Black Five nicknames

When I was a young trainspotter in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the North West, I never heard the name "Black Five", other than maybe read it in the odd magazine.

We always used to call them, "Mickeys". (never did know the correct spelling). I assume the name came from their Mixed Traffic capability. Did anyone else know them by this name, or was it just my circle of friends?

 

Although I've heard the name, I've never used it. I followed the enginemen's names (I was a guard for a while) of Black Five, Five, or Black 'un. This latter was to differentiate them from the Jubilees, always known as either Red 'uns (although they hadn't been red for many years) or 5Xs. Patriots were always Baby Scots, 8Fs were simply Eights, and the pacifics were Lizzies, both classes. In some sheds, the later ones were called Big Lizzies, while to Crewe North men they were just Big 'uns.

Th '4' prefix to the LMS number wasn't normally used, nor was the name, so the big red engines now preserved were referred to as 6201, 6203, 6229, 6233 and 6235, this latter being pronounced, sixty two, thirty five.

There were of course regional variations, but this was generally the case and certainly so at Edge Hill.

 

We used to call them Mickeys, that's spotters from the Stoke and Crewe areas. I also had friends in Bradford, Leeds and Manchester who used the same nickname. I think it was in general use among trainspotters, rather than railwaymen.

 

Winnies in Manchester, never understood why though; the older kids weren't able to explain!

Regards

 

def mickey's in yorkshire area

 

You sure about that? I've heard the term winnies used by spotters in the distant past to refer to Scots, Patriots and the like; i.e. a loco with windshields (more properly known as smoke deflectors). Never a Black 5, though.

 

Winnies in Manchester referred to locos with wind shields, Pats, Scots 9Fs, Brits etc, Semis, referred to Duchesses with the sloping boiler, the remains of the streamlined boilers, ie Semi-streamlined.

 

Nah. Black Fives or just Fives in my bit of Yorkshire.
A Mickey (aka Mickey Mouse) was an Ivatt 2-6-2T.

 

I only ever knew them as Mickeys in the 50s and 60s, or certainly in the Manchester area anyway, its was not until the preservation days that I heard the name Black 5 mentioned, the Mickey Mouse tank was always known as an Ivatt to us, its only in recent years I`ve know it as the Mickey Mouse, the Flying Pig is another new one on me?

 

I remember 44806 was painted green when initially preserved (don't know what colour it is now). Were any 'Black' 5s painted green (or any other non-black shades) before preservation?

 

a few Jubs had winnies at one time, well one at least

 

2 to be precise. Comet and Phoenix were rebuilt with a 2A boiler as per
the rebuilt Scots and received blinkers.

 

yep, they were the ones

 

Around 60 years ago, in the Chesterfield area, I first knew them as Mickeys. The term Winnie I only heard at Retford applied to A1s and A2s. However I believe that when first introduced a common nickname amongst railwaymen was "black taper"; to distinguish them from "red tapers" which we know better as Jubilees. A less common term was "six footer"; a reference to the driving wheel diameter.

 

Nah, a Mickey was a Black 5 in Yorkshire but only because we knew that. We referred to them as Black 5's in normal terminology.

 

Perhaps I misunderstood, although I do remember vividly the contempt of a cousin who told me about the nickname in his front room - the parlour - when I queried the use of the word. It's interesting that the name applied to locos with smoke deflectors though. Race horses, which winny, can have blinkers put over their eyes; blinkers to smoke deflectors, or am I being too fancyful?

Regards

 

In Manchester, winnies were not a class of locomotive. They were the name us trainspotters used for smoke deflectors. It was a shortened version of the term "windshields".

E.g. "In the early 1960s, the A3s were fitted with German winnies."

 

I thought hikers were B12's in Scotland referring to the long distance between the shovel plate and the firebox door?