Travelling hopefully

[shewhomust]

Trains have names, you know. Trains still have names. Admittedly, travelling on the County of Yorkshire, with the boast "The Route of the Flying Scotsman" on its side, is not as grand as travelling on the Flying Scotsman itself (it makes me think of the paperbacks which aren't "by the author of..." but "from the publisher of...") or the Night Mail. But it has a sort of regional solidity.

Virgin don't seem to have grasped the principle, at all, naming their trains after famous travellers, some of whom you would really not choose to travel with. This outburst occasioned by the fact that I came back from Newcastle this evening on board the Doctor Who.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Peter Pan here has a fleet of coaches named after Barrie's characters--and when they ran out, coaches named in vaguely Barrie-esque or -oid fashion. I once rode proudly on Captain Hook. Which was not alas, painted black. But imagine the shame of the poor driver who draws Nana's Bark or Wee Fairies Blowing Their Noses for his run to Schenectady! Imangine the dismay of the passengers boarding Lost Boys.

I think I took that once. We had to adandon bus in a blizzard on a motorway...

Nine

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Every couple of months, I get to see a train called the Empire Builder.

...A name so boring, I can't think of a witty comment.

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

But was the train bigger on the inside?

And was it on time? (A problem common to both the Doctor and Virgin trains...)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's boring because it obviously makes sense: that's what the romance of the railways is all about. It ought to be a steam engine...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Heh. As durham_rambler points out, you don't know where it'll land, nor when, to within a century either way...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

All aboard for Never Never Land!