It seems that at one time or another, every railroad has earned a less than complimentary nickname.
Some nicknames refer to the railroad’s less than ideal financial situation or physical plant. I’ve seen the Western Pacific refered to as the “Wobbly” and the Chicago Great Western as the “Great Weedy”.
Other roads get nicknamed by disgruntled employees or shippers – UP = “Unlimited Parking” and CN/IC is “Canadians (or Children) now in charge!”
So with your tounge firmly in cheek, what are your favorites?
SPSF = Shouldn’t Paint So Fast
UP= Yellow Peril, Usually Poor
BN=Big Nuthin’
BNSF=Big New Santa Fe
SP= Slow Poke, Slow & Pathetic
WUMPS= Sound of Flat Wheel on Newly merged UP
C&W=Crooked and Wobbly
CNW=Cantankerous,Mean & Wicked
IC=InChaos
CRIP=Couldn’t Really Initiate Progress
Two old favorites:
Leave Early and Walk, from Lake Erie & Western, absorbed by NKP.
Misery and Short Life, from Minneapolis & St. Louis, absorbed in 1960 by C&NW.
ICG = I Can’t Go
UP = Unusually Pathetic
BNSF = Burlington Northern Southern Frontier
CNW = Can’t and Never Will
SP = Sadly Pathetic
METRA = Meet Everybody Today Right Away
CP = Candyass Pacific
CSX “Chicken Sh_t Xpress” And sometimes I really feel like that motto sticks when I have engines dying on me every day, radio bases down, and a dispatching system left to be desired. But, it could always be worse; I could have no railroad job at all. And anways, Murphy’s Law applies on the RR, so can I expect?? [}:)][:D]
But on a serious note, I love my job and I wouldn’t have it any other way.