kirk Coll-dee.

 

[Reorte]

Tyndrum was one I didn't know until I was on the train passing through it (assuming it was announced correctly on the train of course) - Tinedrum, not Tindrum.

[proton]

In the 1970s there was a male announcer at Manchester Victoria who used to announce trains to Blakepool Sarth.  My dad and I used to mimic him regularly!  Memories...