I'm old enough to remember steam train travel quite clearly. I unashamedly admit to collecting the numbers back in the fifties.
Then the engines had marvellous evocative names. Abbeys, Cathedrals, famous people, royalty, wars and battles, mountains, hills and glens.
Captions in magazines and books would always name the engine in a photograph. "The Earl of Mount Edgecumbe hauls a 10 coach passenger service up the incline from Sprodsbury Bottom." "Pendennis Castle eases out of Paddington with the 12.45 Bristolian Express."
And today? Give me strength. Trains no longer generate the same kind of excitement. Very sad. But from a names of engines point of view, it's just as well.
These days, locomotives have names like "Sir Peter Parker 1924 - 2002 Cotswold line 150", "Spalding Town", "Dartington International Summer School", "Oxfordshire 2007" and wait for it, I'm not making it up, "Helston Furry Dance".
Unbloodybelievable!
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