I’m setting up a laboratory at my university with a network of computers to control a good size model railroad. I am looking to give an interesting railroad name to each computer in the lab. One name suggested is Gandy Dancer (for the workers on a section gang).
Please post any suggestions you might have. Include an explanation if it isn’t obvious to a railroad novice. I’ll give the list to my students who each get to name their own computer.
Thanks for any assistance.
John
First thing that popped into my head was “Galloping Goose”, which was the nickname for the distinctive ‘rail-bus’ used on the old Rio Grande Southern narrow guage line in Colorado years ago. There are probably many more recognizable names that never occurred to me. How about, Gang??
John
“Pheobe Snow”
The name of a passenger train by a road that escapes me right now (anyone in the community that knows feel free to jump in). I’ve always loved the name Pheobe & plan to name my daughter that if & when we ever have a girl.
Matt
How about ‘Daylight’ and/or ‘Espee’?
BR
Phoebe Snow was a train on the Lackawanna RR which went from Hoboken to Buffalo starting, I think, in 1949. Originally, the name was invented by the Lackawanna in 1904 for an advertising campaign. The idea was that the Lackawanna’s locomotives burned clean anthracite coal instead of sooty bituminous. A sample jingle:
Says Phoebe Snow
About to go
Upon a trip
To Buffalo
My gown stays white
From Morn til night
Upon the road of Antrhacite
These were originally subway car ads. You can see some of them in links from the Steamtown web site.
As far as names go:
Tallowpot (fireman)
Reefer (refrigerator car)
Hotbox (overheated journal bearing)
Big Boy (UP 4-8-8-4 steam engine)
Old Maude (First Mallet type steam engine in US)
StepNfetchit (Famous Black actor in 1930/40’s)
Cannon Ball (Famous Wabash RR engine & song)
Orange Blosson Special (Train & song)
Hogger (Steam engineer)
Zepher (Burlington streamliner train)
Some old colorful names for jobs in railroading are “hoghead” for engineer, “tallow pot” for fireman, “brass pounder” for telegrapher, and “car knocker” for car inspector.
Some of the railroad names themselves are great. How about the Lake Superior and Ishpiming; Wisconsin, Pittsville & Superior; Milwaukee, Dexterville & Northern or Chicago, Fairchild and Eau Claire River, just to name a few that ran in Wisconsin or the UP of Michigan in the 1880s. I am sure that you could find a similar list for Iowa if you wanted to add local color to your project.
How about some railroaders themselves? Like Casey Jones.
Why not make a fictoinal Railroad based on you suroundings like Cedar City Northern, Cedar City Central, Cedar City & Eastern. Things like that. Or your local comodities. Cedar Branch, Grain Line, or Farmer’s Co-op & Grain Field.
Let us know how it turns out!