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weirdowithaquill · 11 months

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The Importance of Names in the Railway Series

It's been a hot minute since my last take on the world of Thomas & Friends - so here's one that has sort of been wandering about in the back of my mind for a while.

How important is a name to an engine? Cause we know the engines do put a lot of value into a name. Stepney and Edward say as such:

"[...] I think our Controller was right. All engines ought to have names." "Yes," agreed Edward, "it's most important."

And it's further reinforced by Bear later in the series:

"It's nicer than just having a number," he (Bear) says. "Having a name means that you really belong."

Donald and Douglas echo this by giving themselves names (partially to fool the Fat Controller) and the interesting thing is that Sir Charles actually uses their names almost exclusively from that moment on - unless referring to them by their new numbers.

Even BoCo gives himself a name! And it feels pretty on-the-spot too, seeing as he just goes "but you can call me BoCo".

But in contrast, every single rail-based 'villain' or 'antagonist' in the Railway Series only has a number, or is Diesel, who doesn't really have a name either. Check me! There's:

Diesel

The 'Big City Engine'

Class 40 (D261/D471)

D199

D40125

None of them have names - not even 'the Big City Engine'. They're given nicknames by the engines, but otherwise they are just numbers. And I think it runs a bit deeper than that. A little while back I did a post on the 'railway rulebook' - and something I said was that managers did everything in their power to both dehumanise the engines and make the engines loyal to them. What better way of doing that than only giving certain engines names? 'Flying Scotsman' gets a name because he's a prestigious express engine, but the engine who shunts his coaches? The goods engine who brought his coal? Why would management give them names - to do that is to undermine the class system they've built to keep the engines fighting amongst themselves. If the engines are on equal footing, then they'd want equal rights.

You know... this sounds a lot like the Communist Manifesto. I don't think the Rev. W. Awdry intended it that way, but it does.

But that's beside my point. Certain railways either don't want their engines to have names. In particular, I would point at the LMS and the LNER, which both had a massive roster of engines. Not only is recording all their names a pain, but it would also add a sense of individuality to them and muck up their spreadsheets. In most countries, people have an ID number for identification - and that's what these companies needed. Not names; numbers.

The GWR is a notable exception to this, and I think people have noticed that. Both Duck and Oliver arrive with names, and Sir Topham I was a Swindon-apprentice who would have grown up with GWR ideology. Edward got his name because he was built as an express engine, Henry and Gordon for the same reasons - and everyone else either gives themselves names or have names given to them.

Toby probably got his from his crew and the locals after decades of being in the same area - I mean, he literally runs into their town, of course they have a name for him. Percy is given his by Sir Topham, and we can infer Thomas and James got similar treatment. Donald and Douglas gave themselves names, and so did BoCo.

Another possibility is that a preservation society would give engines names, though that was more the engines on said heritage line - like in Stepney the Bluebell Engine, where Stepney refers to all his friends on the Bluebell by name, and says his controller gave out some names, like Bluebell and Primrose - but Adams and Cromford got their names from the other engines and they don't want the controller finding out. And again, Stepney and Edward both explicitly say that they believe engines ought to have names - and that they believe it really makes an engine feel like family.

This almost exclusively applies to engines in a steam-dominated society, and once again I have to return to my old nemesis: early British Railways. British Railways inherited a massive network that spanned a continent and had thousands of engines - not to mention the fact they were going to scrap all their steam engines and replace them with new diesel engines. Names were never ever going to be viable. But moreover, they were going to kill all the steam engines - if these engines were seen by the public to be very sentient and intelligent, then there would be an outcry. Dehumanising these engines was extremely important to their business model.

So almost every new engine built under BR got no name. And that includes steam and diesel engines. And this sort of environment, where engines referred to each other by number, became standard.

Names have a lot of meaning behind them. We give names to things we believe are very valuable to us, things we really bond with, like a teddy bear or a beloved family car. Names confer a level of love and care, as opposed to numbers, which have a level of 'repetitive factory conveyor belt' to them, for lack of a better term. These engines, referring to each other by number, didn't sound as human as those referring to each other by name.

For a good example, as mentioned above, the GWR gave all its engines names - and the GWR has the most engines from its company preserved. The fact that people knew these engines had names, and possibly by name, really contributed to how many were saved.

But what makes it even more interesting is the fact that often engines give each other names. Bear is given his name by the other engines, Duck is a nickname given to 'Montague' because he waddles. And I think the reason that none of these diesels have names is because no steam engine ever gave them a name, and company policy means no diesel has the mindset for giving out names either. Steam engines give each other names, but it becomes exclusive to them and friendly diesels, and thus dies out over the generations.

Engines today don't have names. They don't even really have a proper visible number. They have a serial number somewhere, but that's about it. And I think that says a lot about what happened to the tradition of names for engines.

To sum up a very long, winding ramble, I think names came from several places:

Themselves. Engines could name themselves, like Donald and Douglas - who got their names from (maybe) former drivers?

From crew and community. Toby most likely got his name from the people around him, being on an isolated tramway.

From their owners. Flying Scotsman, Mallard and Percy are good examples of this. It represents a level of importance and care for this engine, as well as in some cases reinforcing class.

From other engines. Duck and Bear are great examples of this, as they are given names by their friends that they like, as it makes them feel as if they fit in.

And these names were very common in the steam era as engines gave each other names and communities knew specific engines and gave them names. As everything became more commercial and bureaucratic, naming was lost. Numbers reinforced company identity and dehumanised the engines to make them less sympathetic to the public. Look at Donald and Douglas, who probably had their names for decades - given by their friends - but never learnt by management.

Wow, that took a bit of a dark turn. Thanks for reading, and as usual, none of the above pictures are mine.

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