Train Name Generator

Trains get named in three different ways, and it helps to know which one you want. The most famous names belong to services, not machines: the Flying Scotsman, the Orient Express, and the Super Chief were scheduled trains between two cities, run by many different locomotives over the decades. These names promise speed or luxury (Twentieth Century Limited, Golden Arrow), announce the destination (City of New Orleans, Coast Starlight), or evoke a landscape (Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Glacier Express).

Individual locomotives were named too, especially in Britain, where the Great Western named whole classes after castles, halls, manors, and kings, and the LNER named its record-breaking streamliners after birds (Mallard, Bittern) and its chief engineer (Sir Nigel Gresley). American railroads mostly numbered their engines, so the famous ones are known by number, like Big Boy 4014 or Daylight 4449, with a handful of early exceptions like The General and Jupiter. Japan's Shinkansen services use poetic Japanese words: Nozomi (hope), Hikari (light), Hayabusa (peregrine falcon).

The third tradition is the engine as a character, from Thomas and Percy to the Little Engine That Could and the Polar Express. Those names are short, warm, and human. This list covers all three so you can name a scheduled express, a heritage locomotive, or the hero of a picture book.