Nicknames for British locomotive classes

[6990WitherslackHall]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Roxley do the kit both in MSWJR and GWR versions..

 

They had the GWR version. Ran a few times on Grosmont MPD. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Duchesses, after the unstreamlined batch which were all named Duchess Of *******

 

Coronation referred to the streamlined ones.

 

Never heard them called Princess Coronations apart from in a few books or magazines. No Princess had been crowned since Victoria and prior to Elizabeth so seems a bit of a daft reference.  Queen Elizabeth (Queen Mother) was only a Duchess when George VI got the throne.

 

All very well, but which were semis and why? 

[TheSignalEngineer]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Was that name officially bestowed? Good if it was!

Named at Bescot open day in 1988 as 31430. Tops number increased by 100 when ETH disconnected. Name later transferred to 37116 and also later carried by a Midland Metrto tram.

[Steamport Southport]

12 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

All very well, but which were semis and why? 

 

The converts before they got the cylindrical smokeboxes. "Semi-streamlined"

 

This is a "Semi", Duchess of Hamilton before it was restreamlined. On the other side it's LMS 1946 Black. It was a day out for the people who paid for the work to be done, mostly Steam Railway readers.

 

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duchess_of_Hamilton_-_2006-05-06.jpg

 

Sorry, can't find the credit.

 

 

Jason

Edited December 11, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

The converts before they got the cylindrical smokeboxes. "Semi-streamlined"

 

Thanks. That's rather what I thought but no-one seemed willing to commit to saying so!

 

I suppose that to a 12-year-old in the Tamworth field, a semi was easily distinguished from one of the ones built unstreamlined, therefore narrowing down the number range.

[LMS2968]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

The converts before they got the cylindrical smokeboxes. "Semi-streamlined"

 

This is a "Semi", Duchess of Hamilton before it was restreamlined. On the other side it's LMS 1946 Black. It was a day out for the people who paid for the work to be done, mostly Steam Railway readers.

 

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duchess_of_Hamilton_-_2006-05-06.jpg

 

Sorry, can't find the credit.

 

 

Jason

I've never understood how anyone could think that they were semi-streamlined!

[TheSignalEngineer]

14 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

I've never understood how anyone could think that they were semi-streamlined!

A job half finished?

[Dunsignalling]

18 minutes ago, LMS2968 said:

I've never understood how anyone could think that they were semi-streamlined!

 

Semi de-streamlined?

[rogerzilla]

LNER K3s were Jazzers, supposedly because of the way the cab shimmied along the track (which goes to show that 3 cylinders don't guarantee a smooth ride).

 

I'd rather like the A1 Steam boys in Darlington to build a K3.  I think it's on the list, but quite low down.

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

I've never understood how anyone could think that they were semi-streamlined!

 

No idea. I wasn't around in the late 1940s/early 1950s!  😀

 

The only one I've seen is 6229 when they had the open day at Tyseley and I believe that City Of Birmingham still has it's original smokebox under the cylindrical outer wrapping.

 

 

Jason

[peanuts]

For a time  around the first gulf war class 142 out of manchester Victoria were known as "scuds " .they would be sent off on there way but God only knows where they would Finnish up or if they would make it 

[pH]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

All very well, but which were semis and why? 

 

8 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

The converts before they got the cylindrical smokeboxes. "Semi-streamlined"

I seem to remember having read that the LMS officially described the initial batch 6220-6224 as ‘semi streamlined’. That was in contrast to the German locomotives being built around the same time with ‘skirts’ down almost to rail level, or even the LNER’s A4s with valances over the outside motion.

However:

 

- I am several thousand miles away from my books at the moment, so can’t check where I might have read it.

 

- I do have a suspicion who the author may have been. If it was who I suspect it might have been, I do not trust anything he wrote without an independent secondary source. If that turns out to be the case, I will withdraw this post. 🙂

 

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I suppose that to a 12-year-old in the Tamworth field, a semi was easily distinguished from one of the ones built unstreamlined, therefore narrowing down the number range.

Yes, but what did the 12-year-old call the “ones built unstreamlined”????

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, pH said:

Yes, but what did the 12-year-old call the “ones built unstreamlined”????

 

Alas, he is no longer here to ask. I doubt he would have remembered - he was being dragged along by his elder brothers.

[Hibelroad]

15 hours ago, peanuts said:

For a time  around the first gulf war class 142 out of manchester Victoria were known as "scuds " .they would be sent off on there way but God only knows where they would Finnish up or if they would make it 

I’ve also heard them called nodding donkeys, they certainly nodded vigorously when they got a bit of speed up between Ashton and Manchester. 

[ikks]

On 11/12/2022 at 23:34, Compound2632 said:

 

I though "semi" applied specifically to those de-streamlined engines that still had the sloping smokebox top?

 

Moving on from locos, according to my father, who frequented the field at Tamworth, there was one particular signal known as "clangers", the pulling off of which led to the eager anticipation of a semi.

I'm pretty sure it did originally but by the time I first visited Tamworth in January 1958, there were only a few left with the sloping smokebox and by then the class were all referred to as "semis", at least by trainspotters in the midlands. It does seem however, that, engine nicknames differed according to your location. Yes, I remember that signal very well and the excitement it generated when pulled off..

Mike

Edited December 13, 2022 by ikks
missed a bit

[MidlandRed]

On 11/12/2022 at 17:36, The Johnster said:

I've referenced the 31s as having very comfortable cabs and riding well, which is at odds with the post about Sister Dora.  I suspect that they have deteriorated a bit since the 70s; commonwealth-pattern bogies always rode well in my experience, so long as the coil springs were in good condition and up to the job, otherwise they bottom out alarmingly and give the swaying and rolling 'windjammer rounding the Horn' ride familiar from 47s.  The SWML between Severn Tunnel Jc and Cardiff is peppered with spots where the ballast has crumbled into clay in the wet, marshy, conditions, indicated by white lime stains where trains have compressed it and it has pumped white slurry out to the surface.  On a 47, one would brace oneself when encountering one of these pumping spots, as the loco would drop about nine inches into it and slam back upwards coming out of it, inevitably too much for the springs to cope with and a perceptible blow coming up through the floor, with a bang. 

 

This behaviour was unique to 47s, at least to that alarming degree, everything else rode these spots with a bit of a bang but not like the 47s.  This sort of treatment over years of service will affect a loco's ability to keep out draughts and make everything rattly and noisy as well.  But 25s were built like this from new, horrible little things; we might have forgiven them if they could pull anything, but they couldn't.

I agree with all of this except for the class 25 comment, apparently only really a failure on the WR - perhaps not entirely unsurprising as a product of Derby being imposed 😄 In fact on hauling trains from the Peak District, their rating for haulage exceeded an 8F and was commensurate with a 9F…. Even the less powerful class 24 (in multiple) replaced 9Fs on Consett iron ore trains (eliminating a banker also); pairs of these were also used on the Summers iron ore trains (Bidston) - so it’s not really clear what happened on the WR but perhaps the locos were thoroughly worn out by the time they got there (interestingly the newest three of all went to Ebbw Junction in the early 70s), or maybe the crews and operators lacked training in how to get the best out of them 🤪  (Apologies - thread drift). 
 

Some contributions to the class nicknames -

 

Co Bo - Co Bo; Wonderloaf - you have to chuckle at the latter (dubbed by engine men in the north west of England) - their shape was much like an enlarged wonderloaf (1960/70s sliced loaf), and wonderful they were not, much of the time - so somewhat of an ironic nickname. 
 

Class 40 - these seem to have been universally known in the West Midlands by spotters in the early 60s as ‘Tats’ - not sure why. 
 

Peak (between D1 and D10) - one to tenner.
 

The Semi name appeared to be used (by spotters) for all Coronation Pacifics.

 

LMS 4F - Duck (again, West Midlands spotters and pre-dating the Rev Awdry loco of the same name but rather different)

 

LMS 2MT tender loco - Mickey 

 

WR steam and diesel was far more orderly - Hall, Grange, Castle, Pannier, Western, Warship etc etc!!! 

Class AL1-AL6 - Elecky (during the period when steam, diesel and electric operated side by side on the WCML). 

 

I echo what was said by a previous poster - I was astonished at some of the nicknames for loco classes which appeared in early editions of Rail Enthusiast magazine, wondering whether some had been invented by the editorial staff!! However they seem to have stuck and become universal. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by MidlandRed

[The Johnster]

Well, I’d contend that a type 2 loco capable of 90mph is never going to be quite as comfortably capable of a given job, other things being equal, as a type 3 rated for the same speed and of the same weight, 75tons, but it ought to be able to manage 4  GUVs, 120tons trailing load.  Which is why I used the 00.35 Cardiff-Peterborough parcels, 4E11, as an example. 
 

This was one of my link jobs as a Canton guard, and as it was single manned and I was acting secondman off the shed, I normally rode in front with the driver, the fastest job in the link.  The ride/noise/draught issues aside because they did not affect performance, the 25s had to be thrashed and even then could not manage 90 on level track, would drop to the mid 70s on the banks, and would not manage much over 80 in a northeasterly headwind.  We would encourage station work at Newport and I would load a few parcels myself in order to be able to get away a few minutes early, the only way to ensure a right time arrival at Gloucester.  Basically, 25s could not do the work properly, and how you can improve the training or driving technique when the only method possible was to pull the power bar back as far as it would go and lean on the deadman’s is beyond me. 
 

The deadman’s was another issue; it was a pedal on this class, and was a bit sensitive.   If your foot/leg/ankle got tired you could take it off for up to 7 seconds, or on occasion the poor ride would bounce your foot off it; the fatter drivers had an advantage here!  But the the pedal would not reset reliably on a 25 when you put you foot back on it even within the 7 seconds, and the power would go off and the brakes would apply ‘put the lot in’ whatever the poor driver did to avoid it!  If you were working a 25-hauled train with a brakevan you had to be constantly aware that at any moment a sudden stop would have your van slamming into the rear wagon with considerable force without warning; I bruised my shoulder on the shoulder pad of the seat on one occasion because of this, luckily I was sitting down or I’d have been wrapped around the stove pipe.  The driver walked back to check I was still functioning and was, uncharacteristically, most apologetic, but I was fully aware of the issue, and no apologies were needed.  I stated that the deadman’s was not fit for purpose in my accident book report, but that had exactly the effect you’d expect!

 

It was tradition on the WR to automatically dismiss anything emanating from Derby as useless carp, but in this case the dismissal was completely justified.   The Cardiff-Crewe service had to be reduced to 3 coaches in order for them to time it, and this was with the 70mph timings from the previous DMUs, 120s with a bubble car power strengthener.  Not impressed.  
 

I suspect we’d been given weak locos; nobody allows their good stuff to be transferred out.  Few years before, 1968, I’d ridden behind a Lostock Hall 25 on a 6-coach Liverpool Exchange-Preston that I’d been hoping would be a Black 5, and this one was lively enough, rattling along in the high 80s most of the way, but even then you could see how badly it was bouncing around. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by The Johnster

[96701]

I started spotting pre TOPS in and around Preston, Manchester Leeds and York, so plenty of BR Sulzer Type 2s, English Electric Type 4s, Brush 4s, 1500V DC and 25kV AC leckies and of course Deltics at Leeds and York. Along came some more English Electric Type 4s in the D4XX range. needless to say, they couldn't be called English Electric Type 4s because we already had a lot of them, so they became known as DP2s.

 

Scroll forward a few years to 19 year old me at Carlisle Kingmoor as an M&EE trainee and Class 50swere regular visitors for A & B Exams and small repairs. The fitters and electricians called them Bleeps. This was new to me, so asked why. It turns out that that was the noise that the Drivers Safety Device (as it was called then) made.

 

I had never heard them called Hoovers until they went south west.

[Caley739]

On 11/12/2022 at 15:56, pH said:

Stanier 5F 2-6-0 with taper boiler... Lobster

I've seen this in various 1930s issues of The Railway Observer, possibly very localised or even invented by a single correspondent. Don't think it every really caught on !

[geoffers]

"...The Scotties and Bulldogs were distinct classes..."

Indeed they were.  I tried to indicate that by saying "pre-Bulldog" days. Failed obviously.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, geoffers said:

"...The Scotties and Bulldogs were distinct classes..."

Indeed they were.  I tried to indicate that by saying "pre-Bulldog" days. Failed obviously.

 

Sorry. The slight ambiguity fed my compulsion for precision.

[Dagworth]

On 11/12/2022 at 22:11, peanuts said:

For a time  around the first gulf war class 142 out of manchester Victoria were known as "scuds " .they would be sent off on there way but God only knows where they would Finnish up or if they would make it 

We knew the 153s as Scuds, with only one of every piece of vital equipment you never knew where one was going to fall down.

 

Andi

[Steamport Southport]

13 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

 

WR steam and diesel was far more orderly - Hall, Grange, Castle, Pannier, Western, Warship etc etc!!! 

 

 

However they were all official terms rather than nicknames. Pannier is used in the official GWR Engines, Names, Numbers, Types and Classes books.

 

Reprint here.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/G-W-R-Engines-Names-Numbers-Classes/dp/0715353675

 

Some of the Castles even had Castle Class on the nameplates. Other classes were the same such as King Arthur Class on the SR.

 

 

 

Jason

[Compound2632]

Pannier is simply descriptive of the type of tank(s) with which the locomotive was equipped, just as side, saddle, well, etc. It certainly doesn't identify a particular class - and many classes of pannier tank started out as saddle tanks. Side tanks are the default - no one ever said "Oh look - a side tank" in the way they might say "Oh look - a saddle tank".

[MidlandRed]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Pannier is simply descriptive of the type of tank(s) with which the locomotive was equipped, just as side, saddle, well, etc. It certainly doesn't identify a particular class - and many classes of pannier tank started out as saddle tanks. Side tanks are the default - no one ever said "Oh look - a side tank" in the way they might say "Oh look - a saddle tank".

I tend to agree - however my recollection of spotting in the early 60s was ‘pannier’ was the shout, in the same way ‘Semi’ was for a Coronation Pacific (when one came into view in the distance). I suspect of the pannier tanks around at that time, only the few remaining 94xx, or a 15xx might be particularly identifiable approaching from a distance (maybe also the smaller versions such as 16xx, 54xx, 64xx). Nonetheless I don’t recall there being nicknames for the various named ex GWR classes - presumably the official name being good enough. Whereas Brittania Pacifics were definitely ‘Brit’!! None of the WR names lent themselves to shortening in the same way!! 

Edited December 15, 2022 by MidlandRed