Spotted a freight train today which had a cheerful red engine with the DBS logo, the Ukrainian flag painted on the side and the motto "We Stand With Ukraine", all done neatly and professionally. Hadn't expected that, or the sight of a political slogan on an engine.
ETA: I haven't checked, but there could well be more than one locomotive so adorned. There may be some significance in the fact that DB Schenker is owned (AIUI) by Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator.
Those of A Certain Age may recall the cosiness of steam-heated coaches - that's what those wisps of steam from beneath the train indicate - and the cab of the mighty engine would have been pleasantly hot, too!
They've been doing it for ages. Many of the major intercity operators (well, off the top of my head certainly Avanti and GWR, and probably East Coast) have a 'Pride' train with rainbow decals. Then in Covid there were various NHS ones.
I think it's slightly more pushing the enveloped to do foreign affairs, but at the end of the 19th century I suppose the Talyllyn did rename one of its engines 'Pretoria' when the Boer republics fell...
As an aside, one of my great great uncles picked up the unlikely middle names Baden Powell because he was born on the day of the relief of Ladysmith...
I've seen the GWR Pride train and an NHS one, but wouldn't really describe them as political. Ukraine definitely is, though, which is what surprised me. I hadn't expected a rail company to take a political stance in this day and age - I'd have thought company policy would have been against it.
It's close to politically neutral in that both government and opposition are pro-Ukraine - to the extent the colours of the Ukranian flag were featured at the coronation.
The London Brighton and South Coast had a celebrated engine called Gladstone. Enthusiasts now might not recognise this but at the time was about as politically aligned as one could get.
One of the famous Metropolitan Railway electric locomotives was named "William Ewart Gladstone" in full - mind you, others were named "Sherlock Holmes" and "Thomas Lord" - the connection was to London rather than to politics.
Britannia class Pacific 70013 Oliver Cromwell is another example which comes to mind...did LT rename their Oliver Cromwell - as Thomas Lord - when the BR engine was built?
Note also that the Metropolitan named one of their locomotives Benjamin Disraeli, in a spirit of fairness, I guess.
I wonder if, in the future, a locomotive (or railcar set) will be called Boris Johnson ?
The Met Locos were built (and named) long after both statesmen had departed for the green benches in the sky. The LBSC named and ran its loco while the Grand Old Man was very much alive and kicking. The Victorians were less squeamish about balance and neutrality, and Political Correctness was, of course, unheard of.
Spotted a freight train today which had a cheerful red engine with the DBS logo, the Ukrainian flag painted on the side and the motto "We Stand With Ukraine", all done neatly and professionally. Hadn't expected that, or the sight of a political slogan on an engine.
I'm afraid they're also doing it in the 'Fatherland': see model loco here, one of those (in my opinion) ghastly Siemens Vectrons - which apparently eat rails; they have comparatively big wheels, and the bogies (or so I read in Continental rail magazines) are not that well-designed even for certain heavy-duty tracks. I would however need to find a link for this, if you anyone wants more details.
In other more positive Continental news, and for the more musically minded: here is a compilation of the 'singing' Siemens Taurus, the Vectron's predecessor, and which creates perfect muscial scales when setting off!
Personally, I find the Taurus much more pleasing to the eye and to the ear than the Vectron. The Austrian railways have shedloads of them.
For good measure I'm now listening to some Intercity 125 Class 43 screaming Valentas. Still one of the most awe-inspiring engine noises I can think of!
I was once at King's Cross, watching a Deltic reverse out of the platform, its train having already been removed.
The thing let out an ear-splitting roar, the enormous exhaust plume shot up into the station roof, and I swear it actually heaved itself upward from the rails as it accelerated away from the buffer stops at what seemed a terrific speed.
Puissant and impressive machines, indeed, though not (I suspect) particularly environmentally-friendly...
Here's D9000 at King's Cross a couple of weeks back - the one I saw (many years ago) was in BR blue, but this one is in the proper green livery:
Looks splendid! I think however that only the Finsbury Park Deltics had those white window surrounds - D9000 was based at Haymarket.
I and a couple of schoolmates rode the full length of the old KX platform 10 on D9009 "Alycidon" c.1966. We also went into the incredibly cramped engine room.
The Deltics were surely the locomotives that everyone had heard of, even if they weren't interested in the railways. Their impact on the East Coast Main Line was like nothing else since the A4s arrived and probably unlike anything since. The sensation of accelerating up Stoke Bank was new, like supersonic travel! Does anyone remember the XP64 train with the new blue and white carriages and the green and yellow Deltic? I took a fuzzy black and white photo of the first northbound run near Arlsey, and still cherish the memory of the glorious sound of 3,300 horses at 100 mph. Who cared if regular maintenance consisted of swapping out engines? It was the finest locomotive in the world!
I came across this weird TV series, Train Truckers, on YouTube the other day!
It seems to cover everything an 11 or 12 y o train spotter might look out for. It's very niche, like a mix of 'Traffic Cops' and railway enthusiasts' films. And in every episode there's a dramatic computer-generated clip of the loco falling off while loading. Which of course never happens. Oh the excitement!
If this awakens anyone's mild interest, the Deltic episode can be found here!
And in every episode there's a dramatic computer-generated clip of the loco falling off while loading. Which of course never happens. Oh the excitement!
The first Class 70 was dropped and I think written off while being unloaded from a ship at Newport docks on 5/1/2011.
And in every episode there's a dramatic computer-generated clip of the loco falling off while loading. Which of course never happens. Oh the excitement!
The first Class 70 was dropped and I think written off while being unloaded from a ship at Newport docks on 5/1/2011.
Political nameplates - The Great Central had a loco named 'Lloyd George'.
After the LNER took over, the bosses were more of a Tory persuasion and had the nameplates removed. (The nameplates were found behind a panel at Top Shed many years later.)
So you see, the concept of 'cancelling', which inflames so many people these days, is nothing new. It was alive and well as far back as 1923.
The most blatant example of this was on the London & North Western, which had a number of locomotives named after White Star liners. In November 1914 "Germanic" was renamed "Belgic" .... the old nameplate was not removed but struck through with a red line, the new plate being mounted above! https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ww1-names-1.jpg
One could imagine something similar today: a loco called "Moskva" would undoubtedly have been renamed "Kyiv" by now (on a suitably blue and yellow ground).
Not sure if I have a favourite diesel, but, of those I've known, the Southern Region's D65xx (later Class 33) Cromptons stand out as fairly good-looking, and most certainly reliable and long-lived. Money well spent, unlike the £££ wasted on a number of useless designs in the 50s and 60s...
Class 15, 16, 17, 21, 28, 29 come to mind. And both the Peaks and Class 40s were too heavy and underpowered, the steam heating boiler a particular problem.
However there were some outstanding successes: Class 20, class 37 and (dare one say?) the standard class 08 shunter.
Class 15, 16, 17, 21, 28, 29 come to mind. And both the Peaks and Class 40s were too heavy and underpowered, the steam heating boiler a particular problem.
However there were some outstanding successes: Class 20, class 37 and (dare one say?) the standard class 08 shunter.
Indeed. IIRC, the 08 shunter was originally an LMS design, but it's never really been surpassed - some are still in service, I believe.
Our Town's goods yard had the neat little Drewry 204hp shunters for a time, when they first appeared, but they proved a bit too small for the work, and were soon replaced by the 08s.
Not sure if I have a favourite diesel, but, of those I've known, the Southern Region's D65xx (later Class 33) Cromptons stand out as fairly good-looking, and most certainly reliable and long-lived. Money well spent, unlike the £££ wasted on a number of useless designs in the 50s and 60s...
Yes... But they didn't know they were useless until they had been tested. Admittedly, there were too many built of some of them. My own favourite is probably the BRC&W Type 2, otherwise the Class 26, which I first briefly encountered on the Kings Cross locals, and a bit later spent a joyful summer working on them and riding on them all over the Highlands. They were good engines - better than the Derby equivalent - and worked all over what had once been the Highland Railway and much of the rest of Scotland.
I liked the Peaks despite their rather primitive design. There's a good story told* of the time a visitor from the Maybach company saw one and exclaimed, "Mein Gott!" The story goes that in some quarters they were known as the Mein Gotts henceforth.
*RM Tufnell, The Diesel Impact on British Rail 1979
Some of us rather like the 70s. They look more ... interesting ... than the 66s.
Mind you, my favourite diesel was possibly DP2.
Snorts as only an insufferable locomotive bore can... The 66 and its relatives and the 70s look to me like cheap commercial packaging jobs. DP2 and the sublime Deltics were designed as complete, perfect locomotives, just as Michaelangelo saw his David.
PS I forgot to add, in my list of failures, the Class 23 "Baby Deltics". Not sure about the Class 22 "Baby Warships", which I remember from Paddington e.c.s. - were they failures, or merely ousted as "non-standard"?
Talking of nice-looking locos, what about the "Hymeks"?
I remember the Class 26s working the rush-hour Moorgate trains, with non-corridor coaches, on the Bed-Pan line. The usual fare was Class 127 DMUs, but they didn't fit into the City Widened Lines tunnels - some say the carriages were too long so "out of gauge" on the curves, others says that there destination indicators were too high and fouled the tunnel roofs. I don't know if either was true!
Well, the Hymeks were built by Beyer Peacock, of whom it is said that they never built an ugly locomotive! The locos were the result of work by several firms, but I suspect B-P had a lot to do with the final look of the things...
The Hymeks were among the last locos Beyer Peacock built. Of course, like most UK manufacturers, they were rather slow to offer anything other than steam. Which helps explain why they no longer exist.
I believe they did a bit of diversification towards the end, but it could not save them. Of course, making the huge change from steam to diesel or electric traction was a bit of a leap. One of the reasons BR persisted with Steam as late as they did was that they had all these locations set up to build and maintain them, with quite large workforces. At a time when governments worked on a policy of full employment, it was politically difficult to throw thousands of men, most of them skilled - albeit in obsolete technology - on the dole.
I think it was the late 50s/early 60s before the nettle was firmly grasped.
I've never quite understood why BR introduced their enormous fleet of *standard* locomotives, excellent machines though most of them are (a goodly number have been preserved).
The Big Four companies had efficient locomotives of their own design - many relatively modern - and the Southern was rightly continuing its policy of electrification.
Granted, there were lots of elderly steam engines still in service in 1948, but they could have been replaced either by diesels - and this country was way behind with diesel design and production compared with the US or many European countries - or by perpetuating the best of the Big Four's modern designs.
This is not to denigrate Riddles and his team, who gave us inter alia the lovely Britannia Pacifics and the puissant 9F 2-10-0s...not to mention the superb rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics (OVB would not agree).
I've never quite understood why BR introduced their enormous fleet of *standard* locomotives, excellent machines though most of them are (a goodly number have been preserved).
The Big Four companies had efficient locomotives of their own design - many relatively modern - and the Southern was rightly continuing its policy of electrification.
Granted, there were lots of elderly steam engines still in service in 1948, but they could have been replaced either by diesels - and this country was way behind with diesel design and production compared with the US or many European countries - or by perpetuating the best of the Big Four's modern designs.
This is not to denigrate Riddles and his team, who gave us inter alia the lovely Britannia Pacifics and the puissant 9F 2-10-0s...not to mention the superb rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics (OVB would not agree).
The explanation usually given is that imported oil couldn't compete with home-grown coal at a time when the country couldn't afford to import anything, so the immediate future had to be steam. Perhaps it's not entirely fair to say the UK was far behind in diesel design: the export market was quite healthy, certainly for English Electric, given the very difficult circumstances of the time.
Comments
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3046676062314324
Yes! That's the one. Thanks! The freight trucks were empty though. Heading north, presumably to Birmingham.
Yes, though in fairness on the other side they might have had to mention "350 million"...
ION, I see that the brand-new Elizabeth Line in London ran into problems yesterday - I wonder if any Shipmates were affected?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/08/elizabeth-line-passengers-in-london-stranded-after-electric-cables-damaged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX1_XjGDpa8
Those of A Certain Age may recall the cosiness of steam-heated coaches - that's what those wisps of steam from beneath the train indicate - and the cab of the mighty engine would have been pleasantly hot, too!
They've been doing it for ages. Many of the major intercity operators (well, off the top of my head certainly Avanti and GWR, and probably East Coast) have a 'Pride' train with rainbow decals. Then in Covid there were various NHS ones.
I think it's slightly more pushing the enveloped to do foreign affairs, but at the end of the 19th century I suppose the Talyllyn did rename one of its engines 'Pretoria' when the Boer republics fell...
As an aside, one of my great great uncles picked up the unlikely middle names Baden Powell because he was born on the day of the relief of Ladysmith...
One of the famous Metropolitan Railway electric locomotives was named "William Ewart Gladstone" in full - mind you, others were named "Sherlock Holmes" and "Thomas Lord" - the connection was to London rather than to politics.
Note also that the Metropolitan named one of their locomotives Benjamin Disraeli, in a spirit of fairness, I guess.
I wonder if, in the future, a locomotive (or railcar set) will be called Boris Johnson ?
I wouldn't risk it. It would probably go off the rails a lot.
Please... Don't even think thoughts like that!
It would probably sound something like "Er um er um er um er um ALAAAAASSSSS"
That sounds more like the Thing running out of steam...which is, perhaps, what has happened to BJ...
In other more positive Continental news, and for the more musically minded: here is a compilation of the 'singing' Siemens Taurus, the Vectron's predecessor, and which creates perfect muscial scales when setting off!
Personally, I find the Taurus much more pleasing to the eye and to the ear than the Vectron. The Austrian railways have shedloads of them.
The thing let out an ear-splitting roar, the enormous exhaust plume shot up into the station roof, and I swear it actually heaved itself upward from the rails as it accelerated away from the buffer stops at what seemed a terrific speed.
Puissant and impressive machines, indeed, though not (I suspect) particularly environmentally-friendly...
Here's D9000 at King's Cross a couple of weeks back - the one I saw (many years ago) was in BR blue, but this one is in the proper green livery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajBArvFqq4
I and a couple of schoolmates rode the full length of the old KX platform 10 on D9009 "Alycidon" c.1966. We also went into the incredibly cramped engine room.
It seems to cover everything an 11 or 12 y o train spotter might look out for. It's very niche, like a mix of 'Traffic Cops' and railway enthusiasts' films. And in every episode there's a dramatic computer-generated clip of the loco falling off while loading. Which of course never happens. Oh the excitement!
If this awakens anyone's mild interest, the Deltic episode can be found here!
Some might say that the accident actually improved the loco's looks...
After the LNER took over, the bosses were more of a Tory persuasion and had the nameplates removed. (The nameplates were found behind a panel at Top Shed many years later.)
So you see, the concept of 'cancelling', which inflames so many people these days, is nothing new. It was alive and well as far back as 1923.
One could imagine something similar today: a loco called "Moskva" would undoubtedly have been renamed "Kyiv" by now (on a suitably blue and yellow ground).
I am one of them. Rumour has it that they stole the design from a school bus.
🚌🚍
Mind you, my favourite diesel was possibly DP2.
Not sure if I have a favourite diesel, but, of those I've known, the Southern Region's D65xx (later Class 33) Cromptons stand out as fairly good-looking, and most certainly reliable and long-lived. Money well spent, unlike the £££ wasted on a number of useless designs in the 50s and 60s...
However there were some outstanding successes: Class 20, class 37 and (dare one say?) the standard class 08 shunter.
Indeed. IIRC, the 08 shunter was originally an LMS design, but it's never really been surpassed - some are still in service, I believe.
Our Town's goods yard had the neat little Drewry 204hp shunters for a time, when they first appeared, but they proved a bit too small for the work, and were soon replaced by the 08s.
Yes... But they didn't know they were useless until they had been tested. Admittedly, there were too many built of some of them. My own favourite is probably the BRC&W Type 2, otherwise the Class 26, which I first briefly encountered on the Kings Cross locals, and a bit later spent a joyful summer working on them and riding on them all over the Highlands. They were good engines - better than the Derby equivalent - and worked all over what had once been the Highland Railway and much of the rest of Scotland.
I liked the Peaks despite their rather primitive design. There's a good story told* of the time a visitor from the Maybach company saw one and exclaimed, "Mein Gott!" The story goes that in some quarters they were known as the Mein Gotts henceforth.
*RM Tufnell, The Diesel Impact on British Rail 1979
Snorts as only an insufferable locomotive bore can... The 66 and its relatives and the 70s look to me like cheap commercial packaging jobs. DP2 and the sublime Deltics were designed as complete, perfect locomotives, just as Michaelangelo saw his David.
Talking of nice-looking locos, what about the "Hymeks"?
I remember the Class 26s working the rush-hour Moorgate trains, with non-corridor coaches, on the Bed-Pan line. The usual fare was Class 127 DMUs, but they didn't fit into the City Widened Lines tunnels - some say the carriages were too long so "out of gauge" on the curves, others says that there destination indicators were too high and fouled the tunnel roofs. I don't know if either was true!
I believe they did a bit of diversification towards the end, but it could not save them. Of course, making the huge change from steam to diesel or electric traction was a bit of a leap. One of the reasons BR persisted with Steam as late as they did was that they had all these locations set up to build and maintain them, with quite large workforces. At a time when governments worked on a policy of full employment, it was politically difficult to throw thousands of men, most of them skilled - albeit in obsolete technology - on the dole.
I think it was the late 50s/early 60s before the nettle was firmly grasped.
The Big Four companies had efficient locomotives of their own design - many relatively modern - and the Southern was rightly continuing its policy of electrification.
Granted, there were lots of elderly steam engines still in service in 1948, but they could have been replaced either by diesels - and this country was way behind with diesel design and production compared with the US or many European countries - or by perpetuating the best of the Big Four's modern designs.
This is not to denigrate Riddles and his team, who gave us inter alia the lovely Britannia Pacifics and the puissant 9F 2-10-0s...not to mention the superb rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics (OVB would not agree).
The explanation usually given is that imported oil couldn't compete with home-grown coal at a time when the country couldn't afford to import anything, so the immediate future had to be steam. Perhaps it's not entirely fair to say the UK was far behind in diesel design: the export market was quite healthy, certainly for English Electric, given the very difficult circumstances of the time.