1900 - 1994

Silverwood Mine

Hollings Lane

Thrybergh

Facts, Stories and Features

Mining Interest

COAL TRAINS

I recently received this very interesting email concerning the naming of Coal Trains

l came across your site while researching the name's of locomotive's used for coal, and why their names were mostly a lady's name. l am doing a piece on why the railway closed down when the market for coal did from Manvers, and evidence to be found to date, BUT l could watch Emmerdale and count their sheep. So if you could maybe tell me did you name your wagon's and if so why? it would be a great help, l am doing a local history course at RCAT and hope one day to be a guide of our local history in Thrybergh, its only a small dream but l would like to do a guided walk of our bit taking in points of historical facts the main aim not to let Silverwood die.  Jeannie Maskery

I gave it a bit of thought and in my reply wrote
The naming of transportation modes in the female rather than the male form may stem from the naming of the old sailing ships i.e Marie Celeste, even the figure heads were often of female torso's. Now there must be some physiological meaning in all this, because men will inevitably refer to any vehicle or machine as "she" [ "She's a beauty " " She's got some power" " She runs awreight" etc. I have never heard a man refer to his car as " He". Maybe because females are the object of a mans affections, then having affection for a sailing ship etc. the menfolk just automatically refer to it as though it were a female.   This practice has been carried down through the centuries, even though later vehicles were given the names of places, buildings, or meaningful terms as " Victory" and " Endeavour". Often aircraft were given female names as in "Eleanor Grey" which was the bomber that dropped the first atom bomb. It is interesting to note that the two liners named after the Royal family were female names.
From what I have read Passenger trains more so than goods trains were given names by their owners. The goods trains which may not have had a name may have been given pet names by their crew. Funny then that in the Thomas the Tank Engine Books most of the trains have male names, maybe the good Rev'd Aubrey mistakenly thought it was a mans World.
Many Trains were simply referred to by number as in " The old 97 " Though Rother Vale Collieries had a shunter named you've guessed it " Rother Vale" engine no 9.
The Trains and Crew of Silverwood and Dalton Mining Company

John Waller writes.

Working in maintenance at most of the South Yorkshire pits brought me into contact with a rare breed of train spotters who specialized in industrial locomotives. Most of the diesel
shunting locos had men's names. I remember quite a bit of grumbling when Horace came to live at Silverwood. At least  one of these guys published a small book on the subject that could still be available in Rotherham Library, it might be of use to the lady from RCAT (Rotherham Tech to you and me)

Maltby Gas Explosion