Mark Nolan chronicles the development of a whole new language on our railways.
Mark Nolan chronicles the development of a whole new language on our railways.
Remember when 'logging on' meant sticking another log on the fire, and a 'hard drive' referred to a difficult car journey? Well the internet wasn't the first radically new network which needed to invent its own terminology from the get go. The railways started doing it in the mid 18th century, so if you want to converse knowledgeably about skips, sheds and spamcans, read on.
Basically, when you invent something new, you not only have to come up with a name to describe it, you also need names for the elements which make up the invention. If it's revolutionary, you end up with a whole new vocabulary, otherwise known as jargon. And the railways were a prime example.
“There are two lines, which one are we on?” “Ah, this be the up line.” “Up to where?” “Why London of course.”
“I suppose the other line will be the down line then?” “Yup, it goes down from London.”
“So when the line splits off to another line, why is it called a point?” “Well it's obvious, that's the point where it splits”. (Warning: that last bit may not be true, I'm just guessing here.)
THE TRAINSPOTTERS
As if there weren't enough obscure railway terms already, along came a new breed of obsessive railway hobbyists. The slang version of ‘anorak', first used to describe fans of pirate radio, is now used to describe any enthusiast with slightly compulsive tendencies. It has to be admitted, trainspotters do wear anoraks when standing on the ends of cold platforms (which incidentally are known as the London end or the country end).
Railway enthusiasts call themselves ‘gricers' (origin unknown) and they will ‘bunk' (sneak into) a shed to ‘cop' (see and record) a loco. Railfans are particularly fond of giving nicknames to locos they love or hate. In fact, it's hard to find a loco which doesn't have a nickname, and some of them are quite funny; ie ‘Robbie' for a coal train? Think about it.
Some classes of loco or unit achieve so many nicknames that there seems to be no consensus. For example, Class 20s are known as ‘bombs', ‘choppers', ‘chubblies' or ‘wardrobes'. In Australia, any English Electric locos are collectively known as ‘Poms'.
SHEDS AND YING YINGS
If an anorak says “Here comes a shed on a binliner”, what he means is a Class 66 loco is approaching with a train of waste container wagons (even railwaymen have their own sense of humour, sometimes giving waste trains the unofficial headcode of 5H 1T.) The Class 66 seems to be everywhere doing everything these days, very efficient if a bit boring. They're called sheds, either because from the front they have the profile of a garden shed, or it could be because of their corrugated sides. The 66 is also known as a ying ying after the sound it makes when idling.
Last year Hornby's model of 66731 ‘Captain Tom Moore' raised £140,000 for NHS Charities. The model set a record for the fastest selling product in Hornby's range, with 3,500 sold in four days. Not a bad achievement for a shed.
SPAMCANS AND COFFEE POTS
When OVS Bulleid left the tutelage of Nigel Gresley to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway, he was on a mission to push the boundaries of steam loco design. Two of his designs in particular divide enthusiasts.
The Merchant Navy Class was claimed to be a mixed traffic locomotive. It had a lot of new features, some say too many for one locomotive. The casing wasn't streamlined, merely ‘airsmoothed', which made it easier to wash with a mechanical cleaner, as well as hiding the boiler's external pipes. It had newly designed Bulleid Firth Brown driving wheels, the distinctive pattern reduced the amount of hammer blow to the rails. Drivers and firemen liked the locos as they were fast and powerful; fitters and maintenance staff hated them as they had to remove multiple panels to access even the most
basic parts. All the Merchant Navies were eventually rebuilt to a more conventional design in the late fifties after Bullied left what was by then the Southern Region of British Railways.
The spamcans have been modelled by many manufacturers. Kitmaster produced a polystyrene injection-moulded kit for OO gauge from 1960. In late 1962, the brand was sold to Airfix, which resumed production in 1968. The moulds later passed to Dapol. Hornby manufactures various examples of the class and caters for all the major detail variations. Graham Farish produces one in N gauge. ‘Winston Churchill’ was an early example from Tri-ang, and the original Graham Farish company made a diecast spamcan with Bakelite tender. Wrenn also produced a version in the 1980s, one of three original models which were not based on HornbyDublo originals.
COFFEE POTS
The other Bulleid loco with a cult following is the Q1 0-6-0 freight tender loco. Nicknamed ‘coffee pot’, ‘biscuit barrel, Frankenstein’’ or ‘ugly duckling’, they were shockingly uncompromising and devoid of any ornamentation, not even having running boards. ‘Functional’ would be a kinder description. They did however benefit from similar style driving wheels to the Merchant Navies. Forty were built and one has been preserved. Weighing just under 90 tons they had high route availability and were the most powerful 0-6-0s ever to run on British Railways.
Hornby released a Q1 in 2003 in plain and weathered finish. The model was re-released in 2011.
PRESERVED BY ACCIDENT
How the Metrovick Co-Bo ever got past the drawing board is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. Its obvious idiosyncrasy is it has one six wheel bogie and one four wheel bogie, giving it a delightfully unbalanced appearance. The locos were produced for evaluation during the BR modernisation program in 1958 and were powered by Crossley 2 stroke diesel engines which were always problematic. The cab windows were also prone to falling out! By 1968 all were withdrawn and scrapped apart from one, D5705 which ended up as a carriage heating unit in Bath Road depot, Bristol. It was rescued in 1985 and restoration continues.
The locos were immortalized by being selected for modelling by Hornby-Dublo. There is not a lot to detail on the diecast body but the unsymmetrical bogies are distinctive. Possibly their least popular loco, large stocks remained when Meccano closed down, with the models being wholesaled as late as 1970.
As for nicknames, it appears in Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends as ‘Boco the Diseasel’, but the most appropriate nickname among trainspotters was ‘Loaf’.
BOUNCY CASTLES
You must have heard about the Pacers. There’s been as much in the news about their retention as any other type of train. You see, they were built between 1980 and 1987 as a temporary measure with a maximum life of 20 years, and the folks ‘oop north were not too happy about being bounced around in trains based on four wheeled wagons in 2020 when they were finally withdrawn.
Despite being largely based on the Leyland National bus, the Pacers stayed the course and ferried passengers for millions of bouncy miles, leading to their nicknames including ‘skipper’, ‘nodding donkey’ and ‘bouncy castle’. Secretly we grew to admire the Pacers and they will make excellent units on preserved railways.
Hornby’s Pacer has been available in many liveries, also in one and two-engined versions.
CLASS 67 ‘SKIPS’
A total of thirty Class 67 locomotives were built between 1999 and 2000 by Alstom in Spain for English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS). These Bo-Bo diesel electric locos have a large fuel capacity, electro-pneumatic brakes and a top speed of 125mph. The engine, traction motors and control electronics are the same as those used in the Class 66, except the traction motors are frame mounted, rather than axle hung, to reduce unsprung mass. Due to the angle of the front ends, they have been saddled with the nickname of ‘skip’.
CHOOSE A NICKNAME
After all that’s been learned about loco design, it’s surprising that it can still go so wrong. Take the Class 70. No please, take it. The distinctive front-end shape is apparently due to crashworthiness features. These locos are more fuel efficient and have less emissions than their predecessors. Simply known as ‘uglies’ or ‘Bettys’ after Ugly Betty, they are in need of a better nickname. ‘Lego brick’ and ‘Land Rover’ have already been suggested. Can you do better?