Western Railroad Discussion > Funny names

Hello all,

On a previous post a bunch of us wrote in about unusual town names. After watching the Planet of the Apes last night and seeing Mr.Heston in his cameo role, I found on a map of Texas a town by the name of Ben Hur! I don't know if any tracks run through the town but I thought the name was worth mentioning.

JimII
Flower Mound, TX

"Well I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari...."

MoPac used to run through Knob Lick, Missouri. UP runs past Possum Grape, Arkansas but I don't think it's listed as a station as it's a ways from the track. BNSF runs north and LRWN south of Toad Suck, Arkansas.

I went through all three of these towns this week!

---

BNSF and Metrolink run through Rancho Cucamonga,Cal. I can always remember how Bugs Bunny occasionally referred to "Cucamonga" in a lot of cartoons.


George,
(Right next door to Cucamonga in)
Fontana,Cal.

I used to truck wheat with my dad to the Elevators/silos at a place called Moombooldool.This is in southern New South Wales ,Australia.
One from New Zealand is Whykickamoocow.....,dont know if the railroad passes through there or not.
Regards,Daryl Kay.

GeoAngel wrote:
>
> BNSF and Metrolink run through Rancho Cucamonga,Cal. I can
> always remember how Bugs Bunny occasionally referred to
> "Cucamonga" in a lot of cartoons.

That was something Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs and most of the
Warner Bros. cartoon characters) carried over from the Jack Benny
radio show. Blanc played a number of parts on that show, including
an occasional turn as a train station announcer announcing the
"train leaving on track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cu-camonga."
Curt Katz (of "Railfun" fame in Railfan and Railroad magazine)
had an article in Classic Trains a few issues back that revealed
that Santa Fe did indeed once have a train that hit all three
towns in one day. It was a motor car that ran out to San Berdoo
and back to LAUPT, utilizing what is now the Olive Sub on the return
leg in order to get to Anaheim (which is otherwise hard to get to
via any logical route that also hits Azusa and Cucamonga).
Unfortunately, by the time Blanc first uttered his famous
announcement on Benny's radio show, the motor schedule had been
revised and no longer passed through Anaheim.

As an aside, the character of Foghorn Leghorn is also based on
a character from radio. Blanc based the blustery rooster on
the equally blustery Senator Beauregard Claghorn, a character on
Fred Allen's radio show played by announcer Kenny Delmar. "That's
a joke son!" and various other Leghornisms originated with Sen.
Claghorn.

On BNSF's Wishram Sub in eastern Washington not far from Pasco is"YELLEPIT".

Funk, Nebraska.
Licking, Missouri.
Intercourse, Pennsylvania.
Gaylord, Kansas.
Olds, Iowa.
Friend, Nebraska.
Otis, Colorado.
Schramm, Colorado.

In south-central Iowa on the BNSF Ottumwa Subdivision there's Whitebreast Hill, its around a creek of the same name. Actually that whole township takes its name from that.

On the BNSF Marceline Subdivision, west of LaPlata there's a small gathering of streets and some crossovers at Ethel, Missouri. Seven miles further east, there's a town called Elmer. Ethel and Elmer.

Programs such as Microsoft Streets & Trips or any other map on a CD-ROM have town names that don't exist but still mean something on the map. At the end of a road:
Dent Ford, Missouri.

In Iowa north of Mason City are the towns of

Manly
Fertile
Freeman
Creamery
Scarville

all next door to Hancock County! Im not sure what they were doing when they named these places but it may have something to do with the county name.

What Cheer, IA.
Hell, CO.

In Kentucky not only is it a town but, it is a state park as well. Big Bone Lick. And yes trains run thru there. I actually heard a story once where a crew caller though she had a joke being played on her becuase she was told to send a recrew to Big Bone Lick. After 3 hours her supervisor called and asked, why isn;t that crew there, she said, I know it was a joke, so, just stop it ok? Then the supervisor came in with a timetable and pointed to Big Bone Lick!

Someone mentioned Manly and Fertile in northern Iowa. In one of his broadcasts, Paul Harvey carried a story on an area newspaper that supposedly headlined an engagement announcement with "Manly Boy Weds Fertile Girl."

Manly continues to serve as a junction between the UP's Spine Line and the north end of the Iowa Northern.

In Illlinois, on their "West" Line, the ICRR serves the adjacent towns of Nora and Lena. 36 years ago the IC saw fit to have me work the third trick operator's job at Lena for a week. When I relieved the second trick man, he said he was "going home and sleep between Lena and Nora." He lived on a small acreage between the two burgs.

While they may not be unusual names, the sequence of the stations on the SJ&GI (UP) between Fairbury and Grand Island is probably not a coincidence:
Alexandria, Belvedier, Carleton, Davenport, Edgar, Fairfield, Glenvil, and Hastings

Dispatchers tongue twister on the CP: Illecillewaet, BC

One of my favorite town names has always been Truth or Consequences, NM. Located in the south central portion of the state, on I-25 north of Las Cruces, T or C was originally known as Hot Springs, but the town voted in the 1950s to change its name to Truth or Consequences in order to get an NBC radio show of the same name to broadcast a show from there.

Some interesting information on this can be found at:
http://www.truthorconsequencesnm.net/ralph_edwards.htm

BTW, no railroad runs through T or C, but the former Santa Fe El Paso Sub (now BNSF) passes through nearby Engel. When I was dispatching this line, I would frequently talk with US Border Patrol agents based out of T or C, who would make the short drive over to Engel to inspect northbound trains, looking for illegal aliens.

WSC

Hooker, Okla.
Lick Skillet, Ala.
Punkin Holler, Ark.

Hooker, Okla.
Lick Skillet, Ala.
Punkin Holler, Ark.

Hey George,

"Bugs Bunny" got that Cucamonga line from the train conductor in the Jack Benny skits, I believe!

"I Love Lucy" also had the same "Cucamonga" line uttered by the conductor when she and Ethel went cross country on a train. This is the same episode where Lucy pulled the emergency cord all the time, and the conductor always ended up getting creamed by the sudden stop.

Bob C

Some of the stations I went through on the MOP DeQuincy Division:

Glenmora
Oberlin
Elder
Kinder
Bodcaw
Mowata
Maxie
Doc Brown
Krotz Springs
Basile
Helme
Ruliff
Isle Labbe
Levert
Gondron
Lifenite
Gross Tete
Killona
Hercules
Cora-Texas (in Louisiana, of course)

Embarrass MN.
Nowthen MN.