Northern VS other names

[Espeefan]

Opinions, Opinions, OPINIONS! I don't care who came up with the names, I'm asking why the "Northern" had so many? I've realized that it is unlikely that my question can be answered. Everyone involved in the process is likely dead; or, older than dirt and probably spends very little time looking through model railroad forums. Actual answers to these types of questions get foggy, as people allow their opinions to displace reality.

What is wrong with he answers you've been given? If you don't like them, do your own research, come up wih one and share it.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Jeeze, MARK, take a deep breath!
I have enjoyed the "opinions" from everyone - and even learned a few things along the way. Be happy that you are modeling a road that was instrumental in such a prestigious locomotive. As the picture I posted of the Frisco northern, while a sleek modern awesome locomotive, had no special designation. 'The Metor' name was for the name of the passenger train that it pulled.

 

[NP2626]

I think you guys have misinterpreted what I said; or, I simply said it very poorly and so apologize for appearing to be snippy with my replys! Thanks to all for your information! In the end, the name "Northern" really doesn't make much of a difference to the outcome of my question!

 

[trailrider]

Opinions, Opinions, OPINIONS! I don't care who came up with the names, I'm asking why the "Northern" had so many? I've realized that it is unlikely that my question can be answered. Everyone involved in the process is likely dead; or, older than dirt and probably spends very little time looking through model railroad forums. Actual answers to these types of questions get foggy, as people allow their opinions to displace reality.

IMHO, it was because the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement was a fairly universal type among various railroads. As a result each railroad simply used whatever designation their management and advertising department came up with. It is sorta like the old patent medicine, named "Hadacol". It got its name 'cause they had-a-call it something! Yes, this is my OPINION. But I think it is as valid as why a particular line gave a particular name to their 4-8-4's.

 

[tootnkumin]

I think I may have inadvertently given the reason (if by why the Northern had so many, you mean why so many railroads used that name for their 4-8-4's) when I mentioned the 4-6-2 was universally called a "Pacific" wheel arrangement, because it was developed in NZ (so the claim goes). They didn't so refer to it, as an NZ, because no doubt, most of the world wouldn't have known where the hell New Zealand was anyway at the time, unlike, say the 4-4-0 "American" developed much earlier (personally I think invented is too strong a word for something that came after the first successful steam locomotive), an iconic wheel arrangement. They couldn't call the 4-8-4 an American could they, so having been developed in the northern parts of the USA (Forget Canada, it doesn't count), Northern was as good a name as any. I did also say that NZed's 4-8-4 was referred to as a Northern, and I don't think you can get much further south than Invercargill, down at the bottom of the south island for railways, unless Argentina had Northerns that ran down to Tierra del Fuego........I'm wrong, you can get to the "End of the World" by train, to Ushuaia in fact, and by steam, check it out on Y-tube. Didn't see any Northerns though.

 

[trailrider]

I may be wrong, but didn't the Canadians call their 4-8-4's "Selkirks" or somesuch?

 

[Selector]

I may be wrong, but didn't the Canadians call their 4-8-4's "Selkirks" or somesuch?

No, the CPR called their two 4-8-4 locomotives K1-a. The Penny's 4-6-2 was also a K. The roads did what they wanted because they were paying for the locomotives.

The Selkirk was CPR's 2-10-4. CPR crews just called them after their class number. "Fifty-nine hundreds", for example. The reason the name Selkirk was chosen is that the engines were used, and intended, for service as head end power for the longer passenger trains and freight consists into the Selkirk Mountain Range in the Canadian Rockies. They didn't also name their other engines "Monashees", "Purcells", "Coast Range", etc.

I'll say it one final time, but this time use a little more analytical thinking: it was a business decision, from the marketing department, to name trains and to name locomotive classes built in the middle to late Depression to drum up business. The CPR named their first locomotives built during the Depression....what? "Hudson". What was its Whyte Notation? Why, strangely, a lot like the NYC's own namesake with, coincidentally, the 4-6-4 wheel arrangement. However, when passenger service was flagging, some roads came up with Greenbrier, Kanawha, and other names for their newer super-power steamers (with feedwater pumps, feedwater heaters, thermic syphons, arch tubes, super-heaters, and bigger fireboxes). It was a way to generate excitement over novelty where the companies promised better service for the same money, and with new modern power. Advertising. To link it to the CPR, after the Hudson the only engines they named were the Jubliee Class 4-4-4 and the Selkirk 2-10-4. All at the same time...the middle of the Great Depression when ALL roads were desperate to drum up more business.

BTW, a Canadian Jubilee 4-4-4 holds the official speed record for a steam locomotive in all of N. America. 112 mph, and then only because of a test on new brakes. The chief engineer ordered the hogger to run it up until he was running out of track and acceleration and to then do an emergency brake test.

Sorry, Toot.

Marketing.

 

[tootnkumin]

That's OK Crandell, giving "things" names is usually about publicity. The NZ Northerns came into being in 1932. They were the peak of steam engine development in that country and their purpose was to power the passenger trains of the "Limited" expresses. They could have used some other name, but linking them to their much bigger brothers in the US, no doubt gave them a greater credibility.

 

[NP2626]

I think I may have inadvertently given the reason (if by why the Northern had so many, you mean why so many railroads used that name for their 4-8-4's)

Quite the opposite, Toot. I wondered why, if the original name for the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement was given the name "Northern" in honor of the line that helped originate the design, the "Northern" Pacific, why other roads felt the need to call it something else. It was sort of an "Off the cuff question", meaning it was certainly not an important question. There continues to this day, a dislike of things from the "North", due to the Civil War here in the U.S. In fact I have heard the Civil War being referred to as the "War of Northern Aggression" by folks living south of the Mason Dixon line. I do not wish to open that "Can of Worms"! So, suffice to say, I am O.K. with what others feel is a good enough reason that "Northern"; or, other, was a marketing ploy!

 

[Y3a]

I don't think anyone registered a trademark, or patented it under that name. Probably the folks who knew why are all dead now. All you'll get is conjecture.

 

[Iron Horseman]

I wonder why the Northern type has so many different names?

I would think that, as someone else already suggested, it might be the timing of the Northern. It was a newer class and railroads marketing departments were getting more and more into trying to make themselves more spectacular or noticeable. Probably the pinnacle of non-articulated steam power why not use them as a marketing tool.

As a couple others have mentioned the mechanical department probably didn't call them (or any other locomotive) any of those classification names but rather by the class designation or number scheme. eg. Class NP A, A1, A2; GN S1, S2 etc.; Santa Fe 2900 class...

Got to be my favorite class though. Right there with the Hudsons.